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LANDSCAPE GARDEN

ER, a term given to or assumed by a class of surveyors,. who undertake to lay out that portion of ground,-which more immediately surrounds a modern

mansion house.

This subject has produced a paper war between certain connoisseurs in picturesque scenery and professional improvers.

The amateurs complain, that in making a place, rough ground and surfaces, irregularly but of ten exquisitely broken by accidental circumstances or peculiarity of situation, are sacrificed "by walk makers, shrub planters, turf cleaners, and rural perfumers; to trim spruceness, shaved lawns, serpentine paths, and the unvaried tameness of unceasing undulation.”

These advocates for the picturesque further alledge, that in arguing, and frequently in working, the persons they describe apply the theory of sight to the touch, and mistake perception for sensation; for that in forests and other spots, where nature is unspoiled by art, many objects may be and are externally unequal, coarse, and shaggy to the finger, which, when connected and blended with appropriate scenery, and mellowed by the mossy hand of time, communicate to a spectator's eye soft and delightful sensations.

The difference between sensation and perception, insisted on by one of the parties in this dispute, has been doubted by a learned critic, and technically investigated by a practical ana

tomist.

The last of these gentlemen thinks them both the same, because the pupil of the eye is evidently contracted or relaxed by muscular fibres, which like other muscles producing involuntary motion, are thrown into action, by the irritation of light and shade acting on the retina, so that in fact, intelligence conveyed to the mind by the eye, is as much sensation as the effect of a thorn applied to the finger.

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But whatever the mistakes, or on whatever side the merits of the question preponderate, the public has been a considerable gainer by this animated and well conducted controversy; for in justice to the disputants it ought to be observed, that in the enthusiasm of a favorite pursuit, they have not forgot they were gentlemen.

I take this opportunity, having no other, of thanking Mr. Repton, Mr. Uvedale Price, and Mr. Knight, for the pleasure and instruction I have received.

To the last of these writers we are indebted for "The Landscape," a poem, at

once

pleasing

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But see alas, a vain fantastic The axe and hook that would band, With charts, pedometors, and Dash from their hands;

rules in hand,

such scenes deform,

Advance triumphant, and alike Teach silly man his labor to

lay waste,

employ,

The forms of nature and the To form and decorate, but not

works of taste;

VOL. IV.

destroy;

R

To

To break, not level the slow Prim gravel walks, through

rising ground,

And guard, not cut the fern that shades the ground.

Paternal shades! to me for ever dear,

May no improvers ever visit here:

Protected long from sacrilegious waste,

From false refinement, and pretended taste:

From trim, spruce despots, keep my villa free;

NATURE for me the treillage shall spread,

And the wild woodbine dangle o'er my head;

Entangled thickets and imper

vious woods,

Shall hang reflected o'er my murm'ring floods. Still uncorrupted, still near my demesne,

May antient forests hold their savage reign;

The brook high bank'd, the rock, the spreading tree, Proclaim the seat of sylvan fiberty:

From these how different the

poor formal lump By moderns planted, which they call a clump';

Or the dull shrubbery's insipid

scene,

A tawdry fringe encircling vapid green;

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Nor spicy odors from our

mountains breathe

Their rich perfume o'er fertile plains beneath :

Woodbine and eglantine our copses grace,

Hollies and thorns o'erhang and deck our steeps,

And o'er our banks the clust’ring ivy creeps.

Mr. Knight proceeds with considerable spirit, but not without occasionally overcharging

his

his picture, a licence enjoy'd for time immemorial, by poets, orators, and painters, he proceeds to censure the common method of surrounding parks and country seats with what is called A BELT, a practice, it is true, not always absolutely necessary, but frequently rendered so by circumstance and situation; his opinion is also against planting the sides and summits of lofty hills with trees; on this point many have thought differently. should, rough with broken

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'Till soften'd down by long revolving years;

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And the warm influence of a genial clime.

As collaterally connected with his subject, Mr. Knight gene

'Till time and weather have con- rously and in some respects

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justly attempts to rescue the Huns, the Goths, and the Vandals, from a charge, for ages

being the only destroyers and

Bless'd is the man in whose se brought against them, that of questered glade Some ancient abbey's walls dif- defacers of the productions of fuse their shade; human art; yet in those in

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ἐσ against converting this beautiful kingdom into a huge forest, calls the theory of his opponents, a system of improving by neglect and accident, and insists that propriety and convenience are not less objects of taste than picturesque effect; he in some measure agrees with his opponents on belts and clumps, but adds, that the first are often highly useful in concealing dead fences and other disagreeable objects,

For fame and plunder your and the latter absolutely neces

bold myriads fought, Nor deign'd on art to cast one transient thought; They, with cold contempt The works of Glycon and Apel

les view'd

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sary as nurseries for single trees, which planted single seldom flourish.

other instances, art and science In the present, as in many

have received considerable assistance, and many new lights from the collision of controversy; in places made by Mr. Repton, he has evidently recollected some of the hints of his antagonists; neither have Mr. Price and Mr. Knight been backward in acknowledging the eminent professional qualifications of Mr. Repton, even on points to which they once thought him not sufficiently attentive.

In a word, were the editor of this collection to chuse a place for his residence, he would without a moments hesitation, fix on a spot which had shared the superintendance of Mr. Repton, as evidently uniting convenience,

comfort,

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