A N ESSAY ON THE PICTURES QJJ E SUBLIME AND THE BEAUTIFUL; USE OF STUDYING PICTURES, IMPROVING REAL LANDSCAPE, By WED ALE PRICE, Esq. QUAM MOLTA VIDENT PICTORES IN UMBRIS, IT IN EMINENTIA, QU-« NOS NON VIDEMUS. Cicero. . LONDON: Printed for J. RjOBSON, New Bond-Street. AS COMPARED WITH THE AND, ON THE FOR THE PURPOSE OP M, DCC.XCIT. PREFACE* THIS unfinished work (and fuch I fear it is in every refpefl:) I did not intend publifhing till it was more complete, and till I had endeavoured, at leaft, to render it more worthy the pub- lic infpe&ion. I have, however, been in- duced to fend it into the world earlier than I wifhed, from the general curiofity which my friend Mr. Knight's poem has awakened on the fubjed- It would have been more prudent in me not to have afforded the public fuch an op- portunity of judging, how much I am in- debted to the effufion of friendfliip and poetry, for the high compliment he has paid me 5 were I now to fay what I feel about my friend's poem it might appear like a r eturn of compliment ; and whatever could A 2 & PREFACE. in any way be fo mifconftrued, would be equally unworthy of us both. I cannot however, refift the fatisfa&ion of mentioning one circumftance, highly flattering to me, as it accounts for my not chufing to delay this publication. I had mentioned to Mr. Knight that I had written fome papers on the prefent %le of improvement, but that I defpaired of ever getting them ready for the prefs; though I was very anxious that the ab- furdities of that ftyle fhould be expofed. Upon this he conceived the idea of a poem on the fame fubjed; and having all his materials arranged in his mind, from that activity andperfeverance which fo ilrong- Jy mark his character, he never delayed, or abandoned the execution, till the whole was completed. When it was nearly finifhed, he wrote to me to propofe, what I confider as the higheft pomble com, pliment, and the ftrongeft mark of con- fidence in my tafte,— that my papers (when properly modelled) mould be pub, Jitfted PREFACE. lifhed with his poem, in the fame man- ner as Sir Jofhua Reynolds's notes were publifhed with Mr. Mafon's Du Frefnoy. This propofal, could it have been made at an earlier period, I mould have accept- ed with pride ; but my work had then taken too much of a form and character of its own to be incorporated with any thing elfe; for indeed almoft the whole of what I have now publifhed had been written fome time before. I flatter myfelf, however, that though my plan is totally different from his, and though in fome particulars we may not exactly agree, yet the general tendency is fo much the fame, and our notions of im- provement are upon the whole fo fimi- lar, that my work may, in many points, ferve as a commentary upon his; and I cannot wifh it a more honourable em- ployment. I have on that account judg- ed it better, that what I had arranged mould appear in its prefent ftate, now that curiofity is alive, than in a lefs im- A 3 perfect *I PREFACfe. perfect one when the fubject might have- become ftale. I think alfo, that in the light of a commentary it may poffibly have more effect, when each perfon pub- limes his own ideas (tinctured as they mult always be with the peculiarities of dif- ferent minds, yet tending to the fame general end) than when two works are modelled to agree and coincide with each other. In the courfe of printing this work I have been tempted, on numberlefs oc- cafions, to infer t paffages from the Land- fcape, as the beft and apteft illuftration* of what I meant to explain and enforce* I found, however, that fo many of them crowded upon me, and with fuch equal pretentions, that had I once begun I mould have reverfed my friend's propo- fal, and his poem would have become a commentary to my profe. CONTENTS. i CONTENTS* Chapter I. Page; The feaforis why an improver fhould ftudy pictures as well as nature - - - - 1 The general principles of both arts the fame - 8 The prefent fyftem of improving at variance with thofe principles ■* - - - 9 The manner in which a pifture of Claude would probably be improved by an admirer of Mr* Browa - ~ - Chapter IL to Caufes of the neglea of the piaurefque in mo- dern improvements - - - Intricacy and variety the charaaeriftics of the piaurefque j monotony and baldnefs of im- proved places • * - fc ' Adrefledlane ™ A lane in its natural and piaurefque ftate - ibid. A 4 Different Viii CONTENTS. Different ways in which fuch a lane might pro- ^ bably be improved - Examples of two lanes that have been improved 29 Chapter III. General meaning of the word pidturefque - - 34 Mr. Gilpin's definitions of it examined - . ~ It has not an exclujhi reference to painting J> The beautiful and the fublime have been point- ed out and illuftrated by painting as well as the pi&urefque - Apology f 0r making ufe of the word p . a " " 37 nefs - _ The piclurefque as diftinft a character as either 3 the fufalime or the beautiful Piaurefque beauty an improper term - The piclurefque arifes from qualities direaiy oppofite to thofe of beauty _ What thofe qualities are - > j 43 Piaurefqne and beautiful in building *1 n uu, & 5 ' - - 46 JJltt0 - in water _ . . Ditto . intrees . . m I f| Ditto - in animals --.<-» Ditt0 ~ in Birds - - * 62 - - - - 6 9 ° - »n the higher order of |s. • befn S s - - - 7£ ltt0 * in painting - _ j 2 39 42 Chapter. CONTENTS. I Chapter IV. Pago. General distinctions between the pidturefque and the beautiful - - 76 Ditto - between the picturefque and the fublime - - So The manner in which they operate on the mind 8+ Chapter V. To create the fublime above our contracted powers.-— The art_.of improving therefore de- pends on the beautiful and the picturefque - 90 Beauty alone has hitherto been aimed at - 91 But they are feldom unmixed, and infipidity has arifen from trying to feparate them - 9a Inftance of their mixture in the human counte- nance - ibid. Ditto - in flowers, fhrubs, and trees - - - _ 04 Ditto - in buildings - - - 98 Chapter VI. It has been doubted by fome whether fmoothnefs is efTential to the beautiful - - - lQl Effects of fmoothnefs and of roughnefs in pro- ducing the beautiful and the picturefque, by means of repofe and irritation - - - - 103 ** Repofe 4 * CONTENTS, jf Page. Repofe the culiar beauty of Claude's pictures 109 Character of the pleafures that arife from irri- tation - - - - - - H# Effects of repofe and irritation as caufed by light ' and fhadow - - - - -III Character of Rubens's light and fhadow - -113 Ditto - of Coreggio's - - " 1 1 5 Ditto - of Claude's, and his landfcapes com- pared with thofe of Rubens - - - 116 Chapter VII. Breadth of light and fhadow - - - - 120 Twilight ------- 123 The effects of twilight fhould be ftudied by improvers - - - - - - -126 Difficulty of uniting breadth with detail - - 129 Breadth alone infufficient, but to be preferred to detail without breadth - - - - 131 Application of the principle of breadth to im- provement --- - ---132 Objections to buildings being made too white 134 Diftinanefs 138 Chapter VIII. On the beautiful, and on what might be termed the picturefque, in colour - - - - 14I Why autumn, and not fpring, is called the painters feafoa - - - - - -143 The mJ, CONTENTS. *l Pag*. The colouring of the Venetian fchool, and particularly of Giorgione, Titian, and their imitators, formed upon the glowing tints of autumn - " " ~ That of Rubens more on the frefh colours of fpring - - - - 156 Chara&er of the atmofphere, and of the lights and fhadows in fpring, and in autumn - ibid, Chapter IX. On uglinefs l6 * Angles not ugly, though not beautiful - - ibid. Deformity is to uglinefs what pidurefquenefs is to beauty ------ 163 Uglinefs and deformity in hills and mountains - 165 Ditto - in trees - ibuL Ditto - in ground - - -166 Deformity in ground, &c. not fo obvious - - 168 Connexion between piclurefquenefs and de- formity l6 9 Uglinefs in buildings - - - - -170 Uglinefs in colours ----- ibid. Effects of deformity and uglinefs compared ; j and illuftrated by founds - - - - *7* Effe&s of the pifturefque when mixed with uglinefs - - - _ _ _ - I 73 The excefs of the qualities of beauty tend to infipidity; thofe of pidurefquenefs to de- formity - - - ' * ~ " l 7$ Application CONTENTS. Page, Application to improvements - 3 - *79 Beauty, pifturefquenefs, and deformity in the other femes ...... ^ PART II. Chapter I. How far the principles of painting have been applied to improvements _ _ jg^ Kent, one of the firft improvers on the prefent iyftem - Mr. Brown - The clump - The belt - - 192 The avenue that and the belt compared - 193 The ufual method of thinning trees for the purpofe of beauty confidered - - - 201 111 effects of clumping an avenue - _ . 2 Q3 Chapter II. Trees confidered generally - - - . 206 Neceffary accompaniments to rocks and moun- tains, and to every kind of ground and of water. An exception with regard to the fea 207 The variety and intricacy of trees - - - 209 Thofe which are remarkably full of leaves, not always preferred by painters— the reafons - 210 Plantations 184 187 190 CONTENTS. xiii Page. Plantations made for ornament the leaft admired by painters - - 212 The eftablifhed trees of the country ought to prevail in the new plantations - - ibid. Clumps or patches of a larger fize - ^215 Large plantations of firs have a harfti effecl rrom not harmonizing with the natural woods of the country - _ 120 Bad effects of planting too clofe - - 221 The neceffity of a proper balance in all fcenery, both in point of form and of colour - _ 222 Infide of clofe plantations of firs - 223 Difference of its character from that of a grove of fpreading pines - - 224 Fir plantations improper for boundaries - - 225 A common hedge often a more effectual boun- dary, and fome highly beautiful - 227 This points out the neceffity of a mixture of thorns, hollies, and the lower growths in all fcreens— -the fame method may be extended to all ornamental plantations - - 228 The ufe of fuch a mixture of the lower growths, if fuch a plantation fhould be thinned, after many years neglect - 229 Contraft of fuch a plantation with a clofe wood or firs only - 233 Its variety would not arife merely frem a diver- fity of plants — variety in forefts produced by afewfpecies - _ -234, Continual CONTENTS. Page. Continual and unvaried diverfity a fource and a fpecies of monotony - - - - 236 Accident and neglect the fources of variety in unimproved parks and forefts - 238 The reafons why lawns have in general little variety ------- 238 Why a lawn looks ill in a picture - 239 Why the moll beautiful lawn, painted by Claude, would not be equal to his beft pictures - - Verdure and fmoothnefs, which are the charac- teriftic beauties of a lawn, are in their na- ture allied to monotony - 241 Improvers, inftead of remedying that defect, have added to it - ibid. Soft and fmooth colours, like foft and fmooth founds, are grateful to the mere fenfe; a relifh for more artful combinations acquired by degrees - - - - 243 Such a relifh does not exclude a tafte for fimple fcenes, and for fimple melodies - Chapter III. On the general effects of water in landfcape - 246 Mr. Brown's artificial rivers have no objects of reflection - - - - - - 1148 The formal fweeps of fuch imitations, contrafted with the intricacies and varieties of natural rivers - - - - 259 Water CONTENTS. x» Page Water with a thin grafly edge like an over- flowing - - - - 252 No profeflbr has yet endeavoured to make an artificial river like a natural one 253 It muft be done by attention to the banks* and to objects of reflection, as an artificial river muft be without motion - - - - 255 Objects of reflection peculiarly fuited to ftill water 256 Remarks on the expreflion of a fine Jheet of water ------ ibid. The great water at Blenheim - 258 The water below the cafcade - 263 tponclufion 26fc O N ON THE PICTURESQJUE, &c. f"F\HERE is no country, I believe (if we except China) where the art of lay- ing out grounds is fo much cultivated as it now is in England. Formerly the embel-* lifhments of a place were confined to the garden, or a fmall fpace near the manfion; while the park, with all its timber and thickets, was left in a ftate of wealthy ne- gledt : but now thefe embellifhments ex- tend over a whole diftridt ; and as they give a new and peculiar character to the general face of the country, it is well worth con- B fidering [ * ] lidering whether they give a natural and a beautiful one, and whether the prefent fyftem of improving (to ufe a fliort though often an inaccurate term) is founded on any juft principles of tafte. In order to examine this queftion, the firft enquiry will naturally be, whether there is any ftandard to which works of this fort can be referred ; any authority higher than that of the perfons who have gained moft reputation by thofe works ? I think there is a standard ; there are au- thorities of an infinitely higher kind ; the authorities of thofe great artifls who have moft diligently ftudied the beauties of nature, both in their grander! and moft general effects, and in their minuteft detail; who have obferved every variety of form and of colour, have been able to felect and combine, and then, by the magic of their art, to fix upon the canvas all thefe various beauties. But, however highly I may think of the art of painting, compared with that of improving, [ 3 ] improving, nothing can be farther from my intention (and I wifh to imprefs it in the ftrongeft manner on the reader's mind) than to recommend the ftudy of pictures in preference to that of nature, much lefs to the exclufion of it. Whoever ftudies art alone, will have a narrow pedantic man- ner of confidering all objects, and of re- ferring them folely to the minute and par- ticular purpofes of that art to which his attention has been particularly directed; this is what improvers have done : and if every thing is to be referred to art, at leafl let it be referred to one whofe variety, compared to the monotony of what is called improvement, appears infinite, but which ap-ain falls as fhort of the boundlefs O variety of the miftrefs of all art. The ufe, therefore, of ftudying pictures ijS not merely to make us acquainted with the combinations and effects that are con- tained in them, but to guide us by means of thofe general heads (as they may be called) of composition, in our fearch of B 2 the [ 4 ] the numberlefs and untouched varieties and beauties of nature ; for as he who iludies art only will have a confined tafte, fo he who looks at nature only will have a vague and unfettled one and in this more extended fenfe I mould interpret the Italian proverb, " CM sinfegna, ha an paz- zo per maejiro : He is a fool who does not profit by the experience of others." We are therefore to profit by the expe- rience contained in pictures, but not to content ourfelves with that experience only ; nor are we to confider even thole of the highefi: clafs as abfolute and infallible ftandards, but as the beft and only ones we have ; as compositions, which, like thofe of the great claffical authors, have been confecrated by long uninterrupted admiration, and which therefore have a fimilar claim to influence our judgment, and to form our tafte in all that is within their province. Thefe are the reafons for ftudying copies of nature, though the original is before us, that we may not lofe [ 5 ] lofe the benefit of what is of fuch great moment in all arts and fciences, the ac- cumulated experience of paft ages-; and, with refpect to the art of improving, we may look upon pictures 'as a fet of experi- ments of the different ways in which trees, buildings, water, &c. may be dif- pofed, grouped, and accompanied in the molt beautiful and flriking manner, and in every ftyle, from the moft fimple and rural to the grandeft and moft orna- mental : many of thofe objects, that are fcarcely marked as they lie fcattered over the face of nature, when brought together in the compafs of a fmall fpace of canvas, , are forcibly impreffed upon the eye, which by that means learns how to feparate, to felecl, and combine. Who can doubt whether Shakefpearc and Fielding had not infinitely more amufement from fociety, in all its vax-ious views, than common obfervers ? I believe it can be as little doubted, but that the having read fuch authors mult give any man (however B 3 acute [ 6 ] acute his penetration) more enlarged views of human nature in general, as well as a more intimate acquaintance with particular characters, than he would have had from the obfervation of nature only ; that many groupes of characters, many com- binations of incidents, which might other- wife have efcaped his notice, would for- cibly ftrike him, from the recollection of fcenes and paflages from fuch writers ; that in all trfefe cafes the pleafure we re- ceive from what paifes in real life is rendered infinitely more poignant by a refemblance to what we have read or have feen on the ftage. But will any man argue from thence that thefe cha- racters and incidents have no intrinfic merit, but merely that which is derived from their having been made ufe of by great and admired authors? The parallel between this and the affiftance which painting giyes towards an accurate as well as a comprehenfive view of nature is fo obvious as hardly to require pointing out. I am [ 7 ] I am therefore perfuaded that thofe men's minds will be the moft amufed (and perhaps not the leaft ufefully em- ployed) to whom " all the world's a ftage," who remark wherever they go (and habit will give a rapid and unobferved facility in doing it) not only the characters of all individuals, but their effect on each other. Such an obferver will not divide what panes into fcenes and chapters, and be pleafed with it in proportion as it will do for a novel or a play, but he will be pleafed on the fame principles as Shake- fpeare or Fielding would have been. This appears to me a true and exact ftatement of the mutual relation that painting and nature bear to each other. Had the art of improving been culti- vated for as long a time, and upon as fettled principles, as that of painting, and were there extant various works of genius, which, like thofe of the other art, had flood the teft of ages (though from the great change which the growth and decay B 4 o* [ 8 ] of trees muft produce in the original defign of the artift, this is hardly poffible) there would not be the fame neceflity of refer- ring and comparing the works of reality to thofe of imitation; but as the cafe ftands at prefent, the only models that approach to perfection, the only fixed and unchang- ing felections from the works of nature, united with thofe of art, are in the pictures and defigns of the moft eminent mailers. It may be objected, that there are many pleating circ urn fiances in nature, which, in painting, would appear flat and infipid, as there are others that have a Unking effect in a picture, which yet in nature (by a common obferver at leaft) would be unno- ticed, or even difliked ; but, however true this may be in particular inftances, the great leading principles of the one art, as general cpmpofition— .grouping the feparate parts— harmony of tints — unity ofcharact-r, are equally applicable to the other ; I may' add alfo, what is fo very effential to the painter, though at fifft fight it feems hardly [ 9 ] hardly within the province of the im- prover — breadth and effect of light and made. Nothing can be more directly at war with all thefe principles (fo'unded as they are in truth and in nature) than the prefent fyftem of laying out grounds. A painter, or whoever views objects with a painter's eye *, looks with indifference, if not with difguft, at the clumps, the belts, the made water, and the eternal fmoothnefs and famenefs of a finimed place ; an improver, on the other hand, confiders thefe as the moft perfect embellishments, as the laft fmiihing touches that nature can receive from art and confequently muJt think the * When I fpeak of a painter, I do not mean merely a profefTor, but any man (artift or not) of a liberal' mind, with a ftrong feeling for nature as well as art, who has been in the habit of comparing both to- gether. A man of a narrow mind and little fenfibility, in or out of a profefKon, is always a bad judge; and poflibly (as that ingenious critic the Abbe du Bos has well explained) a worfe judge for being an artift. finefl [ io ] finer! compofition of Claude (and I men- tion him as the moft ornamented of all the great mailers) comparatively rude and im- perfect ; though he probably might allow, in Mr. Brown's phrafe, that it had • capa- bilities.'* No one, I believe, has yet been daring enough to improve a picture of Claude *, or at leaft to acknowledge it ; but I do not think it extravagant to fuppofe that a man, * The account in Peregrine Pickle, of the gentleman who had improved Vandyke's portraits of his anceftors, ufed to ftrike me as rather outre \ but I met with a fimilar inftance fome years ago, that makes it appear much lefs fo. I was looking at a collection of pictures with Gainf- borough ; among the reft the houfekeeper (hewed us a portrait of her mafter, which fhe faid was by Sir Jofh.ua Reynolds: we both flared, for not only the touch and the colouring, but the whole ftyle of the drapery and the general effect:, had no refemblance to his manner. Upon examining the houfekeeper more particularly, we dis- covered that her mafter had had every thing but the face —-not re-touched from the colours having faded — but totally changed, and newly compofed, as well as pointed, by another, and, I need not add, an inferior hand. Such a man would have felt as little fcruple in making a Claude like his own place, as in making his own portrait like a fcare-crovv. thoroughly thoroughly perfuaded, from his own tafte, and from the authority of fuch a writer as Mr. Walpole *, that an art, unknown to every age and climate, that of creating * I can hardly think it necefiary to make any excufe for calling Lord Orford Mr. Walpole ; it is the name by which he is beft known in the literary world, and to which his writings have given a celebrity much be- yond what any hereditary honour can beftow. It is more rieceffary, perhaps, to make an apology for the liberty I muft take of canvaffing with freedom many pofitions in his very ingenious and entertaining treatife on Modern Gardening. That treatife is written in a very high ftrain of panegyric on the art of which he gives fo amufing a hiftory : mine is a dired and undif- guifed attack upon it. The greater his authority the more neceiTary it is to combat the impreffion which that alone will make on moft minds. I do it, however, with great deference and relu£tance ; for I know how difficult it is to fteer between the tamenefs of over-caution and the appearance of acrimony, or of want of refpeft to- wards a perfon for whom I feel fo much, and to whom on fo many accounts it is due. But he who is warmly engaged in a caufe, and has to , fight againft ftrongly- rooted opinions, upheld by powerful fupporters, mufr, if he hopes to vanquifli them, take every fair advantage of his opponents, and not feem too timid and fearful ( of giving offence where he means none. $ landfcapes, [ 12 ] landfcapes, had advanced with matter- fleps to vigorous perfe&ion ; that enough had been done to eftabliflj fuch a fchool of landfcape as cannot be found in the reft of the globe; and that Milton's description of Paradiie feems to have been copied from fome piece of modern gardening;— that fuch a man, full of enthufiafm for this new art, and with little veneration for that of paint- ing, mould chufe to mew the world what Claude might have been, had he had the advantage of feeing the works of Mr. Brown. The only difference he would make between improving a picture and a real fcene, would be that of employing a fainter inftead of a gardener, What would more immediately urike him would be the total want of that lead- ing feature of all modern improvements, the clump ; and of courfe he would order feveral of them to be placed in the moil confpicuous fpots, with, perhaps, here and there a paxh of iaiches, as forming a ftrong con trait, [ 13 1 contraft, in fhape and colour, to the Scotch firs. — His eye, which had been ufed to fee even the natural groupes of trees in im- proved places made as feparate and clump- like as poffible, would be mocked to fee thofe of Claude, fome quite furrounded, fome half concealed by bullies and thick- ets others ftanding alone, but, by means of thofe thickets, or of detached trees, connected with other groupes of various fizes and fhapes. All this rubbifh muft be cleared away the ground made every where quite fmooth and level, and each groupe left upon the grafs perfectly di£- tinct and feparate. — Having been accuf- tomed to whiten all diftant buildings, thofe of Claude, from the effeft of his foft va- poury atmofphere, would appear to him too indiftinct ; the painter of courfe would be ordered to give them a fmarter appear- * I do not mean by this, that nothing fliould be cleared ; on the contrary, a proper degree and ftyle of clearing adds as much to beauty and effect as it does to neatnefs. But of this I ftiall fay more hereafter. ance, \ [ H ] ance, which might poflibly be communi- cated to the nearer buildings alfo. — Few modern houfes or ornamental buildings are fo placed among trees, and partially hid by them, as to conceal much of the Ik ill of the architect, or the expence of the pof- fefTor ; but in Claude, not only ruins, but temples and palaces, are often fo mixed with trees, that the tops over-hang their baluftrades, and the luxuriant branches moot between the openings of their mag- nificent columns and porticos : as he would not fuffer his own buildings to be fo mafk- ed, neither would he thofe of Claude ; and thefe luxuriant boughs, and all that ob- flrucled a full view of them, the painter would be told to expunge, and carefully to reftore the ornaments they had hid. — The laft finifhing both to places and pictures is water : in Claude it partakes of the gene- ral foftnefs and drefied appearance of his fcenes, and the accompaniments have, per- haps, lefs of rudenefs, than in any other matter $ [ 15 ] ni after * ; yet, compared with thofe of a piece of made water, or of an improved ri- ver, his banks are perfectly favagc ; parts of them covered with trees and bufhes that hang over the water ; and near the edge of it tuffucks of nifties, large /tones, and flumps ; the ground fometimes fmooth, fometimes broken and abrupt, and feidoin keeping, for a long fpace, the fame level from the water : no curves that anfwer each other; no refemblance; in ftiort, to what he had been ufed to admire; a few ftrokes of the painter's brum would reduce the bank on each fide to one level, to one green ; would make curve anfwer curve, without bum or tree to hinder the eve from enjoying the uniform fmoothnefs * One of my countrymen at Rome was obferving that the water in the Colonna Claude had rather loo drefied and artificial an appearance. A Frenchman, who was alfo looking at the picture, cried out, " Cependant, * Monfieur, on pourroit y donner une fi belle fete." This was very chaiafbriftic of that gay nation, but it is equally fo of a number of Claude's pictures. They have an air de fete beyond all others; and there is no painter whofe works ought to be fo much ftudied for highly drefled yet varied nature. [ i6 ] and verdure, and from purfuing, without interruption, the continued fweep of thefe lerpentine lines ; — a little cleaning and po- lifhing of the fore-ground would give the laft touches of improvement, and complete the picture. There is not a perfon in the fmallefl degree converfant with painting, who would not, at the fame time, be mocked and diverted at the black fpots and the white fpots,-the naked water,-the naked build- ings, -the fcattered unconnected groupes of trees, and all the grofs and glaring vio- lations^ every principle of the art ; and yet this, without any exaggeration, is the method in which many fcenes, worthy of Claude's pencil, have been improved. Is it then poffible to imagine that the beau- ties of imitation mould be fo diftinct from thofe of reality, nay, fo completely at va- riance, that what difgraces and makes a picture ridiculous, mould become orna- mental when applied to nature ? It [ *7 1 CHAPTER II* IT feems to me, that the neglect* which prevails in the works of modern im- provers* of all that is picturefque* is ow- ing to their exclufive attention to high polim and flowing lines, the charms of which they are fo engaged in contem- plating, as to make them overlook two ©f the mo ft fruitful fources of human pleafure ; the firft, that great and uni- verfal fource of pleafure, variety, whofe power is independent of beauty, but with- out which even beauty itfelf foon ceafes to pleafe j the other^ intricacy, a quality which, though diftincl from variety, is fo connected and blended with it, that the one can hardly exift without the other. According to the idea I have formed of It, intricacy in landfcape might be defined, C that [ i8 ] that difpofition of obje&s which, by a par- tial and uncertain concealment, excites and nourishes curiofity *. Variety can hardly re- quire a definition, though, from the prac- tice of many layers -out of ground, one might fuppofe it did. Upon the whole, it appears to me, that as intricacy in the difpofition, and variety in the forms^ the tints, and the lights and fhadows of ob- jects, are the great chara&eriftics of pic- turefque fcenery ; fo monotony and bald- nefs are the greateft defe&s of improved places. Nothing would place this in fo diftincl a point of view as a comparifon between fome familiar fcene in its natural and pic- * Many perfons, who take little concern in the in- tricacy of oaks, beeches, and thorns, may feel the effects of partial concealment in more interefting objects, and may have experienced how differently the paflions are moved by an open licentious difplay of beauties, and by the unguarded diforder which fometimes efcapes the care of modefly, and which coquetry fo fuccefsfully imitates: Parte appar delle mamme acerbc & crude, Parte altrui ne ricuopre invida vefte ; Invidafi, ma fe agli occhi il varco chiude, I/amorofo penfier gia non s'arrefh. turefque. t if 1 iurefque* and in what would be its im- proved ftate, according to the prefent prin- ciples of gardening. All painters* who have imitated the more confined fcenes of nature, have been fond of making fludies from old neglected bye roads and hollow ways ; and, perhaps, there are few fpots that, in fo fmall a compafs, have a greater variety of that fort of beauty called pic- turefque ; but, I believe, the inftances are very rare of painters, who have turned out volunteers into a gentleman's walk or drive, either when made between artificial banks, or when the natural fides or banks have been improved. I (hall endeavour to ex- amine from whence it happens, that a pic- turefque eye looks coldly on what is very generally admired, and difcovers a thou- fand interefting objects where a common eye fees nothing but ruts and rubbifh ; and whether the pleafure of the one, and the indifference of the other, arife from the caufes I have afligned* Perhaps, what is mofl immediately ftrik- ing in a lane of this kind is its intricacy * C 2 any [ 2° ] any winding road, indeed (efpecially where there are banks) muft neceffarily have fomc degree of intricacy ; but in a drefled lane every effort of art feems directed againft that difpofition of the ground ; the fides are fo regularly floped, fo regularly plant- ed, and the fpace (when there is any) be- tween them and the road fo uniformly le- velled ; the fweeps of the road fo plainly artificial, the verges of grafs that bound it fo nicely edged ; the whole, in fhort, has. fuch an appearance of having been made by a receipt, that curiofity, that moft ac- tive principle of pleafure, is almoft extin- guished. But in thefe hollow lanes and bye roads all the leading features, and a thoufand circumftances of detail, promote the na- tural intricacy of the ground ; the turns are fudden and unprepared ; the banks fometimes broken and abrupt - y fometimcs fmooth, and gently but not uniformly Hoping; now wildly over-hung with thick- ets of trees and bufhes now loofely fkirt- ed with wood j no regular verge of grafs, no [ « ] no Cut edges, no diftindl: lines of repara- tion ; all is mixed and blended together, and the * border of the road itfelf, fhaped by the mere tread of paffengers and ani- mals, is as unconftrained as the footfteps that formed it : even the tracks of the wheels (for no circumftance is indifferent) con- tribute to the picturefque effect of the whole ; the lines they defcribe are full of variety ; they juft mark the way among trees and bumes, while any obftacle, a clutter of low thorns, a furze -bum, a tuf- fuck, a large ftone, will force the wheels into fudden and intricate turns, at the fame time thofe obftacles them felves, either wholly or partially concealing the former * It may be obferved, that whenever a border, or fuch a feparation of the general covering of the furface (whe- ther grafs, mofs, heath, Sec.) as difcovers the foil, is formed by the action of water, of froft, or by the tread of animals, it is free from that edginefs, that cutting liny appearance, the fpacje always leaves, and which of all things is mod deftru&ive of variety and intricacy : this, I think, accounts for the attachment of painters to what is called broken ground, and to the natural banks of rivers, as well as for their contempt for thofe of arti- ficial water. C 3 ones, [ 22 ] ones, add to that variety and intricacy : often a group of trees, or a thicket, will occafion the road to feparate in two parts* leaving a fort of ifland in the middle, and of * thefe and numberlefs other accidents painters have continually availed them- felves. It is a fingular circumftance, that fome of the mofl: linking varieties of form, of colour, and of light and made, mould, in thefe, as in many other feenes, be owing to the indifcriminate hacking of the peafant, nay, to the very decay that is occafioned by it. When oppofed to the tamenefs of the poor pinioned trees of a gentleman's plantation drawn up ftrait and even to- gether, there is often a fort of fpirit and animation in the manner in which old * In forefts it is inconceivable how much the various routes, in all directions, through the wild thickets, and among the trunks of old trees, add to the intricacy and perplexed appearance of the fcenery; an effect that would be totally deffroyed if the tracks were all fmooth- ed and made level, and a gravel road, with eafy fweeps^ made in their room. neglected C 23 ] negle&ed pollards flretch out their im~ menfe limbs quite acrofs one of thefe hol- low roads, and in every wild and irregular direction : on fome the large knots and protuberances add to the ruggednefs of their twitted trunks ; in others, the deep hollow of the iniide, the moffes on the bark, the rich yellow of the touchwood, with the blacknefs of the more decayed fubftance, afford fuch variety of tints, of brilliant and mellow lights, with deep and peculiar fhades, as the fineft timber tree (however beautiful in other refpe&s) with all its health and vigour, cannot ex- hibit. This carelefs method of cutting, juft as the farmer happened to want a few flakes or poles, gives infinite variety to the general outline of the banks: near to one of thefe " unwedgeable and gnarled oaks" often rifes the flender elegant form of a young beech, am, or birch, that had efcaped the axe, and whofe tender bark and light foliage appear ftill more deli- C 4 tate t 24 ] cate and airy when feen fideways againil the rough bark and mafly head of the oak. Sometimes it rifes alone from the bank; fometimes from amidft a clutter of rich hollies or wild junipers ; fome- times its light and upright Mem is em- braced by the projecting cedar-like boughs of the yew. The ground itfelf, in thefe lanes, is as much varied in form, tint, and light and made, as the plants that grow upon it? this, as ufual, inftead of owing any thing to art, is, on the contrary, occafioned by- accident and neglect. The winter tor- rents, in fome places warn down the mould from the upper grounds, and form projections of various fhapes, which, from the fatnefs of the feilj are generally en- riched with the moft luxuriant vegeta- tion ; in other parts, they tear the banks into deep hollows, difcovering the different * * Mr. Gilpin, in his Obfervations on the River Wye (page 21.) has, with his ufual accuracy, defcribed tho variety of broken ground, and of the colours of the dif- ferent ilrata. ftrat* [ *5 3 ftrata of earth, and the maggy roots of trees ; thefe hollows are frequently over- grown with wild rofes, with honeyfuckles, periwincles,and other trailing plants, whofe flowers and pendent branches have quite a different effe6t when hanging loofely over one of thefe receffes, oppofed to its deep fhade, and mixed with the fantafUc Toots of trees, and the varied tints of the foil, from thofe that are cut into bufhes, or crawl along the uniform Hope of a mowed or dug fhrubbery. In the mm- mer time thefe little caverns afford a cool retreat for the fheep ; and it is difficult to imagine a more beautiful foreground thaa is formed by the different groupes of them -in one of thefe lanes j fome feeding on the patches of turf that in the wider parts lye between the fern and the bufhes ; fome lying in the niches they have worn in the' banks among the roots of trees, and to which they have made many fide-long paths ; fome repofing in thefe deep re- ceffes, their bowers O'er canopied with lufcious eglantine. Near [ a6 ] Near the houfe pidturcfque beauty muft, in many cafes, be facrificed to neatnefs ; but it is a facrifice, and fhould not wan- tonly be made, A gravel walk cannot have the playful variety of a bye read ; there muft. be a border to the gravel, and that and the fweeps muff, in great meafure, be regular, and confequently formal : I am convinced, however, that many of the cir- cumflances, which give variety and fpirit to a wild fpot, might be fuccefsfully imi- tated in a dreffed place ; but it miift be done by attending to the principles, not by copying the particulars. It is not necef- fary to model a gravel walk, or drive after a fheep track or a cart rut, though very ufeful hints may be taken from them both ; and without having water-docks or thiftles before one's door, their effect, in a painter's foreground, may be produced by plants that are confidered as ornamental. I am equally perfuaded that a dreiTed appearance might be given to one of thefe lanes, with- out deftroying their peculiar and charac- terise beauties. 8 I have [ 2 7 ] I have faid little of the fuperior va*> riety and effecl of light and ihade in fcenes of this kind, as that of courfe mufr. follow variety of forms and of manes^ and intricacy of difpolition : I wimed to avoid all detail that did not appear to me neceffary to explain or illuftrate fome general principles ; but when gene- ral principles are put crudely without ex- amples, they are not only dry, but obfcure, and make no impreffion. There are feveral ways in which a fpot of this kind, near a gentleman's place, would probably be improved ; for even in the monotony of what is called improve- ment there is a variety of bad. Some, perhaps, would cut down the old pollards, clear trje rubbiih, and leave only the maiden trees {landing ; fome. might plant up the whole ; others grub up every thing, and make a fhrubbery on each fide ; others put clumps of fhrubs, or of firs 5 but there is one improvement that I am afraid al- moft all who had not been ufed to look at [ =8 ] at objects with a painter's eye would adopt, and which alone would entirely de- ftroy its character ; that is fmoothing and * levelling the ground : the moment this mechanical common-place operation (by which Mr. Brown and his followers have gained fo much credit) is begun, adieu to * To level, in a very ufual fenfe of the word, means to take away all diftinctions ; a principle that, when made general, and brought into action by any deter- mined improver, either of grounds or governments, oc- casions fuch mifchiefs as time flowly, if ever, repairs, and which are hardly more dreaded by monarchs than painters. A good Iandfcape is {hat in which all the paits are free and unconftrained, but in which, though fome are prominent and highly illuminated, and others in made and retirement; fome rough, and others more fmooth and polifhed, yet they are all necefiary to the beauty, energy, effect, and harmony of the whole. I do not fee ho;v a good government can be more exactly defined; and as this definition fuits every ftykj of Iandfcape, fiom the plaineft and fimpleft to the mod (blend id and com- plicated, and excludes nothing but tamenefs and confu- f on, fo it equally fuits all free governments, and only excludes anarchy and defpotifm. It mufi be always re-, r iembercd however, that defpotifm is the moft complete leveller ; and he who Clears and levels every thing round hi* own lofty manfion, feems to me to have very Turkifh principles of improvement. all [ *9 ] all that the painter admires — to all intri- cacies — to all the beautiful varieties of form, tint, and light and made; every deep recefs — every bold projection — the fantaftic roots of trees — the winding paths of fheep — all muft go ; in a few hours, the rafti hand of falfe tafte completely demolishes what time only, and a thoufand lucky ac- cidents, can mature, fo as to become the admiration and ftudy of a Ruyfdal or a Gainfborough, and reduces it to fuch a thing as an Oilman in Thames-ftreet may at any time contract for by the yard at Iflington or Mile-End. I had lately an opportunity of obferving the progrefs of improvement in one lane, and the effect of it in another, both un- fortunately bordering on gentlemen's plea- lure grounds. The firft had on one fide a high bank full of the beauties I have de- fcribed ; I -was particularly flruck with a beech which flood fingle on one part of it, and with the effect and character that its fpreading roots gave, both to the bank and i 3° i and to the tree itfelf * : the meep alfo had made their fidelong paths to this fpot, and often lay in the little compartments be- tween the roots. One day I found a great many labourers wheeling mould to this place; by degrees they filled up all in- equalities, and completely covered the roots and pathways; one mould have fup- pofed they were working for my Uncle Toby, under the direction of Corporal Trim -f*, for they had converted this varied bank * * There is fomething wonderfully pi&urefque and chara&eriftic in the large roots of trees, and in none more than in thofe of the beech; they feem to faften on the earth with their dragon claws ; a huge oak too, whofe fpurs ftrongly divide from the trunk, mews what are the rivets that enable him to defy the tempeft, et quanta radice ad Tartara tendit. When thefe roots and fpurs are moulded up, from that prevailing fafhion of making every thing fmooth and level, the tree looks like an enormous poft ftuck in the ground. f Thefe worthy pioneers, their employment, and their employers, are very aptly defcribed in two verfes of Taflb, and efpecially if the word guaftatori % is takett in its moft obvious fenfe : Inanzi i guaftatori avea mandati lyuoti luoghi empir', & fpianar gli erti. C 3i ] bank into a perfect glacis, only the gazons were omitted. They had however worked up the mould they had wheeled into a fort of a mortar, and had laid it as fmooth from top to bottom as a mafon could have done with his trowel. From the number of men employed, the quantity of earth wheeled, and the nicety with which this operation was performed, I am perfuaded it was in a great meafure done for the fake of beauty. The improved part of the other lane I never faw in its original ftate, but by what remains untouched, and by the accounts I heard, it mult have afforded noble ftudies for a painter. The banks are higher and the This is a moft complete receipt for fpoiling a pi&u- refque fpot ; and one might fuppofe, from this military %le having been fo generally adopted, and every thing laid open, that our improvers are fearful of an enemy being in ambufcade among the bullies of a gravel pit, or lurking in fome intricate groupe of trees. In that refpe£t, it mutt be owned, the clump has infinite merit; for, befides its compact foldier-like appearance, it may be commanded from every point, and the enemy ea% diilodged. trees [ 3* J trees arc larger than in the other lane* and their branches, ftretching from fide to fide, " High over arch'd imbower." I heard a vaft deal from the gardener of the place near it, about the large ugly roots that appeared above ground, the large holes the fheepufed to lie in, and the rubbifh of all kinds that ufed to grow about them* The laft poffeflbr took care to fill up and clean, as far as his property went; and that every thing might look regular, he put, as a boundary to the road, a row of white pales at the foot of the bank on each fide* and on that next his houfe he raifed a peat wall as upright as it could well ftand, by way of a facing to the old bank, and in the middle of this peat wall planted a row of laurels : thefe laurels the gardener ufed to cut quite flat at top, and the cattle, reaching over the pales, and browiing the lower moots within their bite, kept it as even at bottom, fo that it formed one pro* jeering lump in the middle, and had juft as picturefque an appearance as a bufhy wig fqueezed between the hat and the cape. I mould [ 33 3 I fhould add* that thefe two fpecimens of drefled lanes are not in a diftant county, but within thirty miles of London, and in a diftrict full of expenfive embellilhrnents. I am afraid many of my readers will think that I have been a long while getting through thefe lanes, but in them, and in old neglected quarries, and in chalk and gravel pits, a great deal of what confti- tutes, and what deftroys pidturefque beauty, is ftrongly exemplified within a fmall com- pafs, and in fpots eafily reforted to ; the caufes too are as clearly marked, and may be as fuccefsfully ftudied as where the higher ftyles of it (often mixed with the fublime) are difplayed among forefts, rocks, and mountains. D CHAP* E 34 J CHAPTER III. THERE are few words whofe mean- ing has been lefs accurately deter- mined than that of the word Picturefque. In general, I believe, it is applied to every object, and every kind of fcenery, which has been, or might be reprefented with good effect in painting, and that without any exclufion. But, conlidered as a feparate character, it has never yet been accurately diftinguifhed from the fublime and the beautiful; though as no one has ever pretended that they are fynonimous, (for it is fometimes ufed in contradiftinction to them) fuch a diftinction muft exift. Mr. Gilpin, from whofe very ingenious and extenfive obfervations on this fubject I have received great pleafure and inftruc- tion, t 35 3 tfon, has given his fanction to this common idea, by defining picturefque objects to be thofe " which pleafe from fome quality ca- •* pable of being illuftxated in painting or, as he again defines it in his Letter to Sir Jofhua Reynolds " fuch objects " as are proper fubjects for painting -J-." Both thefe definitions feem to me (what may perhaps appear a contradiction) at once too vague and too confined; for though we are not to expect any definition to be fo accurate and comprehenfive, as both to fupply the place and ftand the teft of inves- tigation, yet if it does not in fome degree feparate the thing defined from all others, it differs little from any general truth on the fame fubject. For inftance, it is very- true, that picturefque objects do pleafe from fome quality capable of being illus- trated in painting ; but fo alfo does every object that is reprefented in painting if it pleafes at all, otherwife it would not have * Eflay on Pi&urefque Beauty, page I. f End of Eflay on Pifturefque Beauty, page 36, D 2 been f 36 3 been painted ; and from hence we ought to conclude (what certainly is not meant) that all objects which pleafe in pictures arc therefore picturefque, for no distinction or cxclufion is made. Were any other per* fon to define picturefque objects to be thofe which pleafe from fome ftriking ef- fect of form, colour, or light and fhadow, fuch a definition would indeed give but a very indiftinct idea of the thing defined ; but, though hardly more vague than the others, it would be much lefs confined, for it would not have an exclufive reference to art. I hope to mew, in the courfe of this work, that the picturefque has a character cot lefs feparate and diftinct than either the fublime or the beautiful, nor lefs inde- pendent of the art of painting. It has in- deed been pointed out and illuftrated by that art, and is one of its moft ftriking or- naments; but has not beauty been pointed ©ttt and illuftrated by that art alfo ? Si [ 37 ] Si Venerem Cous nunquam pofuiflet Apelles Merfa fub aequoreis ilia lateret aquis. Examine the forms of thofe painters who lived before the age of Raphael, or in a country where the Hudy of the antique (operating as it did at Rome on minds high- ly prepared for its influence) had not yet taught them to feparate what is beautiful from the general mafs ; we might almofl conclude that beauty did not then exift ; yet thofe pointers were capable of exact imitation, but not of felection, Examine grandeur of form in the fame manner ; look at the dry meagre forms of A. Durer (a man of genius even in Raphael's eftima- tion) of P. Perugino, A. Mantegna, &c. and compare them with thofe of M. An- gelo and Raphael: Nature was not more dry and meagre in Germany or Perugia than at Rome. — Compare the landfcapes and back grounds of fuch artifts with thofe of Titian; Nature was not changed, but a mind of a higher caft, and inftru&ed by the experience of all who went before, D 3 reje&ed [ 38 ] rejected minute detail, and pointed out, by means of fuch felections and fuch combi- nations, as were congenial to its own fublime conceptions, in what forms, in what co- lours, and in what effects, grandeur in landr fcape confirmed. Can it then be doubted but that grandeur and beauty have been pointed out and illuftrated by painting as well as picturefquenefs * ? Yet, would it be a juft definition of fublime or of beautiful objects to fay, that they were fuch (and, let the words be taken in their moft liberal construction) as pleafed from fome quality capable of being illuftrated in painting, or that were proper fubjecls for that art? The ancients, indeed, not only referred beauty of form to painting, but even beauty of colour 3 and the poet who could defcribe his miftrefs's complexion, by comparing it to the tints of Apelles's pictures, muft * I have ventured to make ufe of this word, which I believe does not occur in any writer, from what appeared to me the neceffity of having fome one word to oppofe to beauty and fublimity, in a work where they are fo often compared. [ 39 3 have thought that beauty of every kind was highly illuftrated by the art he refer- red to. The principles of thofe two leading characters in nature, the fublime and the beautiful, have been fully illuftrated and difcriminated by a great matter.; but even when I firft read that moft original work, I felt that there were numberlefs objects which give great delight to the eye, and yet differ as widely from the beautiful as from the fublime. The refledions I have fince been led to make have convinced me that thefe objects form a diftinct clafs, and belong to what may properly be called the picturefque. That term (as we may judge from its etymology) is applied only to objects of fight, and that indeed in fo confined a manner as to be fuppofed merely to have a reference to the art from which it is named. I am well convinced, however, that the name and reference only are limited and uncertain, and that the qualities which D 4 make [ 40 ] make objects pi&urefque are not only as diftind as thofe which make them beauti- ful or fublime, but are equally extended to all our fenfations, by whatever organs they are received; and that muflc (though it appears like a folecifm) may be as truly piclurefque, according to the general prin- ciples of pi&urefquenefs, as it may be beautiful or fublime, according to thofe of beauty or fublimity. There is, indeed, a general harmony and correfpondence in all our fenfations when they arife from fimilar caufes, though they affecl us by means of different fenfes ; and thefe caufes (as Mr. Burke has admi- rably explained*) can. never be fo clearly afcertained when we confine our obferva- tions to one fenfe only. I mull here obferve (and I wife the reader to keep it in his mind) that the en- quiry is not in what fenfe certain words are ufed in the beft authors, ftill lefs what is their common and vulgar ufe and abufej * Sublime and Beautiful, page 236. but t 4i ] but whether there are certain qualities which uniformly produce the fame effects in all vifible objects, and, according to the fame analogy, in objects of hearing and of all the other fenfes ; and which qualities (though frequently blended and united with others in the fame object or fet of objects) may be feparated from them, and affigned to the clafs to which they be- long. If it can be fhewn that a character com- pofed of thefe qualities, and diftinct from all others, does prevail through all nature ; if it can be traced in the different objects of art and of nature, and appears confiftent throughout, it furely deferves a dutinct title ; but with refpect to the real ground of enquiry, it matters little whether fuch a character, or the fet of objects belonging/ to it, is called beautiful, fublime, or pictu- refque, or by any other name, or by no name at all. Beauty is fo much the moft enchanting and popular quality, that it is often ap- plied £ 42 ] plied as the higheft commendation to whatever gives us pleafure, or raifes our admiration, be the caufe what it will. Mr, Burke has pointed out many inftances of thefe ill-judged applications, and of the confufion of ideas that refult from them ; but there is nothing more ill-judged, or more likely to create confufion (if we agree with Mr. Burke in his idea of beauty) than the joining of it to the pi&urefque, and calling the character by the title of Pic- turefque Beauty *. In 1 * Great part of what follows was written before I faw Mr. Gilpin's Effay on Piaurefque Beauty. I had gained fo much information on that fubjecl: from his other works, that I read it with great eagernefs, on account of the intereft I took in the fubjea itfelf, as well as from my opinion of the author. At firlt I thought my work had been anticipated ; I was pleafed however to find fome of my ideas confirmed, and was in hopes of feeing many new lights ftruck out j but as I advanced, that diftin&ion between the two chara&ers, that line of feparation which I thought would have been accurately marked out, became lefs and lefs vifible, till at length th« beautiful and the pi&urefque were more than ever mixed and incorporated together, the whole [ 43 ] In reality, the picturefque not only dif- fers from the beautiful in thofe qualities Mr. Burke has fo juftly afcribed to it, but arifes from qualities the moft diame- trically oppofite. According to Mr. Burke, one of the moft elfential qualities of beauty is fmooth- nefs ; now, as the perfection of fmooth- nefs is abfolute equality and uniformity of furface, wherever that prevails there can be but little variety or intricacy ; as, for inftance, in fmooth level banks, on a fmall, pr in naked downs, on a large fcale. An- other erlential quality of beauty is gradual variation ; that is (to make ufe of Mr. Burke's expreffion) where the lines do whole fubjeft involved in doubt and obfcurity, and a fort of anathema denounced againft any one who fhould try to clear it up. Had I not advanced too far to think of retreating, I might poffibly have been deterred by fo abfolute a veto from fuch authority ; but I hope I {hall not be thought prefumptuous for having ftill continued my refearches, though fo diligent and acute an obferver had given up the enquiry himfelf, and pronounced it hopelefs. * not C 44 1 - not vary in a fuddcn and broken manner, and where there is no fudden protuber- ance. It requires but little reflection to perceive, that the exclufion of all but flow- ing lines cannot promote variety ; and that fudden protuberances, and lines that crofs each other in a fudden and broken man- ner, are among the moll fruitful caufes of intricacy., I am therefore perfuaded, that the two oppofite qualities of roughnefs *, and of fudden * I have followed Mr. Gilpin's example in ufing roughnefs as a general term; he obferves, however» that, « properly Ipeaking, roughnefs relates only to the furface of bodies \ and that when we fpeak of their deli, neation we ufe the word ruggednefs." In making joughnefs (in this general fenfe) a very principal diftinc- tion between the beautiful and the pi<5f urefque, \ be- lieve I am fupported by the general opinion of all who have confidered the fubject, as well as by Mr. Gilpin's authority. That authority is defervedly fo high, that where in other points I have the misfortune to differ from him, his opinion will of courfe be preferred to mine, unlefs I can clearly mew that it is ill founded : I muft therefore endeavour to fhew in what refpe&s it i£ ill-founded, as often as thefe points occur, and with the [ 45 ] rlidden variation, joined to that of irregu- larity, are the mod efficient caufes of the pidlurefque. This, I think, will appear very clearly, if we take a view of thofe objects, both natural and artificial, that are allowed to the beft of my abilities j for any thing fhort of victory is in this cafe a defeat. I will firft mention, in general, the difficulties into which fe> ingenious a writer has been led from lofing fight of that genuine and univerfal diftinction between the beautiful and the picturefque, which he himfelf had begun by eftabliftiing, and which feparates their cha- racters equally in nature and in art, and from confin- ing himfelf to that unfatisfactory notion of a mere ge- neral reference to art only. He has given it as his opinion, that « roughnefe forms the moft effential point of difference between the beautiful and the pi&urefque, and feems to be that particular quality which makes objects chiefly pleafe in painting." He therefore has thought it neceuary, in fome inftances, to exclude fmooth objects from paint- ing, and to Ihew, in others, that what is fmootb in rea- lity is rough in appearance; fo that when we fancy: our- felves admiring the fmoothnefs, we think we perceive (as in a calm lake) we are in fact admiring the rough-* nefs we have not ©bferved. Of this I (hall give ia- iftanees in thofe places where they will moft naturally prefent themfelves. be C 46 ] be pidturefque, and compare them witfi thofe which are as generally allowed to be beautiful. A temple or palace of Grecian archi- tecture in its perfect entire ftate, and its furface and colour fmooth and even, either in painting or reality, is beautiful ; in ruin it is pi&urefque *. Obferve the procefs * Mr. Gilpin obferves, that " a piece of Palladian architecture (which, I prefume, is only another term for regular Grecian architecture) may be elegant in the laft degree ; the proportion of its parts, the propriety of its ornaments, the fymmetry of the whole, may be highly pleafing ; but, if we introduce it in a picture, it immediately becomes a formal object, and ceafes to pleafe." He adds, " mould we wifh to give it pic- turefque beautyi we mult, from a fmooth building, turn it into a rough ruin." Mr. Gilpin's firft point was, to mew that a building, to be picturefque, muft neither be fmooth nor regular ; and fo far we agree. But then, to mew how much picturefque beauty (to ufe his exprefiion) is pre- ferred by painters to all other beauty, nay, how Unfit beauty alone is for a picture, he makes the two affertions I have quoted, viz. that a piece of regular and fmiflied architecture becomes a formal object, and ceafes to pleafe when introduced in a picture j and that n« [ 47 1 procefs by which time (the great author of fuch changes) converts a beautiful ob- ject no painter, who had his choice, would hefitate a moment between that and a ruin. Were this really the cafe, we rnuft give up Claude as a landfcape painter; for he not only has introduced a number of perfect, regular, and fmooth pieces of archi- tecture into his pictures, but they frequently occupy the moft confpicuous parts of them ; and I doubt whether he may not have painted more entire buildings, as prin- cipal objects, than he has ruins, though many more of the latter as Subordinate ones. Claude delighted in reprefenting fcenes of feftive pomp and magnificence, as well as of paftoral life and retirement ; but if we fuppofe his temples abandoned, his palaces deferted and in ruins, the whole character of thofe fplendid compofitions, which have fo much con- tributed to raife him above the level of a mere land- fcape painter, would be deftroyed. Mr. Gilpin cannot but remember that beautiful fea-port of his which did belong to Mr. Lock, and which (could pi&ures chufe their own poffeflbrsj would never have left him. He muft have obferved, that the piece of architecture on the left hand was regular, perfect, and as fmooth as fuch a finifhed building appears in nature. But with regard to entire buildings, in contradis- tinction to ruins, the back grounds and landfcapes of all the great mafters, and particularly of N. and G. PoafEn, are full of them, and the ruins few in proportion ; fo much fo, that in the numerous fet of Gafpars, publimed* by [ 4« ] jed into a piclurefque one. Firft, by means of weather flains, partial incrufta- by Yivares, there are fcarce any ruins to be found among numberlefs entire buildings. No painter more diligently ftudied pi&urefque difpo- fition and effe£i: than Paul Veronefe; yet architefture of the moft regular and finifhed kind forms a very eflen- tial part of his magnificent compofitions. Many of thefe fplendid edifices have fo truly beautiful an appear- ance in piftures, efpecially when they are accompanied (as in Claude's ) by trees of elegant forms, and by a fcenery, each part of which accords with their chara&er, that one might reverfe Mr. Gilpin's pofition, and, I be- lieve, with more truth aflert, that a piece of Palladian ar- chiteaure, however elegant, however well proportioned its parts, however well difpofed and feleaed its orna- ments, how perfea foever the fymmetry of the whole, yet, in the mere elevation, or placed (as it frequently is in reality) in a ftreet with other buildings, or at the top of a lawn, naked and unaccompanied, is a formal objea, and excites only a cold admiration of the architea's ability ; but, when introduced in a piaure, becomes a highly interefting objea, and univerfally pleafes. I of courfe mean introduced as the beft matters have intro- duced and accompanied fuch buildings, for there can he no doubt of the natural tendency of all regular archi- teaure to formality. The Ikill with which that formality ha* been avoided by the great painters, without deftroying the fmoothnefc or fymmetry, is, perhaps, one of the ftrongeft arguments for ftudying their works for the purpofes of improve- ment. tion^ f 49 J tions* fnofTes, &c. it at the fame time takes, off from the uniformity of its furface and of its colour j that is, gives it a degree of roughnefs, and variety of tint. Next, the various accidents of weather loofen the ftones themfelvesj they tumble in irregu- lar maffes upon what was perhaps fmooth turf or pavement, or nicely trimmed walks and fhrubberies, now mixed and over- grown with wild plants and creepers, that crawl over and fhoot among the fallen ruins. Sedurns, wall-flowers, and other ve- getables that bear drought, find nourish- ment in the decayed cement from which the (tones have been detached : Birds con-^ vey their food into the chinks, and yew, elder, and other berried plants project from the fides, while the ivy mantles over other parts, and crowns the top. The even re- gular lines of the doors and windows are broken, and, through their ivy-fringed openings is difplayed, in a more broken and picturefque manner, that flriking image in Virgil : E- Apparet [ 5° ] Apparet domus intus, Sr atria longa patefcunt; Apparent Priami & veterum penetralia regum. Gothic architecture is generally confi- dered as more picturefque, though lefs beautiful, than Grecian ; and, upon the fame principle that a ruin is more fo than a new edifice. The firft thing that ftrikes the eye ia approaching any building is the general outline againfr. the iky (or whatever it may be oppofed to) and the effect: of the openings : in Grecian build- ings the general lines of the roof are ftrait, and even when varied and adorned by a dome or a pediment, the whole has a cha- racter of fymmetry * and regularity. In * Symmetry* which in works of art particularly, ac- cords with the beautiful, is in the fame degree adverfe to the piilurefque, and among the various caufes of the fuperior pifturefquenefs of ruins, compared with entire buildings, the deftruclion of fymmetry is by no means the leaft powerful. I hope it will not be fuppofed, that by admiring the pi&urefque circumftances of the Gothic, I mean to un- dervalue the fymmetry and beauty of Grecian buildings : whatever comes to us from the Greeks has an irrefifti- ble [ 5i 1 In Gothic buildings, the outline of the fummit prefents fuch a variety of forms, of turrets and pinnacles, fome open, fome fretted and varioufly enriched, that even where there is an exact correfpondence of parts, it is often difguifed by an appear- ance of fplendid confufion and irregula- rity. In the doors and windows of Gothic churches, the pointed arch has as much variety as any regular figure can well have, the eye too is not fo ftrongly con- ducted from the top of the one to that of the other, as by the parallel lines of the Grecian ; and every perfon muft be ftruck with the extreme richnefs and intricacy of fome of the principal windows of our ca- thedrals and ruined abbeys. In thefe laft is difplayed the triumph of the pi&urefque ; and its charms to a painter's eye are often fo great as to rival thofe of beauty itfelf. ble claim to our admiratibn ; that diftinguifhed people feized on the true points both of beauty and grandeur in all the arts, and their architecture has juftly obtained the fame high pre-eminence as their fculpture, poetry, and eloquence. E 2 Some [ 5* ] Some people may, perhaps, be un willing ^o allow, that in ruins of Grecian and Go- thic architecture any confiderable part of the fpectators pleafure arifes from the pic- turefque circumftances, and may chufe to attribute the whole to what may juftly claim a great mare in that pleafure, the elegance or grandeur of their forms, the veneration of high antiquity, or the fo- lemnity of religious awe ; in a word, to the mixture of the two other characters : but were this true, yet there are many buildings, highly interefting to all who have united the fludy of art with that of nature, in which beauty and grandeur are equally out of the queftion ; fuch as ho- vels, cottages, mills, ragged infides of old barns and ftables, Sec. whenever they have any marked and peculiar effect of form, tint, or light and fliadow. In mills parti- cularly, fuch is the extreme intricacy of the wheels and the wood work ; fuch the lingular variety of forms, and of lights and Shadows, of molTes and weather ftains • from [ 53 1 from the conftant moifture, of plants Springing from the rough joints of the ftones ; fuch the afiemblage of every thing which moft conduces to picturefquenefs, that even without the addition of water, an old mill has the greateft charm for a painter. It is owing to the fame caufes that a building with fcaffblding has often a more picturefque appearance than the building itfelf when the fcaffolding is taken away — that old molfy rough hewn park pales of unequal heights are an ornament to land- scape, efpecially when they are partially concealed by thickets ; while a neat poft and rail, regularly continued round a field, and Seen without any interruption, is one of the moft unpicturefque, as being one of the moft uniform of all boundaries. But among all the objects of nature, there is none in which roughnefs and fmoothnefs more ftrongly mark the dis- tinction between the two characters, than m water. A calm clear lake, with the E 3 reflections [ 54 1 reflections of all that furround it, fecri under the influence of a fetting fun, at the clofe of an evening clear and ferene as its own furface, is, perhaps, of all fcenes, the moft congenial to our ideas of beauty in its ftri&eft and in its moft general fenfe. Nay, though the fcenery around ftiould be the moft wild and picturefque (I might almoft fay the moft favage) every thing is fo foftened and melted together by the re- flection of fuch a mirror, that the prevail- ing idea, even then, might poffibly be that of beauty, as long as the water itfelf was chiefly regarded. On the other hand, all water whofe furface is broken, and whofe motion is abrupt and irregular, as univer- fally accords with our ideas of the pic- turefque ; and whenever the word is men- tioned, rapid and ftony torrents and cata- racts, and the waves darning againft rocks, are among the firft images that prefent themfelves to our imagination. The two characters alfo approach and ba- lance each other, as roughnefs or fmooth- § nefs, [ 55 1 ncfs, as gentle undulation or abruptness prevail *• Among * I have here the misfortune of differing: from Mr, Gilpin: he fays, a flf the lake beipread out on the can- vafs (and in this cafe it cannot be different in nature) the marmoreum aequor, pure, limpid, fmooth as the polifhed mirror, we acknowledge it to be pidturefque/'' No one, I believe, will be fmgular enough to deny that a lake in fuch a ft ate is beautiful ; then either the two terms are perfectly fynonymous, or the two characters are mixed : in the latter cafe I m-uft beg leave to quote a paJTage from Mr, Locke J, on a different fubject. indeed, but of general application. 4t Thefe paffions (fear, anger, fhame, envy,&c.) are fcarce any of them fsrnple and alone, and wholly unmixed with others^ though ufually, in difcourfe and contemplation, that carries the name which operates, ftrongeftj and appears moft in the prefent ft ate of the mind.'* Now if frnootlmefs (as Mr. Gilpin acknowledges) is at leaft a considerable Source of beauty ; and if roughnefs (as he does not fcruple to affent) is that which forms the moft effen- tial point of difference between the beautiful and the pidturefque, it furely is rather a contradiction to his own principles to call a lake in its nnoothert it ate picturefque, on account of fuch interruptions to the abfolute fmoothnefs. (or rather uniformity} of its fur- face, as not only accord with beauty, but are often in themfelves fources of beauty ; fuch as fhades of various kinds, undulations, and reflections. ^ Eflay on Pittussfijus Beauty, page 2z» % OslfeeHiaaan Ui.desfiaaling, o&;wo t&t, H 4 Vfpu* [ 56 ] Among trees, it is not the fmooth young beech, or the frefh and tender a(h, Upon the fame grounds that he aflerts the fmooth lake to be piciurefque, fo alfo does he give that cha- racter to the high-fed horfe with his fmooth and Alin- ing coat, and upon the fame grounds. If how- ever * u a play of mufcles appearing through the finenefs of the fkin, gently fwelling and finking into each other — -his being all overlubricus afpici, with re- flections of light continually fhifting upon him, and playing into each other," make an animal picturefque, what then will make him beautiful ? The interrup- tion of his fmoothnefs, by a variety of fhades and colours (not fudden and ftrong, but " playing into each other, fo that the eye glides up and down among their cndlefs tranfitions") certainly will not fupply the room of roughnefs in fuch a degree as to over-balance the qualities of beauty, and abolifh (as in the prefent in- ftance) the very name." It is true, that according to Mr. Gilpin's two definU tions, both the lake and the horfe, in their fmootheft poffible fbte, are picturefque ; but they are no lefs oppofite to that character, according to his more ftrift and pointed method of defining it, by making rough- nefs the moft effential point ot difference between that and the beautiful. After fo plain and natural a diftinc-. tion between the two characters, it furely -would have been more fimple and fatisfactoiy to have named things according to their obvious and prevailing qualities, and to have allowed that painters lometimes preferred beau- * E/Ly on Pi&urcfque Beaut} , page 22» tiful, [ 57 1 am*, but the rugged old oak, or knotty wych elm, that are pi&urefque • nor is it neceffary they mould be of great bulk ; it insufficient if they are rough, moffy, with a character of age, and with fidden va- riations' in their terms. The limbs of huge trees, battered by lightning or tern- i tiful, fometimes piaurefque, fometimes grand andfub. Jime objefts, and fometimes objeSs where the two or the three characters were equally, or in different degrees, mixed with each other. It is a pity that talents like his, to which we owe fo many juft and curious remarks, mould even- have been employed in trying to reconcile what, in fpite of any ingenuity, mufl appear a contra, diction, * As the young am (though at any age by no means a popular tree) is a favourite with painters, it muft feem inconfiftent to thofe who refer the term to art only, that I mould deny it to be pi&urefque. But as I have before remarked, if all the obje&s which painters have been fond of reprefenting were therefore to be called piaurefque, it would be a term of little diftinaion. The young afn has every prin- ciple of beauty ; freflmefs and delicacy of foliage fmoothnefs of bark, elegance of forms nor am I fur- pnfed that the ffoooth and elegant Virgil mould call the am the moft beautiful tree in the woods j but when its own leaves are changed to the autumnal tint, and when contrafied with ruder or more maffive (hapes or colours, it becomes part of a piaurefque circumitance," without charging its own nature. peftuous [ 5? ] pcituous winds, are in the highefr, degree picturefque ; but whatever is caufed by thofe dreaded powers of deft rudtion mui\ always have a tin&ure of the fublime*. If we next take a view of thofe ani- mals that are called pidturefque, the fame qualities will be found to pre- vail. The afs°f* is eminently fo„ much more * There is a fimile in Asioftoj in which the two cha- racters are finely united *, Quale ftordito, et flupido aFatore, Poi ch*e paflato il fulmine» fi. leva Di la, dove I'altt-fiimo fragore Prello agli ucciil buoi ftelo 1' aveva ; Che mira fenza fronde,, et fenza onore II Pin che da lontan veder foleva Tal fi levo'l Pagano. Milton feenas to have thought of this fimile;. but the fublimky both of his fubjeft and of his own genius made him reject thofe picrurefque circumftances whofe variety while it amufes diftra&s the mind* and has kept it fixed: ©n a few grand and awful images : As when heaven's fire Has fcath r d the forcft oaks, or mountain prnes, With finged top their (lately growth the' bare Stands on the Mailed heath. f Mr. Gilpin, in his very ingenious work en fiwefl fcenery (from whence i have taken many of thefe ex- amples of pLdurefque animals) obfervesj that among, all the r 59 ] more than the horfe; and among horfes it is the wild forefter with his rough coat, his mane and tail ragged and uneven, or the worn out cart-horfe with his flaring bones. The fleek pampered fceed with his high arched creft and flowing mane is frequently reprefented in painting, but his prevailing character either there or in re- ality is that of beauty *. Among the tribes of animals fcarce any one is more ornamental in landfcape than the afs. He adds "in what this " picturefque beauty confifts, whether in his pecu- - pofed that for the purpofe of his own art a painter would in general prefer a worn-out cart-horfe to a beautiful Arabian j — or that fuch pieces of architecture as were univerfally admired for their beauty and elegance would, if introduced in a picture, become formal, and ceafe to pleafe,— no man would be difpofed to confult an art which contradicted all his natural feelings : But were he to be informed that painters have always admired and fought for beauty of every kind in animals as well as in the human fpecies (and ftrange it would be were it btherwife) ; that they neither reject fmoothnefe nor fym- mctry, but only the ill-judged and tirefome difplay of them ; that with regard to regular and perfect architec- ture, it made a principal ornament in pictures of the higheft clafs, but that while its fmoothnefs, fymmetry, and regularity were preferved, its formality was avoid- F 2 C 65 1 I ihall fay more hereafter) as well as from their action and energy ; all this counter- balances the general fmoothnefs of the plumage on their backs and wings*, which they cd ; in fhort, that the ftudy of painting, far from abridg- ing his pleafures, would open a variety of new fources of amufement, and, without cutting oft the old ones, only direct them into better channels — he might be dif- pofed to confult an art which promifed many frefh and untafted delights, without forcing him to abandon all he had enjoyed before. * Pindar's celebrated defcriptioii of the eagle, which Mr. Gilpin has quoted as equally poetical and pi&ur- efque, and which I believe has always been thought fo, feems to me to afford a convincing proof how natural it is for all men, when they defign to produce a pi£turefque image, to avoid every idea of fmoothnefs. The ruffled plumage of the eagle (which Mr. Gilpin has put in Italics, as the circumftance which moft ftrongly marks that charader) is both in Mr. Weft's tranilation and Mr. Gray's imitation; but as far as I can judge, there is not the leaft trace of it in the original. I have not the moft diftant pretenfions to any critical knowledge of the Gseek language ; yet ftill I think, that by the help of thofe interpreters who have ftudied it critically, an unlearned man, if he feels the fpifit of a paflage, may arrive at a pretty accurate idea of the forte of the expreffions. From them it appears to me, that far from defer ibing the eagle with ruffled plumes, or with . [ 69 ] they have in common with the reft of the feathered creation. Laftly, among our own with any circumftance truly pi&urefque, Pindar has, on the contrary, avoided every idea that might difturb the repofe and majeftic beauty of his image. After he has defcribed the eagle's flagging wing, he adds vyfw ■mtov aiufsi, which is fo oppofite to ruffled, that it feems to fignify that perfect fmoothnefs and fleeknefs given by moifture ; that oily fupplenefs fo different from any thing crifp or rumpled, as vygov exatov expreffes the fmooth, fuppling, undrying quality of oil. The learned Chriftianus Damm, in his Lexicon, interprets wcuiriruv vy^ov vutov xicofet) dormiens incurvatum (vel potius lave ) ter- gum attollit, and the action is that of a gentle heaving from refpiration during a quiet repofe. In another place Damm interprets vy^r,^ mollities; all equally oppofite to ruffled. Indeed ene might almoft fuppofe that Pindar, having intended to prefent an image both fublime and beautiful, had avoided every thing that might difturb its ftill and folemn grandeur, for he has thrown as it were into {hade the moft marked and pic- turefque feature of that noble bird ; KEXaivwcnv $ em 01 vi farther, and try to account for the paflage having been fo rendered. I think Mr. Weft and Mr. Gray might probably have been imprefTed with the fame idea as Mr. Gilpin, that the imagery in this paflage was highly pi&urefque, but might have felt that fmooth feathers would not accord with that character, and therefore per- haps (as Sir Joihua Reynolds obferves on Algarotti*s ill-founded eulogium of a picture of Titian) they chofc to find in Pindar what they thought they ought to have found. With all the refpect I have for their abilities (and Mr. Gray's cannot be rated too high) I muft think that by one word they hare changed the character of that famous paffage, and it may be doubted whether they have improved it. Were their image reprefented in painting it might be more ftriking, more catching to the eye than Pindar's, and that is the true character of the pi£turefque ; but his would have more of that repofe, that folemn breadth, that freedom from all buftle, which I believe accords more truly with the genuine unmixed characters both of beauty and fublimity *, and with the ideas of the great original. * Vide Sir Jofliua Reynold's Notes in Mafon's Du Frefnoy, p. 86i lifarius, [ 7' ] Inarhis, a Marius in age and exile *, have the fame mixture of pi&urefquenefs and de- cayed grandeur as the venerable remains of the magnificence of paft ages. If we afcend to the higheft order of created beings, as painted by the grandeft of our poets, they, in their ftate of glory and happinefs, raife chiefly ideas of beauty and fublimity : like earthly objects, they become pi&urefque when -f ruined— when fhadows have obfcured their original bright- nefs, and that uniform, though angelic expremon of pure love and joy, has been deftroyed by a variety of warring paf- fions : Darken'd fo, yet (hone Above them all the archangel ; but his face Deep fears of thunder had entrench'd, and care Sat * The noble pifture of Salvator Rofa, at Lord Townfend's, which in the print is called Belifarius, has been thought to be a Marius among the ruins of Carthage. f Nor appea.r'd kefs than archangel ruin , d ) and the excefs Of glory obfcured. * 33 F 4 [ 72 ] Sat on his faded cheek j but under brows Of dauntlefs courage and confiderate pride Waiting revenge ; cruel his eye, but caft Signs of remorfe and paffion. If from nature we turn to that art from which the expreffion itfelf is taken, we fhall find all the principles of picturefque- nefs confirmed. Among painters, Salvator Rofa is one of the moft remarkable for his picturefque ftile, and in no other maf- ter are feen fuch abrupt and rugged forms, fuch fudden deviations both in his figures and his landfcapes ; and the roughnefs and broken touches of his pencilling admira- bly accord with the objects they charac- terife. Guido, on the other hand, was as emi- nent for beauty $ in his celeftial counte- nances are the happieft examples of gra- dual variation— of lines that melt and flow into each other - y no fudden break — no- thing that can difturb that pleafing lan- guor which the union of all that confti- tutes beauty impreffes on the foul. The itile [ 73 1 ftile of his hair is as fmooth as its own character and its effect in accompanying the face will allow ; the flow of his dra- pery—the fweetnefs and equality of his pencilling— and the filvery clearnefs and. purity of his tints, are all examples of the juftnefs of Mr. Burke's principles of beau- ty. But the works even of this great matter mew us how unavoidably an at- tention to mere beauty and flow of out- line will lead towards famenefs and infi- pidity. If this has happened to a painter of fuch high excellence, who fo well knew the value of all that belongs to his art, and whofe touch, when he painted a St. Peter or a St. Jerome, was as much admired for its fpirited and charaderiftic roughnefs, as for its equality and fmooth- nefs in his angels and madonnas, — what muft be the cafe with men who have been tethered all their lives in a clump or a belt. There is another inftance of contraft be- tween two eminent painters, which I can- not r 74 ] sot forbear mentioning, as it confirms the alliance between roughnefs and pictu- refquenefs, and between fmoothnefs and beauty, and mews, in the latter cafe, the Confequent danger of famenefs. Of all the painters who have left behind them a high reputation, none, perhaps, was more uniformly fmooth than Albano, or lefs de- viated into abruptnefs of any kind ; none slfo have greater monotony of character ; but, from the extreme beauty and delicacy of his forms, and his tints (particularly in his children) and his exquifite nniming; few pictures are more generally captivat- ing. His fcholar, Mola, (and that circum- fiance makes it more fingular) is as re- markable for many of thofe oppofite qua- lities that difHnguifh S. Rofa, though he has not the boldnefs and animation of that original genius. There is hardly any painter whofe pictures more immediately catch the eye of a connoifTeur, than thofe of Moia, or that lefs attraft the notice of $ a perfon t 75 a $ perfon unufed to painting. Salvator has a favage grandeur, often in the higheft de- gree fublime ; and fublimity, in any fhape, will command attention ; hut Mola's fcenes and figures, for the moll part, are neither fublime nor beautiful; they are purely pidurefque : his touch is lefs rough than Salyator's ; his colouring has, in general, more richnefs and variety; and his pictures feem to me the moft perfect examples of the higher ftile of pifturefque- nefs, infinitely removed from vulgar na- ture, but having neither the foftnefs and delicacy of beauty, nor that grandeur of conception which produces the fublime. CHAP- [ 76 ] CHAPTER IV. T) Icturesqueness, therefore, appears to held a Nation between beauty and fublimity ; and on that account, perhaps, is more frequently and more happily blended with them both than they are with each other. It is, however, perfectly diftincl: from either ; and firft, with re- fped to beauty, it is evident, fiom all that has been faid, that they are founded on very oppofite qualities ; the one on fmooth- nefs *, the other on roughnefs i— the one on * Baldnefs feems to be an exception, as there frnooth- nefs is pi&urefque, and not beautiful. It is, however, an exception, which, inftead of weakening, confirms' what I have faid, and fhews the conftant oppofition of the two characters, even where their caufes appear to be confounded, Baldnefs t 77 1 on gradual, the other on fudden variation ; the one on ideas of youth and frefhnefs, the other on that of age, and even of decay. But as moft of the qualities of vifible beauty (excepting colour) are made known to us through the medium of another fenfe, the fight itfelf is hardly more to be attended to than the touch, in regard to all thofe fenfations which are excited by beautiful forms ; and the diftin&ion be- tween the beautiful and the pi&urefque will, perhaps, be moft ftrongly point- ed out by means of the latter fenfe. I am aware that this is liable to a grofs and ob- vious ridicule ; but for that reafon none but Baldnefs is the fmoothnefs of age and decay, not of youth, health, and freihnefs : it is pidurefque from pro- ducing variety and peculiarity of character ; from de- {rroyliig the ufual fymmetry and regularity of the face, and fubftituting an uncertain inftead, of a certain boun- dary. When a bald head is well plaiftered and flowered, and the boundary of the forehead difti nelly marked in po- matum and powder, it has as little pretenfion to pic* turefquenefs as to beauty. * PTOfs [ 7* ] grofs and common-place minds will dwell upon it. Mr. Burke has obferved, that * " meii are carried to the fex, in general, as it is the fex, and by the common law of na- ture j but they are attached to particulars by perfcnal beauty he adds, " I call beauty a focial quality $ for where women and men, and not only they, but when other animals give us a fenfe of joy and pleafure in beholding them (and there are many that do fo) they infpire us with fentiments of tendernefs and affection towards their per- fons ; we like to have them near us, and we enter willingly into a kind of relation with them." Thefe fentiments of tendernefs and af-> fection nature has taught us to exprefs by carelfes, by gentle preffure j thefe are the endearments we make ufe of (where fex is totally out of the queftion) to beautiful children, to beautiful animals, and even to things inanimate - y and where the fize and * SuUime and Beautiful, p. 66. character f 79 3 character (as in trees, buildings, Sec.) ex- cludes any fuch relation, ftill fomething of the fame difference of fenfation between them and rugged objects appears to fiib- fift 5 that fenfation however is diminiflied as the fize of any beautiful object is en- creafed ; and as it approaches towards gran- deur and magnificence, it recedes from lovelinefs. As the eye borrows many of its fenfa- tions from the touch, fo that again feems to borrow others from the fight* Soft* frefh, and beautiful colours, though " not fenfible to feeling as to fight," give us an inclination to try their effect on the touch; whereas, if the colour be not beautiful, that inclination, I believe, is always dimi- niflied, and, in objects merely picturefque, and void of all beauty, is rarely excited *. * I have read, indeed, in fome fairy tale, of a country where age and wrinkles were loved ana carefTed, and youth and freflinefs negle&ed j but in res "ife, I fancy, the moft picturefque old woman, however her admirer may ogle her on that account^ is perfectly fafe from his carefles, Thefe [ 8 0 ] Thefe are the principal circurnftances "by which the pi&urefque is feparated from the beautiful. It is equally dif- tinct from the fublime; for though there are fome qualities common to them both, yet they differ in many elfential points, and proceed from very different caufes. In the firlr. place, greatnefs of dimenfion * is a powerful caufe of the fublime ; the picturefque has no con- nection with dimenfion of any kind (in which it differs from the beautiful alfo) and is as often found in the fmalleft as in the larger! objects. — The fublime being founded on principles of awe and terror, never defcends to any thing light or playful; the piclurefque, whofe charac- * I would by no means lay too much ftrefs on great- nefs of dimenfion; but what Mr. Burke has obferved with regard to buildings, is true of many natural ob- jects, fuch as rocks, cascades, &c. ; where the fcale is too diminutive, no greatnefs of manner will give them grandeur. teriftics C Si 3 teriftics are intricacy and variety, is equally adapted to the grander! and to the gayeft fcenery. — Infinity is one of the moft ef- ficient caufes of the fublime j the bound- lefs ocean, for that reafon, infpires awful fenfations : to give it picturefqueiiefs you muft deftroy that caufe of its fublimity ; for it is on the fhape and difpofition of its boundaries that the pidturefque in great meafure muft depend* Uniformity (which is fo great an enemy to the pidturefque) is not only compatible with the fublime, but often the caufe of it. That general equal gloom which is fpread over all nature before a ftorm, with the ftillnefs fo nobly defcribed by Shaken fpear, is in the higher!: degree fublime *. The picturefque requires greater variety, and does not mew itfelf till the dreadful * And as we often fee agaihft a ftortrt A filence in* the heavens, the wrack ftafid ftil), The bold winds fpeechlefs, and the orb itfelf As hufti as death, anon the dreadful thunder Does rend the region. G thunder t 82 ] thunder has rent the region, has tolled the clouds into a thoufand towering forms, and opened (as it were) the recefTes of the iky. A blaze of light unmixed with made, on the fame principles, tends to thefublime only : Milton has placed light, in its moll glorious brightnefs, as an inacceflible bar- rier round the throne of the Almighty i For God is light, And nerer but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity. And fuch is the power he has given even to its diminimed fplendor, That the brightelr. feraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes* In one place, indeed, he has introduced very pic~turefque circumfbnces in his fub- lime reprefentation of the deity; but it is of the deity in wrath, — it is when from the weaknefs-and narrownefs of our concep- tions we give the names and the ef- fects of our paflions to the all-perfect Creator : 6 And t §3 1 And clouds began To darken all the hill, and fmoke to roll In dufky wreaths reludant flames, the figri Of wrath awak'd. In general, however, where the glory, power, or majefty of God are reprefented, he has avoided that variety of form and of colouring which might take off from fim- ple and uniform grandeur, and has cncom- pafTed the divine effence with unapproach- ed light, or with the majefty of darknefs. Again, (if we defcend to earth) a per- pendicular rock of vaft bulk and height* though bare and unbroken,— a deep chafm under the fame circumftances, are objects that produce awful fenfations ; but with- out fome variety and intricacy, either in themfelves or their accompaniments, they will not be picturefque,— Laftly, a mod effential difference between the two cha- racters is, that the fublime by its folemnity takes off from the lovelinefs of beauty *, whereas * Majefty and love, fays the poet who had moft {tudied the art of love, never can dwell together ; and G 2 therefore [ H I tvhereas the pi&urefque renders it more captivating. According to Mr. Burke *, the pafTion caufed by the great and fublime in nature, when thofe caufes operate moil power- fully, is aftoni foment ; and aftonifhment is that ftate of the foul in which all its mo- tions are fufpended with fome degree of horror : the fublime alfo, being founded on ideas of pain and terror, like them operates by ftretching the fibres beyond their natural tone. The paffion excited by beauty is love and complacency ; it acts by relaxing the fibres fomewhat be- low their natural tone \, and this is ac- companied therefore Juno, whofe beauty was united with majefty, had no captivating charms till me had put on the ceftus i that is, till fhe had changed dignity for coquetry. * Sublime and Beautiful, Part II. Sea. I, f I have heard this part of Mr. Burke's book criticifed, on a fuppofition thatpleafure is more generally produced from the fibres being Simulated than from their being relaxed. To me it appears that Mr. Burke is right with refp?& to that pleafure which is the effect of beauty, E *s 3 companied by an inward fenfe of melting acid languor. Whether this account of the effects of fublimity and beauty be flrictly philofophi- cal, has, I believe, been queftioned, but whether the fibres, in fuch cafes, are really beauty, or whatever has an analogy to beauty, according to the principles he has laid down. No man (if we may judge from his confeffions) ever felt more ftrongly than Rouffeau both the ftimulus of fenfual pleafure and all the violent and rapturous emotions of paffionj yet what he defcribes as the moft exquifite enjoyment of love and beauty is clearly when the fibres are relaxed fomewhat below their natural tone: O jeunefle, fi je regrette tes plaifirs, ce n'eft pas pour i* heure de la jouiffance, c'eft pour celle qui la HjlL If we examine our feelings on a warm genial day, in a fpot full of the fofteft beauties of nature, the fra- grance of fpring breathing around us, pleafure then fepms to be our natural ftate; to .be received, not fought after; it is the happinefs of exifting to fenfations of delight only j we are unwilling to move, almoft to think, and defire only to feel, to enjoy. How different is that active purfuit of pleafure when the fibres are braced by a keen air in a wild romantic fituauon; when the a£Hvity of the body almoft keeps pace with that of the mind, and eagerly fcales every rocky promontory, explores every new recefs. Such is the difference between the beautiful and the pictur* .^fque, G 3 Wretched [ 86 ] ftretched or relaxed, it prefents a lively knags of the fenfations often produced by love and aftonifhment. To purfue the fame train of ideas, I may add, that the effect of the picturefque is curiofity; an effect which, though lefs fplendid and powerful, has a more general influence ; it neither relaxes nor violently flretches the fibres, but by its active agency keeps them to their full tone, and thus, when mixed with either of the other characters, corrects the languor of beauty, or the horror of fublimity. But as the nature of every corrective muft be to take off from the peculiar effect of what it is to correct, fo does the picturefque when united to either of the others. It is the coquetry of nature ; it makes beauty more amufing, more varied, more playful^ |mt alfo, " Lefs winning foft, lefs amiably mild.'* Again, by its variety, its intricacy, it§ partial concealments, it excites that active ^uriofity which gives play to the mind, loofening [ 8 7 ] loofening thofe iron bonds with which aftonifhment chains up its faculties *. Where characters, however diftincl: in their nature, are perpetually mixed to- gether in fuch various degrees and man- ners, it is not always eafy to draw the exa& line of reparation: I think, how- ever, we may conclude, that where an objed, or a fct of objeds, is without fmoothnefs or grandeur, but from its in- tricacy, its fudden and irregular devia- tions, its variety of forms, tints, and lights and fhadows, is interefting to a cultivated eye, it is fimply pidturefque; fuch, for instance, are the rough banks that often inclofc a bye-road or ,a hol- low lane: Imagine the fize of thefe banks and the fpace between them to be increafed till the lane becomes a deep dell, — the coves large caverns, — the peeping {tones hanging rocks, fo that the whole * This feems to be perfe&ly applicable to tragi- comedy, and is at once its apol©gy and condemna- tion. Whatever relieves the mind from a ftrong im- preflion, of courfe weakens that impreflion. G 4 may [ 88 ] may imprefs an idea of awe and gran- deur; — the fublime will then be mixed with the pidurefque, though the fcale only, not the ftyle of the fcenery, would be changed. On the other hand, if parts of the banks were fmooth and gently Hoping, — or the, middle fpace a foft clofc- bitten turf, — or if a gentle ftream pa/Ted between them, whofe clear unbroken fur- face reflected all their varieties, — the beau- tiful and the piclurefque, by means of that * foftnefs and fmoothnefs, would then be united, * Softnefs as well as fmoothnefs is become by habit a vifible quality, and from the fame kind of fympathy is a principle of beauty in many vifible objects. But as the hardeft bodies are thofe which receive the highefl polifh, and confequently the higheft degree of fmooth- nefs, there are a number of objects in which fmoothnefs and foftnefs are for that reafon incompatible. The one however is not unfrequently miftaken for the pther, and I have more than once heard pictures which were fa fmoothly fmifhed that they looked like ivojy commended for their foftnefs. The fkin of a delicate woman is an example of foft- nefs and fmoothnefs united ; but if by art a higher polifh is given to the fkin, the foftnefs and (in that cafe I may t add) [ 8 9 ] add) the beauty is deftroyed. Fur, mofs, hair, wool, &c. are comparatively rough, but are foft and yield to preflure, and therefore take off from the appearance of hardnefs, and alfo of edginefs ; a Hone or rock polifhed by water is fmoother but lefs foft than when covered with mofs, and upon this principle the wooded banks of a river have often a fofter general effect than the bare fliaven border of a canal. There is the fame difference between the grafs of a pleafure- ground mowed to the quick and that of a frefh meadow, and it frequently hap- pens that by continual mowing the verdure as well as the foftnefs is deftroyed, fo much does exceflive attach- ment to one principle deftroy its own ends. All this fhews that the two characters though dif- tin£t are feldom wholly unmixed, for as there are pi£turefque circumftances in many beautiful entire buildings, fo there are alfo circumftances of beauty in rnany picturefque ruinst C H A P- [ 99 ] CHAPTER V. F the three characters, two only are in any degree fubject to the im- prover i to create the ftiblime is above our contracted powers, though we may fome- times heighten, and at all times lower its effects by art. It is, therefore, on a pro- per attention to the beautiful and the pictu- refque, that the art of improving real land- fcapes muft depend. As beauty is the moft pleating of all ideas to the human mind, it is very natu- ral that it fhould be moft fought after, and that the name mould have been applied to every fpecies of excellence. Mr. Burke has done a great deal towards fettling the vague and contradictory ideas which were entertained on that fubject, by inveftigat* ing [ 91 ] ing its principal caufes and effects ; but as the beft things are often perverted to the worft purpofes, fo his admirable treatife has, perhaps, been one caufe of the infipidity that has prevailed under the name of im- provement. Few places have any claim to fublimity, and where nature has not given them that character, art is ineffectual ; beauty, therefore, is the great object, and improvers have learned from the higheft authority, that two of its principal caufes are fmoothnefs and gradual variation; thefe qualities are in themfelves very feducing, but they are ftitl more fo (when applied to the furface of ground) from its being in every man's power to produce them ; it requires neither tafte nor invention, but merely the mechanical hand and eye of many a common labourer, and he who can make a nice afparagus bed has one of the moft effential qualifications of an im- prover, and may foon learn the whole myf- {ery of (lopes and hanging levels. If t 92 3 If the principles of the beautiful, ac- cording to Mr. Burke, and thofe of the pidturefque, according to my ideas, are juft, it feldom happens that they are perfectly unmixed ; and, I believe, it is for want of obferving how nature has blended thenv and from attempting to make objects beau- tiful by dint of fmcothnefs and flowing lines, that fo much infipidity has arifen. The moft enchanting object the eye of man can behold, that which imme- diately prefents itfelf to his imagination when beauty is mentioned— that, in com- parifon of which all other beauty ap- pears taftelefs and uninterefting, is the face of a beautiful woman ; but even there, where nature has fixed the throne of beauty, the very feat of its empire, me has guarded it, in her mofl perfect models, from its two dangerous foes — infipidity and monotony. The Greeks (who cannot be accufed of having neglected the ftudy of beauty, or, like Dutch painters, of having fervilely copied whatever was before them) judged t 93 1 Judged that the ftrait line of the nofe'and forehead was neceflary to give a zeft to all the other flowing lines of the face ; then the eyebrows and the eyelafhes, by their projecting £hade over the tranfparent fur- face of the eye, and above all the hair, by its comparative roughnefs and its partial concealments, accompany and relieve the foftnefs, clearnefs, and fmoothnefs of all the reft where the hair has no natural roughnefs, it is often artificially curled and crifped *, and it cannot be fuppofed that both • The inftrument for that purpofe is certainly of very ancient date, as Virgil (who probably fludied the co flume of the heroic age) fuppofes it to have been J a ufe at the time of the Trojan war, and makes Turnus fpeak contemptuoufly of j-Eneas for having his locks perfumed, and, as Madame de Sevigne expreffes it, frifes naturellement avec des fers ; Vibratos calido ferro myrrhaque madentes. The natural roughnefs or crifpnefs of hair is often men- tioned as a beauty— l'auree crefpe crini— capelli crefpe & lunghe & d'oro. In many points the hair has a linking relation to trees ; they refemble each other in their intricacy, their ductility, the quicknefs of their growth, their feeming to acquire t 94 ] both fexes have been fo often miftaken ifl, what would beft become them. Flowers are the moft delicate and beau-* tiful of all inanimate objects, but their queen, the rofe, grows on a rough bum, whofe leaves are ferrated, and which is full of thorns. The mofs rofe has the ad- dition of a rough hairy fringe, that almoft makes a part of the flower itfelf. The arbutus, with its fruit, its pendant flow- ers, and rich gloily foliage, is, perhaps, the rroft beautiful of all the hardier ever- green fhrubs; but the bark of it is rugged, and the leaves (which, like thofe of the acquire frefli vigour from being cut, and in their being detached from the folid bodies whence they fpring; they are the varied boundaries, the loofe and airy Fringes, without which mere earth or mere flefh, how- ever beautifully formed, are bald and imperfect, and want their moft becoming ornament. In catholic countries, where thofe unfortunate victims of avarice and fuperftition are fuppofed to renounce all idea of pleafing our fex, the fir ft ceremony is that of cutting ofF their hair, as a facrifice of the moft feducing •ornament of beauty j and the formal edge of the fillet, that prevents a fingle hair from efcaping, is well con- trived to deaden the effect of features. rofe, t 95 ] rofe, are fa wed at the edges) have thole edges pointed upwards, and cluftering in fpikes and it may pofiibly be from that circumftance, and from the boughs hav- ing the fame upright tendency, that Vir- gil calls it arbutus horrida, or, as it ftands in fome manufcripts *, horrens. Among the * This epithet is frequently applied to ftiarp pointed and jagged objects, in the fame upright pofition — hor- rentibus haftis — cautibus horrens Caucafus — horridior rufco, &c. The Delphin edition fuppofes it to be called horrida, quia raris eft foliis ; but the arbutus is far from being thin of leaves, when in a flourifhing ftate. Ruaeus may probably have taken this idea from a verfe in -the 7th Eclogue — rara tegit arbutus umbra, which he in- terprets, raris inumbrat foliis ; but in another place Virgil calls it, frondentia arbuta ; and if rara, in the firft paffage, does mean thin (as Martyn has alfo rendered it) it accords but ill with tegit, and with the fhepherd's re- queft — folftitium pecori defendite : I therefore imagine rara may mean, in that place, (as it does in many lan- guages) excellent — rarum, quod non ubique reperitur, unde pro praeftant: fumitur. Stef. Thef. Martyn thinks it is called horrida from the roughnefs of the bark ; but an epithet, which applies to the tree in general, is more likely to be given from the general outward form than from a particular part lefs apparent, and often entirely hid. Many plants point their leaves downwards^ as the lilac, chefnut, Portugal laurel, &c. Whoever will com- pare t 96 3 the foreign oaks, maples, &c. thofe ard particularly cfteemed, whofe leaves (ac- cording to a common, though perhaps contradictory phrafe) are beautifully jag- ged. The oriental plane has always been reckoned a tree of the greater! beauty : Xerxes' paflion for one of them is well known, as alfo the high eftimation they were held in by the Greeks and Romans : the furface of its leaves is fmooth and gloffy, and of a bright pleafant green ; but they are fo deeply indented, and fo full of fharp angles, that the tree itfelf is often diftinguimed by the name of the true jagged oriental plane. The vine leaf has, in * all refpedts, a pare the arbutus and the Portugal laurel, both whofe leaves are ferrated, will find how ftrongly the epithet, horrens, applies to the former. Of the verb horreo, Stephens fays, proprie cum pili fetaeque in animante eriguntur; vul- garly, {land an end j capilli horrent. * The leaf of the Burgundy vine is rough, and its in- feriority, in point of beauty, to the fmooth-leaved vines, is, I think, very apparent, and clearly owing to that cir- cumftance. ftrong t 97 ] jftrong refemblance to the leaf of the plane, and that extreme richnefs of effect, which every body muft be ftruck with in them both, is greatly owing to thofe fharp angles, thole fudden variations fo contrary (o the idea of beauty when confidered by rtfelf.-^— On the other hand, a clufter of fine grapes, in point of form, tint, and light and fbadowi is a fpecimen of unmixed beauty, and the vine, with its fruit, one of the moil ftriking inftances of the union of the two characters, in which, however, that of beauty infinitely prevails ; and who will Venture to afiert that the charm of the whole would be greater by feparating them ? by taking off all the angles and fharp points, and making the outline of the leaves as round and flowing as that of the fruit ?— -The effect of thefe jagged points and angles is more ftrongly marked in feulpture, efpecially of vafes of metal, where the vine leaf, if imprudently hand- led, would at leaft prove that fharpnefs is very contrary to the beautiful in feeling ; H and [ 98 ] and the analogy between the two fenfes is furely very juft. It may alfo be re- marked, that in all fuch works fharpnefs of execution is a term of high praife. I mull here obferve (and I muft beg to call the reader's attention to what feerps to me to throw a ftrong light on the whote of the fubjecT:) that almoft all ornaments are rough, and moft of them fharp, which is a mode of roughnefs, and, confidered analogically, the moft contrary to beauty of any mode. But as the ornaments are rough, fo the ground is generally fmooth, which mews, that though fmoothnefs is the ground, the eifential quality of beauty, without which it can fcarcely exift, yet that roughnefs, in its different modes and de- grees, is the ornament, the fringe of beau- ty — that which gives it life and fpirit, and preferves it from baldnefs and infipidity *. The * The moft beautiful of all founds-, that of the hu- man voice, appears to the greateft advantage when there is fome degree of fturpnefc in the inftrutnent that ao 3 companies r 99 3 *f he column is fmooth, the capital is rough ; the facing of a building fmooth, the frize and cornice rough and fuddenly projecting : fo it is in vafes, in em-» broidery, in every thing that admits of or- nament «f*, and as ornament is the moft prominent Companies it, as in the harp, the violin, or the harpfi- chord : the #utej or even the organ, have too much of the fame quality of found ; they give no relief to the voice; it is like accompanying fmooth water with fmooth banks. Often iri the fweeteft and moft flowing melodies, difcords (which are analogous to angles and fliarpnefs) are introduced to relieve the ear from that lan- guor and wearinefs which long continued fmoothnefs always brings on 5 yet will any one fay, that, confidered feparately, the found of a harpfiehord is as beautiful as that of a flute, or of a human voicej or that they ought to be clafTed together j? or that difcords are as beautiful as concords i or that both are beautiful, becaufe when they are mixed with judgment the whole is more de- lightful ? Does not this fhew that what is veryjuftly called beautiful, from the efTential qualities of beauty being predominant, is frequently, nay, generally compo* fite, and that we ad againft the conftartt practice of nature and of judicious art, when we endeavour to make objects more beautiful by depriving them of what giveS beauty fome of its moft powerful attractions. t A goblet, rich with gems and rough with gold.— * Pallam fxgnis auroque rigentem. H % Gonfider f 100 ] prominent and ftriking part of a beautiful whole, it is frequently taken for the mod effential part, and obtains the firft place in defcriptions. But were an architect to ornament the fhafts as well as the capitals of his columns, and all the fmooth ftone work of his houfe or temple, there are few people who would not be feniible of the difference between a beautiful building and one richly ornamented. This, in my mind, is the fpirit of that famous reproof ©f Apelles (among all the painters of an- tiquity the moft renowned for beauty) to one of his fcholars who was loading a Helen with ornaments " Young man," faid he, " not being able to paint her beau- tiful, you have made her rich." . Confidcr what is the natural, the only procefs in ornamenting any fmooth furface, independently of co- lour i it muft be by making it lefs fmooth, that is i com- paratively rough : there muft be different degrees and modes of roughnefs, of fharpnefs, and this is the character of thofe ornaments that hare been admired for ages. CHAP- C ioi ] CHAPTER VI. AS, notwithftanding the various and ftriking lights in which Mr, Burke has placed all that relates to beauty, and the very clofe and convincing analogies he has drawn from the other fenfes to fhew how much fmoptbnefs is effential to it, that pofition has been doubted ^ I hope * A perfon of the moft unqueftioned abilities and general accuracy of Judgment, but who had not paid much attention to this fubject, aflerted that a variety of obje&s were beautiful without the leaft fmoothnefs, and that the pi&urefque was always included either in the fubl ime or the beautiful. I afked him what he would call an old rugged mony oak, with branches twifted into fudden and irregular deviations, but which had no character of grandeur ? he faid, he fhould call it a pretty H 3 tree. [ 102 ] }iope it will not be thought prefumptuous in me to offer fome farther illuftrations on a fubjecl: he has treated fo copioully and in fo mafterly a manner. I am, indeed, highly interefted in the queftion, for if his principles are falfe, mine are equally fo. I imagine the doubt to have arifen from its being fuppofed that all that ftrongly attracts and captivates the eye is included in the fublime and the beautiful ; but I cannot help flattering myfelf, that the having confidered and compared the three chara&ers together has thrown a reci- procal light on each 5 and that the pic- turefque fills up a vacancy between the fublime' and the beautiful, and accounts for the pleafiire we receive from many pbje&s on principles diftindt from either, which obje&s mould therefore be placed jon a feparate clafs. tree. He would probably have been furprifed if I had palled one of Rembrant's old hags a pretty woman ; and yet they are as much alike as a tree and a woman can well be. One [ 1*3 ] One principal efFecl: of fmoothnefs, and to which perhaps it owes its fo general power of pleafing, is, that it gives an ap- pearance of quiet and repofe to all objects ; * roughnefs, on the contrary, a fpirit and animation. Thefe feem to me likewife the * By roughnefs I mean what is in any way contrary to fmoothnefs j whatever is rough, rugged, or angular, whether the object be poliflied or unpolifhed. Accord- ing to this definition, poliflied furfaces if cut into an- gles, as poliflied fteel, glafs, or diamond, can no longer be confidered as fmooth objects, though parts of them will be fmooth. A diamond when fmooth has, like other poliflied fur- faces, a confiderable degree of ftimulus, but when its furface is cut into fharp points and angles, it becomes infinitely more ftimulating : it is by means of thefe angles, of thefe fliarp points, that a diamond acquires its diftinguiflied title of a brilliant ; without them a piece of cut-glafs (as it is termed) would deferve it better. Again (to confider broken lights in another point of view) we can bear the full uninterrupted fplendor of the fetting fun, nay, can gaze on the orb itfelf with little uneafinefs, but when its rays are broken by pafling through a thin fcreen of leaves and branches (as in a lane) no eye is proof againft the ir- ritation, H 4 moft [ 104 J moft prevailing effects of the beautiful and the pidurefque; thefe the means by which they generally operate, and if thefe pre- mifes are true, it will be juft to conclude, that where there is a want of fmoothnefs there is a want of repofe, and consequently of beauty ; and on the other hand, that where there is no roughnefs there is a want of fpirit and ftimulus, and confe- quently of picturefquenefs. The fenfe of feeing (as I before ob- ferved) is fo much indebted to that of feel- ing for a number of ks perceptions, thaj there is no confidering the one abftradediy from the other • he therefore would reafon very ill on the effeds of vifion, who mould leave out our ideas of rough and fmooth, of hard and foft, of thicknefs, diftance, &c. becaufe they were originally acquired by the touch, I fhould on that account fup- pofe, that befides the real irritation which they produce by means of broken lights, all broken rugged furfaces have alfo, by Sympathy, fympathy, fomething of the fame effe& oh the fight as on the touch ; and if it be true (as it probably will be acknowledg- ed) that fmooth furfaces, where there is po immediate irritation from light, give a repofe to the eye, rugged and broken ones muft produce a contrary impref- fion. But though it feems highly probable that broken and angular furfaces, both from fympathy and from real irritation of the organ, Simulate more than fuch as are fmooth, yet the ftimulus from whence the moft conftant and marked effects proceed, that which in a peculiar manner belongs to the picturefque, and diftinguifhes it frpm the beautiful,— arifes principally from its tWQ great characterises, intricacy and variety, as produced by roughnefs and fudden deviation, and as oppofed to the comparative monotony of fmootbnefs and flowing lines. If we take any fmootb object, whofe lines [ 106 ] lines are flowing, fuch as a down of the fineft turf with gently fwelling knolls and hillocks of every foft and undulating form, though the eye may repofe on this with pleafure, yet the whole is feen at once, and no farther curiolity is excited ; but let thofe fwelling knolls (without altering the fcale) be changed into bold broken pro- montories, with rude overhanging rocks ; inftead of the fmooth turf, let there be furze, heath, or fern, with open patches between, and fragments of rocks and large ftones lying in irregular mafTes, it is clear, on the fuppofition of thefe two fpots being of the fame extent and on the fame fcale, that the whole of the one may be compre- hended immediately, and that if you tra- verfe it in every direction little new can occur; while in the other every ftep changes the whole of the compofition. Then each of thefe broken promontories and fragments have as many fuddenly va- rying forms and afpedts as they have breaks, even [ ioj ] jeven without light and fhade ; but when the fun does mine upon them, each break is the occaiion of fome brilliant light op- pofed to fome fudden fhadow : All thefe deep coves, hollows, and fiflures invite the eye to penetrate into their recelTes, yet keep its curiofity alive and unfatisfied ; whereas in the other, the light and fhadow has the fame uniform unbroken character as the ground itfelf. I have in both thefe fcenes avoided any mention of trees ; for in all trees of every growth there is a comparative roughnefs and intricacy, which, unlefs counteracted by great fkill in the improver, will always prevent abfolute monotony : Yet the dif- ference between thofe which appear plant- ed or cleared for the purpofe of beauty, and where the ground is perfectly fmooth about them, and thofe which are wild and uncleared, and the ground of the fame character, is very apparent. Take, for in- stance, any open grove where the trees, though { i Q 8 ] though neither in rows nor at equal dis- tances, are detached from each other, and cleared from all underwood ; the turf on which they ftand fmooth and level, and their {terns difti nelly feen ; fuch a grove of full-grown flourifhing trees,, that have had room to extend their heads and branches,, is defervedly called beautiful; and if a gravel road winds caAlv through it, the whole will be in charade- But whoever has been amqng forerts, and has feen the effect of wild tangled thickets opening into glades half, feep acrofs the ftems of old flag-headed, oaks and twitted beeches, and of the irregular tracks of wheels, of men, and of animals, feeking or forcing their way in every di- rection, mult have felt how differently the itimulus of curiolity is excited in two fuch fcenes ; and the effect of the lights and fhadows is exactly in proportion to the in- tricacy of the objects. From all tjhig it appears, that as a cec T tain t log ] tain degree of flimulus or irritation is ne- ceffary to the pidurefque, fo, on the Other hand, a loft and plealing repofe is equally ' the efFetf: and the charafteriftie of the beautiful. The peculiar beauty of the moft beau- tiful of all landfcape painters is characT:er- ifed byil ripofo di Claudio, and when the mind of man is in the delightful ftate of repofe, of which Claude's pictures £rc the image, — when he feels that mild and equal funfhine* of the foul which warms and cheers, but neither inflames nor irri- tates,- — his heart feems to dilate with hap* pinefs, he is difpofed to every adt of kind- neis and benevolence, to love and cherifh all around him. Thefe are the fenfetions that beauty, con fidered generally, and with- out any diftindtion of mature or fex, does and ought to infpire. A mind in fuch a ftate is like a pure and tranquil lake, the flighted impulfe on whofe furface excites a correfpondent motion in its waters, which gently expand themfelves on every * fides [ *** 3 fide ; but if the heavieft mafs be 'thrown into a rapid itream the effect is fhort-* lived; if into a river tumbling over ftones, or darning among rocks, it is momentary } this is an emblem of irritation as the other of repofe. Irritation* is indeed the fource of our moft active and lively pleafures, but its nature, ft&e the pleafures which fpring frqm it, is eager, hurrying, impetuous* and when the mind is agitated, from what- ever caufe, thofe mild and foft emotions which flow from beauty, and of which * I am aware that irritation is generally ufed in a bad fenfe, rather as a fource of pain than of pleafure j but that is the cafe with many words and expreffions which relate to our more eager and tumultuous emo- tions, and feems to point out their diftina nature and origin. We talk of the ftings of pleafure, of being goaded on by defire. The god of love (and who will deny love to be a fource of pleafure?) is armed with flames, with envenomed fliafts, with every inftrumenr of irritation : Of all that breathes, the various progeny, Stung with delight, is goaded on by thee. beauty [ "I ] beauty is the genuine fource, are fcarcely perceived. Let thofe who have been ufed to obferve the works of nature reflect on their fenfations when viewing the fmooth and tranquil fcene of a beautiful lake, — or the wild, abrupt, and noify one of a pi&urefque river : I think they will own them to have been as different as the fcenes themfelves, and that nothing but the poverty of language makes us call two fenfations fo diftindt from each other by the common name of pleafure. Having confidered the effects of repofe and irritation as caufed by the fixed pro- perties of material objects, I will now ex- amine how they are produced by what is immaterial and uncertain ; and how far the various accidents of light and fhadow (two oppofite though almoft infeparable ideas, and which therefore in the language of painters are often combined into one) correfpond with the inherent qualities of objects, and with their operation on the mind. * Nothing t II* 3 Nothing is more obvious than that all ftrong and brilliant lights, all fud- den ccntrafts of them with deep ma- do ws, ftimulatc the Organ of fight. It is equally obvious that all foft quiet lights, and fuch as infenfibly melt into fhadow, and emerge from it again in the fame gradual manner, give a pleafing * re- pofe to the eye. Thefe pofitions will be moft aptly illujftrated, and their applica- tions to the beautiful and the picturefque moft clearly pointed out by attending to the practice of two painters whofe works are in the higheft efteem, and the ftyle and character of them eftablifhed by ger neral confent. * It is this charm of repofe and of foftnefs that poets lay fo much ftrefs on when they defcribe the beauties of moon-light, which many of them feem to do with peculiar fondnefs : " Now reigns cc Full-orVd the moon, and with more pleafing light « Shadowy fets off the face of tilings.' * And that feeling paflage in Shakefpear : * How fweet the moon-light Jletps upon yon bank." The [ xi 3 ] The genius of Rubens was ftrongly turned to the picturefque difpofition. of his figures, fo as often to facrifice every other confideration to the intricacy, contrail:, and ftriking variations of his groupes. Such a difpofition of objects feems to call for fomething limilar in the management of the light and made, and accordingly we owe the moft {hiking examples of both to his fertile invention. In point of brilli- ancy, of fuch extreme fplendour of light as is on the verge of glare*, no pictures can Hand in competition with thofe of Rubens : fometimes thofe lights are almoft unmixed with made ; at other times they burfl from dark fhadows, they glance on the different parts of the picture, and pro- duce that flicker (as it fometimes is called) fo captivating to the eye; but fo * I fpeak of thofe pictures (and they are very nume- rous) in which he aimed at great brilliancy. As no one pofleffed more entirely all the principles of his art, on fome occafions the folemn breadth of his light and lhade is as (Inking as its force and fplendour on others. I dangerous [ iH 1 dangerous when attempted by inferior artifls, and lefs mafters of the principles of harmony than that great painter. All thefe dazzling effete are heightened by the fpirited management of his pencil, by thofe marp animated touches* that give life and energy to every object. Correggio's * Many painters, when they reprefent any ftriking effeas of light, leave the touches of the pencil more rou-h and ftrongly marked than the quality of the objects themfelves feems to juftify. Rembrant, who fucceeded beyond all others in thefe forcible efTea S >. carried alfo this method of creating them farther than any other mafter. Thole who have feen his famous piaure in the fladthoufe at Amfterdam may remember a figure highly illuminated, whofe drefs is a filver tifiue, with fringes, taffels, and other ornaments nearly of the fame brilliant colour. It is the mod furpnfing infhmce I ever faw of the effea of that rough manner of pencil- ling, in producing what moil nearly approaches to the glitter, and to the irritation which is caufed by real light when afting powerfully on any objeas and this too, with a due attention to general harmony, and with fuch a commanding truth of reprefentation as no high finifhing can give. It feems to me, that this may be accounted for on the principle I have before mentioned, of roughnefs in material objeas being a caufe of irritation : light in itfelt [ »5 ] Correggio's principal attention (in point of form) was directed to flow of outline and gradual variation ; of this he ne- ver entirely loft fight even in his moft capricious fore- fhortenjngs j and his ftyle of light and fhadow is fo congenial, that the one feems the natural confe- rence of the other. He is always cited as the mod perfect model of thofe foft and infenfible tranfitions, of that union of effect, which, above every thing elfe, imprefles the general idea of loveli- nefs. The manner of his pencilling is exactly of a piece with the reft all feems melted together, yet with fo nice a judg- ment as to avoid, by fome of thofe free yet itfelf has nothing that bears any relation to rough or fmooth ; but when ftrong, irritates in a high degree : As painting cannot attain to the full fplendour even of re- flected light, and as that fplendour acts by ftimulating, it is natural that painters fhould have helped out the inef- ficiency of the art by fome other ftimulus, and by in- creaiing the irritating quality of the object illuminated, have ftrove to make a nearer approach to that of light itfelf. I 2 delicate [ "6 ] delicate touches, the hardnefs as well as the infipidity of what is called high nnifh- ing. Correggio's pictures are indeed as far removed from monotony as from glare ; he feems to have felt beyond all others the exact degree of brilliancy that accords with the foftnefs of beauty, and to have been, with regard to figures, what Claude was in landscape. The pictures of Claude are brilliant hi a high degree i but that brilliancy is fp difFufed over the whole of them, fo hap- pily balanced, it is fo mellowed and fub- dued by that almofl: vifible atmofphere which pervades every part, and unites all together, that nothing in particular catches the eye ; the whole is fplendor, the whole is repofe ; every thing lit up, every thing in fweeteft harmony. Rubens in his landfcapes differs as ftrongly from Claude as he does from Correggio in his figures ^ they are full of the peculiarities and pic- turefque accidents in nature ; of ftriking qpntrafts of form, colour, and light and ihadow i C "7 ] fhadow; fun-beams burfting through a fmall opening in a dark wood — a rainbow againft a ftormy fky— effects of thunder and lightning — torrents rolling down trees torn up by the roots, and the dead bodies of men and animals ; with many other fublime and piclurefque circum- ftances. Thefe fudden gleams, thefe ca- taracts of light, thefe bold oppofitions of clouds and darknefs, which he has fo no- bly introduced, would deftroy all the beauty and elegance of Claude : On the other hand, the mild and equal fun- mine * of that charming painter would as ill accord * Nothing is fo captivating, or feems fo much to ac- cord With our ideas of beauty, as the fmiles of a beauti- ful countenance; yet they have fometimes a ftriking mixture of the other character. Of this kind are thofe fmiles which break out fuddenly from a ferious, fome- times from almoft a fevere countenance, and which, when that gleam is over, leave no trace of it behind — Like to the lightning in a collied night, Which e'er a man has time to fay, behold J The jaws of darknefs do devour it up,. This accord with the twitted and angular forms, and the bold and animated variety of the landfcapes of Rubens, Thefe few inftances from the art of painting (and miny more might eafily be produced) mew how much foftnefs, fmoothnefs, gradual variation of form, in- fenfible tranlitions from light to fhadow, and general repofe, are the charaderiftic marks of artifts moft renowned for beau- ty ; and thefe caufes operate fo powerfully when united, that notwithftanding the This fudden effect is often hinted at by the Italian poets, as appears by their allufion to the moftlfudden and dazzling of lights j— gli fcintiUa un rto-hmpeggia un rho — il balenar d'un rifo. There is another fmile which feems in the fame de- gree to accord with the ideas of beauty only : It is that fmile which proceeds from a mind full of fweetneis and fenfibility, and which, when it is over, ftiU leaves on the countenance its mild and amiable impreffion > as after the fun is fet, the mild glow of his rays is ftill diffufed over every objeft. This fmile, with the glow that ac- companies it, is beautifully painted by Milton, as moft becoming an inhabitant of heaven : To whom the angel, with a fmile that glow'd Celeftial rofy red, love's proper hue, Thus amwer'd. pure [ *tt 3 pure outline, and the happy mixture of the antique character in Raphael, the angelic air of Guido, and the peculiar and feparate beauties of other painters, I believe that moll people, if they were alked what pic- tures (taking every circumflance toge- ther) appeared to them moll beautiful, and had left the fofteft and moll plealing imprelTion, they would give it for Correg- gio.~ In beauty of landfcape Claude has no competitor. I 4 CHAP- f 12° ] CHAPTER VII. THESE effefts of harmony and re- pofe naturally lead me to that great principle of the art of * painting (for it is the great connecting and harmonizing principle of nature) breadth of light and fhadow. What is called breadth feems to bear nearly the fame relation to light and fha- dow as fmoothnefs does to material ob- jects; for as all uneven furfaces caufe more irritation than thofe which are fmooth, and thofe moft of all that are broken into little inequalities, fo thofe lights and fha- dows that are fcattered and broken are * Or rather, in a more juft and comprehenfjve view, of that art which chiefly, by means of light and fhadow, bodies forth the forms of things from a plain furface,and which, being independent of colours, includes every fpecies of drawing and engraving. infinitely [ "I ] infinitely more irritating than thofe which are broad and continued. Every perfon of the lealt obfervation muft have remarked how broad the lights and fhadows are on a fine evening in nature, or (what is al- moft the fame thing) in a picture of Claude. He mull equally have remark- ed the extreme difference between fuch lights and fhadows, and thofe meagre and frittered ones that fometimes difgrace the works of painters in other refpects of great excellence, and which prevail in na- ture when the fun-beams, refracted and difperfed in every direction by a number of white flickering clouds, create a perpe- tually fhifting glare, and keep the eye in a Hate of conflant irritation. All fuch accidental effects arifmg from clouds, though they flrongly mew the general principle, and are highly proper to be ftudied by all lovers of painting or of na- ture, yet not being fubject to our con- troul, are of lefs ufe to improvers; -a great deal however is fubject to our controul, and [ ] and I believe we may lay it down as a very general maxim, that in proportion as the objects are fcattered, unconnected, and in patches, the lights and fhadows will be fo too, and vice verfa. If, for inftance, we fuppofe a continued fweep of hills, either entirely wooded or entirely bare, and under the influence of a low cloudlefs fun ; whatever parts are ex- pofed to that fun will have one broad light upon them, whatever are hid from it one broad made. If we again fuppofe this wood to have been thinned in fuch a man- ner as to have left mafles, groupes, and iingle trees fo difpofed as to prefent a pleafing and connected whole, though with detached parts ; or, if we fuppofe the bare •hills to have been planted in the fame ftyle, the variety of light and fhadow will be greatly increafed, and the general breadth ft ill be prefer ved ; nor would that breadth be injured if an old ruin, a cot- tage, or any building of a quiet tint was difcovered among the trees. But if the 8 wood r i2 3 i wood were fo thinned as to have a poor, fcattered, unconnected appearance ; or the hills planted in clumps, patches, and de- tached trees, the lights and lhadows would have the fame broken disjointed effect as the objects themfelves. If to this were added any harm contraft, fuch as clumps of firs and white buildings, the irritation would be greatly increafed. In all thefe cafes, the eye, inftead of repofing on one broad connected whole, is ftopt and har- raffed by little difunited difcordant parts: I of courfe fuppofe the fun to act on thefe different objeds with equal fplendour; for there are fome days when the whole Iky is fo full of jarring lights, that the iha- dieft groves and avenues hardly preferve their folemnity; and there are others when the atmofphere (like the lait glazing of a picture) foftens into mellownefs whatever is crude throughout the landfcape. This is peculiarly the effect of * twilight; For * Milton, whofe eyes feem to have been moft fea- ilbly a/FeSed by every accident and gradation of light, (ani t 124 ] for at that delightful time even artificial water, however naked, edgy, and tame its banks, will often receive a momentary charm, when all that is fcattered and cut- ting, all that difgufts a painter's eye, is blended together in one broad and footb- ing harmony of light and fhadow. I have more than once at fuch a moment hap- pened to arrive at a place entirely new to me, and have been ftruck in the higheft (and that poflibly in a great degree from the weaknefs, and confequently the irritability of thofe organs) (peaks always of twilight with peculiar pleafure. He has e\en reverfed what Socrates did by philofophy; he has called up twilight from earth and placed it in heaven : From that high mount of God whence light and made Spring forth, the face of brighteft heaven had chang'd To grateful twilight. What is alfo lingular, he has in this paflage made fhade an effence equally with light, not merely a priva- tion of it; a compliment never, I believe, paid to flaa* dow before, but which might be expeded from his averfion to glare fo frequently and ftrongly expreffed X Hide me from day's gar'ijh eye. When the fun begins to fling His flaring beams. degree [ i*i ] degree with the appearance of wood, wa- ter, and buildings, that feemed to accom- pany and fet off each other in the happieft manner, and have felt impatient to exa- mine all thefe beauties by day-light : # Af length the morn and cold indifference came." The charm which held them together, and made them acl lb powerfully as a whole, was gone. It may perhaps be faid, that the imagi- nation, from a few imperfeel hints, may form beauties which have no exigence, and that indifference may naturally arife from thofe phantoms not being realized. I am far from denying the power of par- tial concealment and obfeurity on the ima- gination ; but in thefe cafes the fame fet of objefts, when feen by twilight, is often beautiful as a picture, and would appear highly fo if exactly reprefented on the canvafs; but in full day- light the fun, as it were, decompounds what had been fo hap- pily mixed together, and feparates a ilrik- [ 126 J / _ Ing whole into detached unimprefiivc parts. Nothing I believe, would be of more Service in forming a tafte for general effed and general compofition, than to obferve the fame fcenes after fun-fet, and in the fall diftindnefs of day. In fact, twilight does what an improver ought to do ; it connects what was before fcattered ; it fills up flaring, meagre vacancies ; it deftroys cdginefs, and by giving toadow as well .as light to water, at once increafes both its brilliancy and (oftnefs. It muft however be obferved, that twilight, while it takes ejFthe edginefs of thofe objeds which are below, the horizon, more fenfibly marks the outline of thofe which are oppofed to the ffcy, and confcquently difcovers the defeds as well as the beauties of their forms. From this circumftance, improvers may learn a very ufeful leffon, that the outline againft the fky ihould be particularly at. tended to, fo that nothing lumpy, meagre, difcordant mould be there j at all times, in fuch a fituation, the form is made out, but t ] hut mod of all when twilight has melted the other parts together. At that time many varied and elegant fhapes of trees and groupes diftindlly appear, which were fcarcely noticed in the more general dif- fusion of light | then too the ftubborn clump (which before was but too plainly feen) makes a frill fouler blot on the ho- rizon ; while there is a glimmering of light he maintains his pod:, nor yields till even his hlacknefs is at laft confounded in the general blacknefs of night. Thefe are the powers and effecls of that breadth I have been defcribing ; it is a fource of vifual pleafure diftindt from all others ; for objects which in themfelyes are neither beautiful, fubiimc, nor pidu- refque, are incidentally made to delight the eye from their being productive of breadth. This feems to account for the pleafure we receive from many maffive heavy obje£ts,*which, when deprived of the effect of that harmonizing principle, and confidered lliigly, are even politively UL'ly, t 12% ] ng!v. Such, indeed, is the effect of breadth, that pictures or drawings emi- nently poffeffed of it, though they mould have no other merit, will always attract the attention of a cultivated eye before others where the detail is admirable, but where this mailer-principle is wanting. The mind, however, requires to be Simu- lated as well as foothed, and there is in this, as in fo many other inftances, a ftrong analogy between painting and mu- iic : the firft effect of mere breadth of light and fhadow is to the eye what that of mere harmony of founds is to the ear; both produce a pleafmg repofe, a calm fober de- light, which, if not relieved by fomething lefs uniform, foon links into diftafte and wearinefs j for repofe and lleep are often fynonymous terms, and always nearly al- lied. But as the principle of harmony muft be preferved in the wildett and moft eccentric pieces of mufic, in thofe where fudden and quickly varying emotions of the foul are expfeffed, fo that of breadth. t 129 ] ThuA be in fcenes of buftle and feemirig confufioni and where the wildeft fcenery or moft violent agitations of nature are reprefented ; and one may here parody that frequently quoted paffage of Shakef- peare, " in the very torrent, tempeft, and whirlwind of the elements, the artift, ia painting them, muft acquire a breadth that will give them fmoothnefs." There is, however, no fmall difficulty in uniting breadth with the detail, the fplendid variety, and marked character of nature, Claude is admirable in this as in almoft every other refpedt; with the greateft accuracy of detail, and truth of character, his pidures have the breadth of the fimpleft warned drawing, or aqua- tinta print, where little elfe is exprerfed or intended, In a ftrong light they are full of interefting and entertaining particulars j and as twilight comes on (an effeft I have obferved with great delight) they have the fame gradual fading of the glimmering landfcape as in real nature, & This I 13° 3 This art of preferving breadth with detail and brilliancy has been iludied with great fuccefs by Teniers, Ian Steen, and many of the Dutch matters. Oilade's pictures and etchings are among the hap- piefl examples of it ; but above all others, the works of that fcarce and wonderful mailer, Gerard Dow. His eye feems to have had a microfcopic power in regard to the minute texture of obje&s (for in his paintings they bear the fevere trial of the ■ftrongeft magnifier) and at the fame time the oppofite faculty of excluding all parti- culars with refped to breadth and general effect His mailer, Rembrant, though he did not attend to minute detail, yet by that commanding manner of marking, with equal force and juftnefs, the leading cha- racter of each object, produced an idea of detail much beyond what is really ex- preffed. Many of the great Italian mas- ters have done this alfo, and with a taile, and a grandeur and noblenefs of ftile un- known to the inferior fchools, though none [ x 3* ] frene have exceeded or even equalled Rembrant in truth, force, and efTed. But ■ when artifts, neglecting the variety of detail, and thofe characterise features that well fupply its places content themfelves with mere breadth, and propofe that as the final object of attainment, their produc- tions, and the intereft excited by them, will be, in comparifon of the ftyles I have mentioned, what a metaphyseal treatife is to Shakefpeare or Fielding } they will be rather illuftrations of a principle than re- prefentations of what is real; a fort of ab- il-ract idea of nature, not very unlike Grambe's abftract idea of a lord mayor. As nothing is more flattering to the vanity and indolence of mankind, than the being able to produce a pleafing general effect with little labour or ftudy, fo no- thing more obstructs the progrefs of the art than fuch a facility : yet ftill thefe ab- ftracts are by no means without their comparative merit, and they have their ufe as well as their danger; they mew how much may be effected by the mere K 2 naked [ i* ] naked principle, and the great fnperi- ority that alone gives to whatever i& formed upon it, over thofe things which are done on no principle at all >, where the feparate obje&s are fet down as it were article by article, and where the confufion of lights fo perplexes the eye, that one might fuppofe the artift had looked at them through a multiplying glafs. I may, perhaps, be thought to have dwelt longer on this article than the prin- cipal defign of my book feemed to require; but though (as I mentioned in a former part) the ftudy of light and fhadow ap- pears, at firft fight, to belong exclufively to the painter, yet, like every thing which relates to that charming art, it will be found of infinite fervice to the improver j indeed, the violations of this principle of breadth and harmony of light and fhadow are, perhaps, more frequent, and more difguftingly ofFenfive than thofe of any other. Some people feem to have a lort of callus over their organs of fight, as others over r j 33 ] over thofe of hearing ; and as the callous hearers feel nothing in mufic but kettle- drums and trombones, fo the callous fe-ers can .only be moved by ftrong oppositions of black and white, or fiery * reds. I am therefore fo far from laughing at Mr. Locke's blind man for likening fcarlet to the found of a trumpet, that I think he had great reafon to pride himfelf (as he did) on the difcovery. The natural colour of brick one might reafonably fuppofe was furhciently ftimu- lating ; but I have feen brick houfes paint- ed of fo much more flaming a red, that (to ufe Mr. Brown's expreffion) they put the whole vale in a fever. White, though glaring, has not that hot fultry appearance, and there is fuch a look of neatnefs and gaiety in.it, that one cannot be furprifed * Though red properly belongs to colouring,as it can- not be expreffed by a mere black and white drawing or engraving ; yet, where a tint is fo glaring as to deftroy the harmony of colouring, I am apt to think it will have the fame effect on breadth of light and fhadovv. K 3 if, [ 134 ] if, where lime is cheap, only one idea fhould prevail — that of making every thing as white as poffible. Wherever this is the cafe, the whole landfcape is full of little fpots, which can only be made pleafing to a painter's eye by their being almoft buried in trees j but where a coun- try is without natural wood, and is improved by dint of * white- warn and clumps of firs, * I wifh to be underftood, that when I fpeak of white- wain and whitened buildings, I mean that glaring white which is produced by lime alone, or without a fufficient quantity of any lowering ingredient ; for there cannot be a greater or a more immediate improvement, than that of giving to a fiery brick building the tint of a ftone one. No perfon, 1 believe, has any doubt that ftone (fuch as Bath and Portland, and many lefs renowned, under the ge- neral name of free-ftone) is the moft beautiful material for building, and I imagine there is no inftance of an archi- tect's having painted fuch ftones white in order to make them more beautiful, though dingy or red ftone may ibmetimes have been painted of a free ftone colour. The true object of imitation feems therefore to be the tint of a beautiful ftone, and if thofe who whiten their buildings would pique themfelves on matching exactly the colour of Bath or Portland, ftone, fo as to be neither whiter nor yellower, the greateft neatnefs and gaiety might prevail without glare. a painter t 135 ] a painter (were he confined there) would be abfolutely driven to defpair, and feel ready to renounce, not only his art, but his eye fight. One of the moft charming effects of funfhine is its giving to objects not merely light, but that mellow golden hue, fo beautiful in itfelf, and which, when dif- fufed, as in a fine evening, over the whole landfcape, creates that rich union and har- mony fo enchanting in nature and in Claude ; but if either in Claude or in nature any one object mould be introduced of fo glaring a white as not to partake of that general hue *, the whole attention, in fpite * From that analogy fo often mentioned, it is ufual to fay that an obje£f. in a picture or in nature is out of tune. The expreffion is perfectly juft; in munc one note out of tune will invincibly fix our attention upon it, and feveral diftrad it; and in either cafe it is irnpof* llble to enjoy the harmony of the reft. There is, how- ever, this difference; a paffing note out of tune is quickly over, but a glaring obje£t is like an eternal holding note held firmly out of tune, and which, in that K 4 cafe [ i3« ] fpite of all our efforts to the contrary, will be drawn to that one point ; if there are feveral, the eye will be diffracted between them. Again, to confider it in another view i when the fun breaks out in gleams there is fomething that delights and fur- prifes in feeing an object, before only vi- fible, lit up in fplendour, and then gradu- ally finking into made again. But a whitened object is already lit up ; it re- mains fo when every thing has retired into obfcurity ; it ftill forces itfelf into notice, ftill impudently flares you in the face. A cottage of a quiet colour, half con- cealed among trees, with its bit of garden, its pales and orchard, is one of the moll tranquil and foothing of all rural objects, and when the fun flrikes upon it, and dif- cafe well deferves the name an unmufical friend once gave to holding notes in general j ? I don't know what you call them," faid he, " I mean one of thofe long jioifes.'? covers [ 137 ] covers a number of lively picturefque cuv cumfTances, one of the moft chearful j but if c)eared round and whitened, its modeft retired character is gone, and fucceeded by a perpetual glare. ounfhine, when it gilds fome object of a fober tint, is like a fmile that lights up a ferious countenance a * whitened object is like the eternal grin of a fool. Befides the glare, there is another cir- .cumftance that often renders white-wafh extremely offenfive to the eye (efpecially when it is applied to any uneven furface) and that is, a fmeared, cloggy, dirty ap- pearance. This is the cafe with old or rough ftone work dabbed with white, and the black left between the joints; and * Even very white teeth (where excefs of whitenefs is leaft to be feared) if feen too much, have often a kind of filly look that feems to belong to the part itfelf : no- thing can be more chara&eriftic of that effect, than the well known expreffion of, the gentleman with the foolifli teeth. Thofe gentlemen who deal much in pure white- wafh might well be diftinguifhed by the fame compli- pent being paid to their buildings. With [ 138 1 with cottages, where the coarfe wood- work that feparates the plaiftered walls is hrufhed over as well as the fmooth walls themfelves : In thefe, however, the object is inconftdcrable, and the effect in propor- tion , but when this pitiful taffe is employ- ed upon fome ancient caftle-like manfion, or the mofly weather- ftained tower of an old church, it becomes a fort of facrilege. Such a building daubed over and plaiftered is, next to a painted old woman, the mo ft difgufting of all attempts at improvement; on both, when left in their natural ftate, time often ftamps a plealing and venera- ble impreffion ; but when thus fophifti- cated, they have neither the freflinefs of youth, nor the mellow picturefque cha- racter of age, and inftead of becoming attractive, are only made horribly confpi- cuous. I am afraid it will not be eafy to check the general pamon for djftin&nefs and confpicuity. Each prolpect hunter (a s, mofh [ »39 3 moft numerous tribe) like the heroic Ajax, forms but one prayer ; Let them fee but clearly, and fee enough, they are content ; and much may be faid in their favour ; compofition, grouping, breadth and effect of light and fhadow, harmony of colours, &c. are comparatively attended to and enjoyed by few ; but ex- tenfive profpects are the moft popular of all views, and their refpe&ive fuperiority is generally decided by the number of churches and counties. DiftinCtnefs is therefore the great point; a painter may wifli feveral hills of bad fhapes, and thoufands of uninterefting acres, to be Covered with one general (hade ; but to him who is to reckon up his counties, the lofs of a black or a white fpot, of a clump or a gazabo, is the lofs of a voucher. Then again, as the profpect fhewer has great pleafure and vanity in pointing out [ HO ] put thefe vouchers, fo the improver, oit his fide, has full as much in being pointed at, and therefore one cannot wonder that fo many hills are marked with thefe bea- cons of tafte, and fp many churches con- yerted into them. c n a p- [ I 4 I 1 CHAPTER VIIL I HAVE hitherto endeavoured to trace the pi&urefque in all that relates to form, and to the effects of light and fhade ; I have endeavoured to diftinguifh it from the beautiful and the fublime, and to lliew the general influence of breadth on them all. It now remains to examine how far the fame general principles hold good with regard to colours. Mr. Burke's idea of the beautiful in colour feems to me in the higher! degree fatisfaclory, and to correfpond with all his other ideas of beauty. I muft obferve at the fame time, that the beautiful in colour is of a pofitive and independent nature, whereas, in that refpecT:, the fublime in colour is in a great degree relative, and depends on other eircumflances , [ 142 ] circumftances. A beautiful colour is a, common and a juft expreffion ; no one he- fkates whether be fhall give that title to the leaf of a rofe, or to the fmalleft bit of it; but though the deep gloomy tint of the fky before a ftorm, and its effect on all nature, is fublime, no one would call that colour (whether a dark blue or purple, of whatever it might be) a fublime colour, if fimply fhewn him without the other accompanimen ts . It is as little the cuftom to fpeak of picturefque colours as of fublime ones ; there are many, however, that without impropriety might be called fo, as having nothing of the foftnefs, frefhnefs, and de- licacy of beauty, but which are generally found in fcenes highly picturefque, and ad- mirably accord with them. As that term has ufually a reference (though not an ex- clulive one) to the art from which it is named, fo it may be remarked that painters, from having obferved the deep, rich, and mellow effects of thefe colours, have been particularly [ i43 J particularly fond of introducing them into their piclures, and fometimes to the abfo* lute exclufion of thofe that are more ftrictly beautiful ; fuch, for inftance, are the brown tints of autumn, many of the various gra- dations in the tints of foil in broken ground, and in the decayed parts of old trees ; fuch the weather ftains, and many of the moifes on ft ones and trunks of trees, with a thoufand more equally diftincl; from thofe that are beautiful. If to thefe are oppofed the foft and tender colours of the Items of young trees, the frefh greens of fpring both in trees and herbage, its flowers and bloflbms, it will mew in how many inftances piclurefque colours as well as forms arife from age and decay. Autumn (which is metaphysically ap- plied to the decline of human life, when " fallen into the fere, the yellow leaf) and not the fpring, the doice primavera, gio- ventu dell' anno, is generally called the painter's feafon. And yet there is fome- thing fo very delightful in the real charms Of t H4 1 of fpring, as well as in the arTociated ideas of the renewal of life and vegetation, that it feems a perverfion of our natural feel- ings to prefer to all its blooming hopes th£ firft. bodings of the approach of winter. Autumn muft therefore have very pow- erful attractions, though of a different kind, and which mult be intimately connected with the art of painting ; for that reafon * as the picturefque (though equally found- ed in nature with the beautiful) has been pointed out, illuftrated, and as it were brought into light by that art, an inquiry into the reafons why autumn, and not fpring, is called the painter's feafon, will, I imagine, give great additional infight into the diftinct characters of the picturefque and the beautiful, efpecially with regard to colour. If there is any thing in the univerfal range of the arts that is peculiarly re- quired to be a whole, it is a picture : in pieces ^ of mufic, particular movements may, without injury, be feparated from the I 145 j the whole, and in every fpecles of pdetry, and of writing in general, detached fcenes, epifodes, fknzas, &c. may be confidered and enjoyed by themfelves ; nor, indeed, is it every mind that, in the progrefs of a work of any length, can obferve and re- tain the connection of the different parts, and their dependanee on each other : But in a picture, the forms, tints, lights and fliadows ; all their combinations, effects, agreements, and oppofitions, are at once fubjected to the eye, all at one glance brought into comparifon ; and, therefore, however beautiful particular colours may be— however gay and brilliant the lights - if they want union, breadth, and harmony., the picture wants its moft effential qua- lity — it is not a whole* According to my ideas, therefore, it is from this circum- Itance of union and harmony, joined to that of richnefs, depth, and mellownefs of tint, that the decaying charms of autumn often triumph, in the painter s eye, over the frefh and blooming beauties of fpring* L The f H6 J 'Hie colours of fpring defcrve the nams of beauty in the trueft fenfe of the word*, they have every thing that gives us that idea 3 freihnefs, gaiety, and livelmefs, with* foftnefs and delicacy. Their beauty, in- deed, is of all others the moft univerfalfy acknowledged; fo much fo, that from them* every companion and illuftration of beauty is taken; Trie earUef trees, befides the frefhnek of their colour, have a remarkable light-- nefs and tranfparency without nakednefs j. their new foliage' ferves as a decoration, not as a concealment,- and through it the forms of their limbs are feen as thofe of the human body under a thin drapery 3 a thou- fend quivering lights play around and- amidft their branches in every direction, even into the innermoft parts of the woods. The circumfiances that moft peculiarly diftinguifli- trees at this ieafon are charac- terized by Mr. Gray, m two lines of hie beautiful lyric fragment : And lightly o'er the Iking fcene Scatters his tendered frdheft green. t m 1 It feems to me, ? that from tliefe two lines/ in which the beauties of the early foliage have been fele&ed with fuch admirable tajfte and accuracy, may alfo be collected the reafons why thofe beauties are in gene- ral lefs happily adapted to painting. In order to produce a whole, painters deal very much in broad manes ; thefe are rarely compatible with a general air of lightnefs, ftill lefs with what is feat- tered. One might naturally fuppofe that frefH and tender greens, which are fo pleafmg in nature to every eye, would be equally fo on the canvas ; and fo they often are when balanced by other tints, but not when lightly fcattered, and over the ge r neral fcene. Fremnefs, in one fenfe, is fimply coolnefs, and I believe that idear in fome degree almoft always accompanies it $ and though in nature real funfhine (and poffibly from its real warmth as well as its fplendour) may give a glow and ani- mation to a landfcape entirely green, yet' nothing is more difficult m painting* or h 2, mtft& E 148 ] more rarely attempted; for who woalcf confine himfelf to cold monotony, when? all nature is full of examples of the greateft variety with the moft perfect harmony ? As the green of fpring, from its compa- rative coldnefs, is lefs favourable to land- fcape than the warm and mellow tints of autumn,- in like manner its flowers and bloi2bms,-from their too diftincl: and fplen- did variety, are apt to produce a glare and fpottinefs lb deftructive of that union and harmony which is the very e {fence of a picture cither ia nature or imitation. Whatever objects moft flroagly attract: the eye are of courfe moft apt to create fpots, and confequently none more fo- than * white objects ; and it k greatly on- that account that water fo particularly re- * I nu?ft beg leave to refer the reader to fome remark*' on this lubjccT. by Mr. Lock in Mr. Gilpin's Tour down the Wye, page 97, and which I fhould have inferted here were- not that book in every pcrfon's hands. It is impofilble to read thole remarks without regret- ting that the obfervations of a mind fo capable of en- lightening the public fhould be withheld from it; a re^ gret which thofe who have enjoyed the pteafure and ad- vantage of his conversion feel in a much higher. degree* quires [ H9 ] quires tlie accompaniment of trees, as they take off from the glare of its whitenefs. I therefore have often thought that the expreffion of a fine Jheet of water, which is always meant and taken as a compliment, is a very juft fatire on thofe naked, glaring imitations (if they be fo called) of lakes and rivers. A tree or bufti covered with white blof- foms fuggefts the fame idea of a white meet thrown over them ; and white meets fcattered about a landfcape would not very readily unite with other objects. The apple bloffoms, whofe colours when feen near, and when their different fhades and gradations can be difltinguifhed, are fo beautiful ; at a diftance lofe all their rich- nefs and variety : they appear only red, glaring, and /potty ; and the effecl: of a great number of orchards of pears, apples, and cherries in full Mow, ffrongly proves that red and white ought never to predo- minate in the * general landfcape. In * Having heard that at the time pf the .blow the whole County of Hereford.Iooked like a garden, I many years L 3 ago In the opening of fpring alfo, the con- traft is too ftrong between the early trees jn all their freftinefs of leaves, and gaiety pf blofibms, and the lifelefs boughs of the pale Pr afhi and no painter* I Wieve, has a eda»tic love of painting. The pro- fufion of frelh, gay, and beautiful colours, and of fweets, united with the ideas of fruitfulnefs, have altogether an effect fimilar to that of the fublimej they abforb for the moment all other confidcrations, and on a genial day in .fpring, and in a place where all its charms are difplayed, one feels the full force of that exclamation of Adam, when he firft wakened to the pleafure of exigence : & With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflowM." JL# 4 The [ ] The Midfummer {hoot relieves the uni* form green that immediately precedes it j in many trees (and in none more than the oak) the effect is Angularly beautiful ; the old foliage forms a dark back ground, on which the new appears relieved and de- tached in all its frefhnefs and brilliancy ; it is fpring engrafted upon fummer. This effecl:, however, is confined to the nearer objects ; the great general change in all vegetation from the green of fummer is produced by the firft frofts of autumn. Then begins that variety of rich glowing tints, which, at the early period of their change, fo admirably accord with each other, and form fo fplendid a whole ; fo fu- perior in depth and richnefs to thofe of any other part of the yenr. It has often ftruck me, that the whole fyftem of the Venetian colouring (parti- cularly that of Giorgione and Titian, which has been the great object of imita- tion) was formed upon the tints of autumn ; and from thence their pictures have that golden hue which gives them (as Sir Joihua Reynolds [ *53 ] Reynolds obferves) fuch a fuperiority over all others. Their trees, foregrounds, and every part of their landfcapes, have, more ftrongly than thofe of any other painters, the deep and rich browns of that feafon. The fame general hue prevails in the dra- peries of their figures, and even in their * flefh, which has neither the filver purity of Guido, nor the frefhnefs of Rubens, but a glow perhaps more enchanting than either. Sir Jofhua has remarked, that the filver purity of Guido is more fuited to beauty than that glowing golden hue of Titian : it was natural for him to mention Guido as being the painter who had mod fucceeded in beauty of form - y but with * A ftrong proof of this is in the Ganymede of TJ, tfan, in the Colonna palace, to which, by the order of the old cardinal. Carlo Maratt put a new flcy of the fame tone as thofe in his own pictures ; and one may fay, that none but fuch a pojd inilpid artitt could have borne to execute what fuch grofs unfeeling ignorance had com- manded : fuch a fky would have been a fevere trial to the flefti of any warm picture, but it makes that of the Ganymede appear almoft black ; which certainly would not have been the cafe if it had been painted by Rubens or Correggio, left [ *54 3 Icfs of that purity and evennefs of tint, there is a frefhnefs in that of Rubens which would admirably accord with beau- ty, though there are but few inftances in his works of fuch a union, It feems to me that if any one of the qualities which Mr. Burke has fo juftly given as efiential to beauty is more erTen- tial than the others, it is frefhnefs ; and jt is that which makes the moft diftinct line of ieparation between the beautiful and the picturefque in colouring % I mould on that account be inclined to call the Venetian ftyle of colouring, and that of Mola, of Dom. Feti, and others who have imitated it, the picturefque ftyle, as * Claude always mixed a much larger proportion of cool, frefh colours in his landfcapes than the Venetians jdid in theirs. In. fome of his early pictures, thofe cool tints prevail too much, and give them a cold fickly ap- pearance i his beft works, however, are entirely fr^e from that as well as the oppofite defedl, and his autho- rity for the due proportion of cool and warm colours which beauty requires, Is as high as any man's can bej for no one ftudied beauty more diligently, more fuecefs- fully, or for a greater number of years. \ [ i5S 3 being formed upon the deep and glowing tints of autumn, and not upon the frefti and delicate colours of fpring; and although this Venetian colouring may not upon the whole be fo congenial to the fublime as the feverei* ftyles of the Roman and Flo- rentine fchools, yet it is infinitely more fo than the frefher and more fenfual ftyle of * Rubens, or the filvery tone of Guido, and in that accords with the general cha- racter of the picturefque, more readily mixing with the fublime than the beautiful does. Sometimes alfo very grand effects are produced by means of thofe broken tints, that corruption of colours, as it is termed, which would not have been produced by the cutting ones of the Roman fchool, fuch * Rubens feems to have had fuch delight in beauty of tint, as often to have placed it where one of a ccarfer kind would have been more in character. I remember ob- ferving, in that wonderful fketch of a battle on a bridge in the Orleans collection, the knee of a robulr foldier of fo beautiful a carnation, blended with fuch pure white, as is only feen in the rapft delicate woman's com- plexion? t is* 3 as are feen in the * back-grounds and ikies of Titian. Many of Rubens's works have quite the frefhnefs of the early feafon of the year $ and the whole of that well-known picture of the Duke of Rutland's has the fpring- like hue of thofe flowers he has with fo gay and fpring-like a profufion (but ftill with a painter's judgment) thrown about it, But when Titian introduces flowers, they alfo are made to accord with his general principle; they are not the children of fpring ; they feem to belong to a later feafon ; and he fpreads over them an autumnal hue and atmofphere that would makeeyen Ru^. bens's flowers {much more thofe of a mere flower painter) look raw in comparifon. This leads me to obferve, that it is not * That, for jnftance, in the St. Margaret, at Lord Harcourt's, at Nuneham. Thofe of Rubens and Van- 4yke are frequently yery grand where the fubjed re- quired it, and in that refpedt they made T,itian and the Venetians their model. [ *57 J ©ally the change of vegetation that gives to autumn that golden hue, but alfo the atmofphere itfelf, and the lights and fha- dows which then prevail. In September and October the fun defcribes a much lower circle above the horizon than in May and April - y and confequently gives broader lights and fhadows during a much larger portion of the day, and more refem- bling thofe which are produced at the clofe of it *. The very characters of the flcy and the atmofphere are of a piece with thofe of the two feafons : in fpring, light and flitting clouds, with fhadows equally flitting and uncertain; refrefhing mowers, with gay and genial burfts of fun&ine, that feem fuddenly to call forth and nou- * In winter, when that circle is moft contracted, even the mid-day lights and ftiadows, from their horizontal direction, are fo ftriking, and the parts fo finely illumi- nated, and yet fo conne£ed and filled up by them, that one forgets the nakednefs of the trees from admiration of the general mafles. In fummer, the exact reverfe is as often the cafe; the rich cloathing of the parts makes a faint impreflion from the vague and general glare of light without (hadow. riifc [ HI 3 fitfh the young buds and flowers, tit autumn all is matured, and the rich hues of the ripened fruits and of the changing foliage are rendered fHH more fo by the warm haze whicK often, on a fine day in that feafon, fpreads the laft varnim ove# every part of the pi&ure* chap- I *59 ] CHAPTER IX. I HAVE endeavoured, to the beft of my abilities, and according to the ob- fervations I have made in a long habit of reflection on the fubject, to trace the ideas we have of the pidurefque through the different works of art and nature ; and it appears to me, that in all objects of fight, in buildings, trees, water, ground, in the human fpecies, and in other animals, the fame general principles uniformly prevail, and that even light and fhadow, and co- lours, have the ftrongeft conformity to thofe principles. I have compared both its caufes and effects with thofe of the fublrme and the beautiful ; I have fhewn its diftindnefs from them both, and in what thafc diftinctnefs confuts. f Of [ i6o ] Of thefe three characters, beauty U that which moft nearly interests us, and it is fwgular that two of thofe who have moft ftudied it, and bell: written upon it, {hould fo widely differ in their ideas, that the one fhould make beauty, and the other uglinefs, proceed from the fame caufe. Mr. Burke has obferved, * " that the idea of variation, without attending fo accu- rately to the manner of the variation, has led Mr. Hogarth to confider angular fi- gures as beautiful." Though I have never happened to meet with this pofition (fo contrary to Ho- garth's general fyftem) in the analyfis of beautv, I have no doubt of Mr. Burke's accuracy ; and I can eafily conceive, that a painter like Hogarth, who had ob- ferved the rich and fplendid effects pro- duced by fudden variations, fliould call angles beautiful. Mr. Burke has, I think, dearly (hewn that idea to. be founded on * Sublime and Beautiful, page 21 6. falfe r 161 ] falfe principles ; but I alfo think that h& himfelf, had he thought it worth his while to inveftigate fo ungrateful a fubjed as uglinefs with the fame accuracy he has that of beauty, would hardly have reckon* ed thofe obje&s the ugliejl which ap*. proach moft nearly to * angular, for in that cafe the leaves of the vine and plane would be among the uglieft of the vege- table kingdom. It feems to me that mere unmixed uglinefs does not arife from fharp angles, or from any fudden variation, but rather from that want of form, that unmaoen ± lumpim appea ance, which, perhaps, no one word exactly expreffes ; a quality that never can be miftaken for beauty, never can adorn it, and which is equally uncon- nected with the fublime and the pic- turefque. ifi IMn, fifm is fometimea ufed fingly for beauty, and feems to fig- nify that beauty is form in its moft ex* * Sublime and Beautiful, page 217. M quifitely [ i6 2 3 quifitely finifhed fiate> when the laft touches of the matter's hand have left nothing to add, nothing to diminim — fuch as we find in the moft perfect Grecian fculpture. But were an artift to model, in any foft material, a head from the Ve- nus or the Apollo, and then by way of ex- periment to make the nofe longer or iharper — rifing more fuddenly towards the middle, — or ftrongly aquiline ; were he to give a ftriking projection to the eye- brow, — or to break the outline of the face into angles, — though he would deftroy beauty, yet he might create chara&er, and fomething grand or picl:urefque might be produced by fuch a trial. But let him take the contrary method, let him clog and fill up all thpfe nicely marked varia- tions, of whofe happy union and connec- tion beauty is the refult, and uglinefs, and that only, muft be the confequence. Were he afterwards to place warts and car- buncles on the nofe, or any other unna- tural wens and excrefcencies on the face ; were f '63 ] were he to twirl the mouth, or make the nofe awry, or of an enormous fize, he would then add deformity to uglinefs. Deformity is to uglinefs what pic- turefquenefs is to beauty; though diftincT: from it, and in many cafes arifing from oppofite caufes, it is often miftaken for it, often accompanies it, and greatly heightens its effecl. Uglinefs alone is merely difagreeable; when any ftriking de- formity is added, it becomes hideous; when terror, fublime. All thefe are mixed in the Monftrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. Milton, in his defcription of death, has left out the deformity that is ufual in the reprefentation of that king of terrors*, poffibly from judging that the diftincV nefs of deformity would take off from * That deformity is only fuch with refpe& to the human body in its perfect ftate j death being conftantly painted as a fkeleton, that muft be confidered as his na- tural form. M 2 that t 164 ] that myfterious uncertainty which has rendered his pidure fo awfully fublime : The other (hape, If fhape it might be called, which fhape had none Diftinguifhable in member, joint, or limb, Or fubftance might be call'd, which fhadow feem'd, For each feem'd either ; black, it flood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And fhook a dreadful dart ; what feem'd his head The likenefs of a kingly crown had on. Some of thofe who think that all beauty depends on flowing lines have criticifed the Grecian nofe as being too ftrait, and forming too (harp an angle with the reft of the face : Whether the Greek artifts were right or not, it clearly fhews it was their opinion that ftrait and cutting lines, and what nearly approached to angles, were not only compatible with beauty, but that the effecT: of the whole would from thence be more attractive than by a continual fweep and flow of outline in every part *. * The application of this to modern gardening is too obvious to be enforced. It is the higheft of all autho- rity againft continual flow of outline, even where beauty of form is the only object. 6 Thofe t i65 3 Thofe hills and mountains which nearly approach to angles are often called beau- tiful, feldom, I' believe, ugly i and when distance has foftened their roughnefs, brownnefs, and apparent bulk, they ac- cord with the fofteft and mod pleafing fcenes, and form the diftance of fome of Claude's moll polifhed landfcapes. The uglieft forms (if my ideas are juft) are thofe lumpifh, and, as it were, unformed hills, fuch,for inftance, as, from one of the uglieft and mod fhapelefs animals, are called pig-backed : When the fummits of any of thefe are notched into paltry di- vifions, or have fuch infignificant rifings upon them as appear like knobs or bumps, or when any improver has imitated thofe knobs and knotches, by means of patches and clumps, they are then both ugly and deformed. The fame diftindions hold good in trees; the uglieft forms are not thofe whofe branches make fudden angles, (for they are often highly pifturefaue,) but M 3 fuch [ 166 | fuch mapelefs ones as we fee in trees that have been preyed by others, or in Gripped or pollard ones that have juft begun to re- cover; in thefe laft (while the marks of the axe are ftill viiible) that moft horrid of all deformity, oreafioned by mangled limbs, added to uglinefs, makes them the moft difgufting of all inanimate objects ; they bring to our mind the mocking fpedtre of Deiphobus : Priamiden toto laniatum corpore vidi. The uglieft ground is that which has neither the beauty of fmoothnefs, verdure, and gentle undulation, nor the piftur- efquenefs of bold and fudden breaks, and varied tints of foil: of fuch kind is ground that has been diflurbed and left in that unfinimed Hate, as in a rough ploughed field run to fward; fuch the ilimy mores of a flat tide river, or the ftony one of a mountain torrent when it defcends into the plain. The fteep mores of rivers, where the tide rifes at times to a great height, and leaves promontories and caves [ 167 ] of flime; and thofe on which torrents among the mountains leave huge fhape- lefs heaps of ftones, may certainly lay claim to fome mixture of deformity, which is often miftaken for another chara&er. Nothing, indeed, is more common than to hear perfons who come from a tame cul- tivated country (and not thofe only) mif- take barrennefs, defolation, and deformity, for grandeur and pi&urefquenefs *. * One might. fuppofe, on the other hand, that the being continually among piaurefque fcenes would of itfelf, and without any affiftance from piaures, lead to a dif- tinguifhing tafte for them. Unfortunately it often leads to a perfea indifference for that ftyle, and to a liking for fomething dire&ly oppofite. 1 once walked over a very romantic place in Wales with the proprietor, and ftrongly expreffed how much I was ftruck with it, and, among the reft, with feveral na- tural cafcades. He was quite uneafy at the pleafure I felt, and feemed afraid I fhould wafte my admiration. « Don't flop at thefe things," faid he, " I will (hew you by and by one worth feeing*" At laft we came to a part where the brook was conduaed down three long fteps of hewn ftone: " There," faid he, with great triumph, « that was made by Edwards, who built Pont y pridd, and it is reckoned as neat a piece of mafon-work as any in the county." M 4 Defor- Deformity in ground is indeed lefs ob-* vious than in other objects : deformity. Teems to be fomething that did not origi- nally belong to the object in which it ex- ifts ; fomething ilrikingly and unnaturally difagreeable, and not foftened by thofe circumstances which often make it pic- turefque. The fide of a fmooth green Jiill torn by floods may at firft very pro- perly be called deformed, and on the fame principle (though not with the fame im- preffion) as a gam on a living animal. When the rawnefs of fuch a gam in the ground is foftened, and in part concealed and ornamented by the effects of time and the progrefs of vegetation, deformity, by this ufual procefs, is converted into pic- turefquenefs j and this is the cafe with, quarries, gravel-pits, &c. which at firft are deformities, and which, in their moil picturefque ftate, are often confidered as. fuch by a levelling improver. Large heaps pf mould or ltones, when they appear ftrongly, and without any connection or concealment* concealment, above the furface of the ground, may ajfo at firft be confidered as deformities, and may equally become pic- turefque by the fame procefs. This connexion between pidurefque- nefs and deformity cannot be too much ttudied by improvers, and, among other realons, from motives of ceconomy. There are in many places deep hollows and bro- ken ground not immediately in view, and that do not interfere with any fweep of lawn which mulr. be kept open. To fill up and' level thefe would often be difficult and expenfive ; to drefs and adorn them colts little trouble or money. Even in the moft fmooth and policed fcenes they may often be fo malked by plantations, and fo united with them, as to blend with the general fcenery at a diltance, and to pro. duce great novelty and variety when ap- proached. With regard to hills and mountains, their fymmetry and proportions are not indeed marked out and afcertained like thole [ i7° 1 thofe of the human figure j but the ge- neral principles of beauty and uglinefs, of pifturefquenefs and deformity, are eafily to be traced in them, though not in fo JftfW jng and obvious a manner. In buildings, and all artificial objeds, the fame effefts are produced by the fame means. Whatever is neatly finiihed, and the form (whatever it may be) accurately cxprefled, will be lefs ugly than the lame ftylc of form executed in a ilovenly and unfinimed manner. A new brick-wall, for inftance, is lefs ugly, though perhaps more unpifturefque, than a mud-wall ; a brick- cottage than a mud one. A clamp of brick no one will deny to be completely ugly, and it is melancholy to reflect how many houfes in this kingdom are built upon that model; the chief difference and that which makes them a degree lefs ugly, is the fharpnefs of their angles. With refped to colours, it appears to me that as tranfparency is one effential quality of beauty, fo the want of that n tranfpa- t '7i ) tranfparency, or what may be termed mud- dinefs, is the mod general and efficient caufe of uglinefs. A colour, forinftance may be harlh, glaring, or tawdry, and yet pleafe many eyes, and by fome be called beautiful, but a muddy colour no one ever was pleafed with, or gave that title to If this idea of uglinefs in colour is juft it very much ftrengthens what I have before remarked with refpedt to form ; for in that uglinefs is faid to arife from clogging thofe nicely marked variations which produce beauty, and in this it will in a fimilar manner arife from clogging, thickening, and altering the nice proportion and ar- rangement of thofe particles, whatever they be, which produce clearnefs and beauty of colour *. Uglinefs, like beauty, has no prominent features ; it is in fome degree regular and « I am here fpeaking of colours coniidered feparately; not of thofe numberlefs beauties and effea S whieh are produced by their numberlefs connections and oppofitions. uniform, { *7 2 ] uniform, and at a diftance, and even on a flight infpeftion, is not immediately flak- ing. DeformitV.like pidurefquenefs, makes a quicker and moft diftant impreflion, and ftrongly roufes the attention. On this principle ugly mufic is what is compofed according to rule and common proportion, but which has neither that feledion of fweet and flowing melody which anfwers to the beautiful, nor that marked charader, that variety, thofe fudden and maflerly changes which correfpond with the pic- turefque. If fuch mufic be executed m the fame ftyle in which it is compofed, it will caufe no ftrong emotion; but if play- ed out of tune it will become deformed, and every fuch deformity will make the mufical hearer ftart. The enraged mufi- ciair flops both his ears againft the defor- mity of thofe founds which Hogarth has fo powerfully conveyed to us through an- other fenfe, as almoft to juftify the bold expreflion of jEfchylus, Uo^a high cheek bones, beetle brows, and ftrong lines in every part of the face, will, from thefe pidhirefque circumftances (which might all be taken away without deftroying uglinefs) be much more jlrik+ ingly ugly than a man with no more fea- tures than an oyfter. Such uglinefs, like beauty, when a milder degree and ftyle of the picturefque is added to it, is more di- verfified, more amufing, as well as more ftriking $ and when thefe circumftances of difguft, which often attend reality, are foftened and difguifed, as in the drama, by imitation, picturefque uglinefs (to which title it has juft as good a right as to that of beauty) becomes a fource of pleafure. He who has been ufed to admire fuch picturefque uglinefs in painting, will from the fame caufes look with pleafure (for we have t 1 75 3 have no other word to exprefs the degree or character of that fenfation) at the ori- ginal in nature; and one cannot think llightly of the power and advantage of that art which makes its admirers often gaze with fuch delight on fome antient lady, as with the help of a little vanity might perhaps lead her to miftake the motive *. As the excefs of thofe qualities which chiefly conflitute beauty produces iniipi- dity, fo likewife the excefs of thofe which conflitute piclurefquenefs produces defor- mity. Though thefe mutual relations may perhaps be fufBciently obvious in ina- nimate objects, yet as every thing that re- lates to beauty flakes us more forcibly in * A celebrated anatomift is faid to have declared, that he had received in his life more pleafure from dead than from living women. This might perhaps be brought as a parallel inftance of perverted tafte j but I never heard of any painter's having made the fame de- claration with refpeft to age and youth. Whatever may be the future refinements of painting and ana- tomy, I believe young and live women will never have reafon to be jealous of old or dead rivals. our t I our own fpecies, the progrcfs of that ex- cefs towards infipidity on one fide, and towards deformity on the other, will be more clearly perceived if we obferve what its effects would be on the human counte- nance, and if we fuppofe the general form of the countenance to remain the fame, and only what may be confidered as the ac- companiments to be changed. Suppofe then (what is no uncommon ftile or degree of beauty) a woman with fine features, but the character of whofe eyes, eyebrows, hair, and complexion, are more finking and fhowy than delicate: imagine then the fame features, with the eyebrows lefs marked, and both thofe and the hair of the head of a fofter texture • — • the general glow of complexion changed to a more delicate gradation of white and red, — the Ikin more fmooth and even, — and the eyes of a milder colour and expreffion : you would by this change take off from the ftriking, the fhowy effect ; but fuch a face would have more of that finifhed de- licacy which even thofe who might pre- fer t m ] fer the other itile would allow to be trior© in unifon with the idea of beauty, and the other would appear comparatively coarfc and unfinifhed; If we go on ftill farther, and fuppofe hardly any mark of eyebrow;—* the hair, from the lightnefs of its colour, and from the filky foftnefs of its quality, giving fcarce any idea of roughnefs ;— the complexion of a pure and almoft tranf- parent whitenefs, with hardly a tinge of red ;— the eyes of the mildeft blue, and the expreffion equally mild,— you would then approach very nearly to infipidity, but ftill without deftroying beauty; on the con- trary, fuch a form* when irradiated by a mind of equal fweetnefs and purity, united with fenfibility, has fbmething angelic, and feems farther removed from what is earthly and material,, This mews how much foftnefs, fmoothnefs, and delicacy, even when carried to an extreme degree, are congenial to beauty: on the other hand it mull be owned, that where the •nly agreement between fuch a form and N the t 178 } the foul that inhabits it is want of cha- racter and animation, nothing can be more completely vapid than the whole compofi- tion. If now we return to the fame point from whence we began, and conceive the eyebrows more ftrongty marked—the hair rougher in its effecT: and quality— the complexion more dufky and gipfy-like— the fkin of a coarfer grain, with fome moles on it— a degree of caft in the eyes, but fo flight as only to give archnefs and peculiarity of countenance— this, without altering the proportion of the features, would take off from beauty what it gave to character and pi&urefquenefs. If we go one ftep farther, and encreafe the eye- brows to a prepofterous fize— the caft into a fquint— make the Ikin fcarred and pitted with the fmall pox— the complexion full of fpots— and encreafe the moles into excrefcencies,— it will plainly appear how clofe the connexion is between beauty and infipidity, and between pidurefque- nef& t 179 ] nefs and deformity, and what " thin par- titions do their bounds divide." The whole of this applies moft exactly to improvements : the general features of a place remain the fame> the accompani- ments only are changed, but with them its character. If the improver (as it ufu- ally happens) attends folely to verdure, fmoothnefs, undulation of ground, and ilowing lines, the whole will be iniipid. If, on the contrary (what is much more rare) the oppofite tafte mould prevail; ihould an improver, by way of being pic- turefque, make broken ground, coves, and quarries all about his place; encourage no- thing but furze, briars, and thirties ; heap quantities of rude ftones on his banks, or, to crown all, like Mr. Kent, plant dead trees; the deformity of fucha place would, I believe, be very generally allowed, though the infipidity of the other might not be fo readily confeffed. I may here remark, that though picTru- refquenefs and deformity are fo ftri&ly N 2 confined t 180 ] Confined to the fenfe of feeing, yet that there is in the other fenfes a rnoft exact refemblance to their effects this is the cafe not only in the fenfe of hearing (of which fo many examples have been gi- ven) but in the more contracted ones of tafting and fmelling, and the progrefs I have mentioned is in them alfo equally plain and obvious. It can hardly be doubted that what anfwers to the beautiful In the fenfe of tailing has fmoothnefs and fweetnefs for its barls, with fuch a degree of ftimulus as enlivens but does not over- balance thofe qualities ; fuch, for inftance, as in the moft delicious fruits and liquors. Take away the ftimulus, they become in- fipid ; encreafe it fo as to overbalance thofe qualities, they then gain a peculi- arity of flavour, are eagerly fought after by thofe who have acquired a relifh for them, but are lefs adapted to the general palate. This correfponds exactly with the pic- turefque ; but if the ftimulus be encreafed beyond that point, none but depraved and x vitiated [ i8i 3 Vitiated palates will endure what would be fo ju% termed deformity in objects of light *• The fenfe of fmelling has in this, as in all other refpecls, the clofeft confor- mity to that of tatting. * The old maxim of the fchools, de guftibus non eft difputandum, is by many extended to all taftes, and claimed as a fort of privilege not to have any of their's called in queftion. It is certainly very reafonable that a man mould be allowed to indulge his eye as well as his palate in his own way ; but if he happens to have a tafte for water-gruel without fait, he mould not force it upon his guefts as the perfection of cookery, or burn their in- fixes, if, like the king of Pruffia, he loved nothing but what was fpiced enough to turn a living man into a mummy. W 3 PART PART II HAVING now examined the chief qualities that in fuch various ways render objects interefting ; and having fhewn how much the beauty, fpirit, and effect of landfcape, real or imitated, de- pends upon a due mixture pf rough and fmooth, of warm and cool tints ; and of what extreme confequence variety and in- tricacy are in thofe as well as our other pleafures having mewn too that the ge- neral principles of improving are in reality the fame as thofe of painting, I mail next enquire how far the principles of the laft- mentioned art (clearly the beft qualified to improve and refine our ideas of nature) N 4 Jiave [ i8 4 3 have been attended to by improvers, and how far alfo thofe who firft produced, and thofe who have continued the prefent fyftem, were capable of applying them, even if they had wifhed to do fo. It appears from Mr. Walpole's very in- genious and entertaining Treatife on Mo- dern Gardening, that Kent was the firft who introduced that fo much admired change from the old fyftem to the prefent one, the whole of which change, and all that has proceeded from it, is comprifed in half a line of Horace : Mutat cjuadrata rotundis. Kent, it is true, was by profeftlon a painter as well as an improver; but he may ferve as an example how little a cer- tain degree of mechanical practice will qualify its poffelTor to direct the tafte of la nation in either of thofe arts* The moft enlightened judge, both of his own art and of all that relates to it, is a painter of a liberal and comprehenlive mind. [ i8 5 ] mind, who has added extenfive obferva- tion and reflection to practical execution ; and if to that he adds alfo the power of expreffing his ideas clearly and forcibly in words, the mofl: capable of enlightening others. To fuch a rare combination we owe Sir Jomua Reynolds's difcourfes, the molt original and impreffive work that ever was publifhed on his, or poffibly on any other art. On the other hand, no- thing fo contracts the mind as a little practical dexterity, unaffifted and uncor- rected by general knowledge and obfer- vation, and by a ftudy of the great mas- ters of the art. An artift, whofe mind has been fo contracted, refers every thing to his own narrow circle of ideas and exe- cution *, and wifhes to confine within that circle all the reft of mankind. Mr. * I remember a gentleman, who played very prettily pn the flute, abufing all Handel's mufic, and to give m$ every advantage, like a generous adverfary, he defied me to name one good chorus of his writing. It may well fce fuppofed that I did not accept the challenge j c'etoit pica r 186 1 Mr. Walpole, by a few chara&eriftie anecdotes, has made us perfectly acquaint- ed with Kent ; a painter, who, from be- *jng ufed to plant young beeches, intro- duced them, almoft exclufively, into his landfcapes, and who, even in his defigns for Spencer (whofe fcenes were fo often laid— infra l'ombrofe piante iantica felva) ftill kept to his little beeches, mud have had a more paltry mind than falls to the common lot ; it mull alfo have been as perverfe as it was paltry j for as he painted trees without form, fo he planted them without life, and feems to have imagined that alone would compenfate for want of bulk, of age, and of grandeur of charac^ ter*. Thefe dead trees were probably placed frenl'embarras des richeffes; and indeed he was right In his own way of conKdering them, for there is not one that would do well for his inftrument. * It is almoft impofiible to remove a large old tree, with all its branches, fpurs, and appendages j and with- out fuch qualities a* greatnefs of fize, joined to an air of grandeur, and of high antiquity, a dead tree fhould fi*. dom be left in a confpicucus place y to entitle it to fuch a, ftatio% [ i8 7 ] placed where they would attract the eye j for it is rare that any improver willies tQ conceal his efforts. Some other parts of his practice I mall have occafion to confi- der hereafter. No profeffor of high reputation feems to have appeared after him, till at length, that the fyftem might be carried to its ne plus ultra (no very diltant point) arofe the famous Mr. Brown, who has fo fixed and determined the forms and lines of plumps, belts, and ferpentine canals, and has been fo fteadily imitated by his fol- lowers, that had the improvers been incor- porated, their common feal, with a clump, a belt, and a piece of made water, would have fully exprefled the whole of their fcience, and have ferved for a model as well as a feal *; It a ftatlon, it mould be « majeftic even in ruin."* A dea4 tree that could be moved, wpuld, from that very circum- ftance, be unfit for moving;. « * What Ariofto fays of a grove of cyprelTes has al- ways ftruck me in looking at made places, r-che parean d'una Jlampa tutte impreffe. T ne y t 188 ] It is very unfortunate that this great legillator of our national tafte, and whofe laws ftill remain in force, mould not have received from nature, or have acquired by education, more enlarged ideas. Claude Lorraine was bred a paftry-cook, but in every thing that regards his art as a painter he had an elevated and comprehensive mind $ nor in any part of his works can one trace the meannefs of his original occupation. Mr. Brown was bred a gardener, and hav- ing nothing of the mind or the eye of a painter, he formed his ftyle (or rather his plan) upon the model of a parterre, and ■transferred its minute beauties, its little They fcem <5 caft in one mould, made in one frame ;' 3 fo much fo, that I have feen places on which large fums had been lavifhed, unite fo little with the landfcape around them, that they gave me the idea of having been made by contract in London, and then fent down in pieces, and put together on the fpot. Buying tafte ready made is a good deal like buying love ready made, and almoft as common : I mould fup- pofe too that the enjoyment of both the purchafers is much upon a par. clumps. t 189 ] clumps, knots, and patches of flowers, the oval belt that furrounds it, and all its twifts and crincum crancums, to the prcat o fcale of nature*. We- * This ingenious device of magnifying a parterre calls to my mind a ftory I heard many years ago. A Country parfon, in the county where I live, fpeaking of a gentleman of low ftature, but of extremely pom- pous manners, who had juft left the company, exclaim- ed, in the fimplicity and admiration of his heart, '« quite grandeur in miniature, I proteft." This com- pliment reverfed, would perfectly fuit the fhreds and patches that are fo often ftuck about by Mr. Brown and his followers, amidff. the noble fcenes they dif- figure, where they are as contemptible and as much out of character as Claude's firft edifices in paftry would appear in the dignified landfcapes he has painted. When I blame Mr. B rown for having transferred the minutiae of a parterre to the great fcale of nature, it; is not becaufe they are little in fize, but in chara&er. There is indeed no more common error than that of miftaking greatnefs of fize for greatnefs of manner ; it continually happens that the fmalleft clafs of rocks, mountains, cafcades, lakes, &c. have infinitely more grandeur of ftile, and afford more dignified fubje&s to a paLt*ter^ We have, indeed, made but a poor pro- grefs by changing the formal but fimple and majeflic avenue for the thin circular verge called a belt, and the unpretending uglinels of the {trait for the affected fame- nefs of the ferpentine canal : But the great diftinguifhing feature of modern improve- ment is the dump ; whofe name, if the firft letter was taken away, would moffc accu- rately defcribe its form and effect Were it made the object, of iludy how to con- trive fomething that under the name of ornament mould disfigure whole diftri&Sj nothing could be imagined that would an- fwer that purpofe like a clump. Natural groups being formed by trees of differ- ent ages and fizes, and at different dif- tances from each other, often too of a painter, than others of threte times their magnitude. Indeed, if a certain elevation of character is wanting, mere magnitude, in many cafes, only creates difguft ; nothing is more contemptible than a tame giant.— « Bulk without fpirit vaft." mixture [ W } mixture of timber trees with thorns, hollies, and others of inferior growth, ars full of variety in their outlines ; and from the fame caufes no two groups are ex- actly alike. But clumps, from the trees being generally of the fame age and growth, planted nearly at the fame dif* tance in a circular form, and from each tree being equally preffed by his neigh- bour, are as like each other as fo many puddings turned out of one common mould. Natural groupes alfo, from the caufes I have mentioned, are full of open- ings and hollows ; of trees advancing be- fore, or retiring behind each other; all productive of intricacy and of variety of deep lhadows and brilliant lights. The others are lumps. In wajking about a natural group, the form of it changes at each ftep ; new combinations, new lights and fhades, new inlets prefent themfelves in fucceffion. But clumps, like compact bodies of foldiers, refift attacks from all quarters : t 192 ] quarters : examine them in every point of view ; walk round and round them no opening, no vacancy, no ftragglers *$ but in the true military character, ils font face partout* The next leading feature to the clump in this circular fyftem (and which, in ro- mantic fituations, rivals it in the power of creating deformity) is the belt. Its fphere, however, is more contracted 1 Clumps, placed like beacons on the fum- mits of hills, alarm the picturefque tra* veller many miles off, and warn him of his approach to the enemy ; the belt lies more in ambufcade, and the wretch who falls into it, and is obliged to walk the * I remember hearing, that when Mr. Brown was high-fheriff, fome facetious perfon obferving his at- tendants draggling, called out to him, " Clump your javelin men." What was intended merely as a piece of ridicule might have ferved as a very inftructive lei- fo'n to the objeft of it, and have taught Mr. Brown that fiich figures fliould be confined to bodies of men drilled for the put pofes of formal parade, and not extended to the loofe and airy fhapes of vegetation. whole I i93 ] whole round in company with the im- prover, will allow that a fnake with its tail in its mouth is, comparatively, but a faint emblem of eternity. It has, indeed, all the famenefs and formality of the ave- nue, to which it has fucceeded, without any of its fimple grandeur $ for though in an avenue you fee the fame objects from beginning to end, and in the belt a new fet every twenty yards, yet each fuc- ceffive part of this infipid circle is fo like the preceding, that though really different the difference is fcarcely felt, and there is nothing that fo dulls, and at the fame time fo irritates the mind, as perpetual change without variety. The avenue has a moft ftriking effect from the very circumftance of its being ftrait; no other figure can give that image of a grand gothic aifle with its natural * columns and vaulted roof, whofe general mafs fills the eye, while the parti- * Mr. Burke's Sublime and Beautiful, page 270. O cular I *94 J cula'r parts infenfibly fleal from it in a long gradation * of perfpective : *$ Small by degrees, and beautifully lefs." The broad folemn made adds a twilight calm to the whole, and makes it, above all other places, moll fuited to meditation. To that alfo its ftraitnefs contributes ; for when the mind is difpofed to turn in- wardly on itfelf, any ferpentine line would diftradt the attention. All the charac- teriftic beauties of the avenue, -its folemn ftillnefs, the religious awe it infpires, are greatly heightened by moon light. This I once* very ftrongly experienced in ap- proaching a venerable caftle-like manfion built in the beginning of the 1 5th cen- tury ; a few gleams had pierced the deep gloom of the avenue j a large maffive * By long gradation I do not mean a great length of avenue; I perfe&ly agree with Mr. Burke, « that co- lonades and avenues of trees of a moderate length are without comparifon far grander than when they are fuffered to run to immenfe diftances." — Sublime and Beautiful, fed. x. p. 136. tower [ 195 3 tower at the end of it, feen through a long perfpective, and half lit by the un- certain beams of the moon, had a grand myfterious effect. Suddenly a light ap- peared in this tower ; then as fuddenly its twinkling vanifhed, and only the quiet filvery rays of the moon prevailed ; again, more lights quickly fhifted to different parts of the building, and the whole fcene maft forcibly brought to my fancy the times of fairies and chivalry. I was much hurt to find from the matter of the place that I might take my leave of the avenue and its romantic effects, for that a death warrant was figned. The deftrudtion of fo many of thefe ve- nerable approaches is a fatal confequence of the prefent excefiive horror for ftrait lines ; fometimes, indeed, avenues do cut through the middle of very beautiful and varied ground, with which the fliffnefs of their form but ill accords, and where it were greatly to be wiuhed they had never been O 2 planted. t f 9 6 ] planted *. They are, however, as often iltuated where a boundary of wood ap- proaching to a ftrait line would be pro- per f , and in fuch places they furnifh a walk of more perfect and continued made than any other difpofition of trees, without interfering with the reft of the placer when you turn from it either to the right * Had they never been planted, other trees, in various pofitions and groups, would probably have iprung up in and near the place they occupy ; but be- ing there, it may often be doubtful whether they ought to be deftroyed; for whenever fuch a line of trees is taken away, there mult be a long vacant fpace that will feparate the grounds, with their old ori- ginal trees, on each fide of it ; and young trees planted in the vacancy will not in half a century connect the whole together. As to faving a few trees of the line itfelf for that purpofe, I own I never faw it done that it did not produce a contrary effect, and that the fpot was nofc haunted by the ghoft of the departed avenue^ f At a gentleman's place in Chefhire, there is aa avenue of oaks fituated much in the manner I have de- fcribed j Mr. Brown abfolutely condemned it ; but it now ftands a noble monument of the triumph of the na- tural feelings of the owner over the narrow and fyftema* tic ideas cf a profeffed improver. ©r [ 197 I or to the left, the whole country, with alj its intricacies and varieties, is open before you; but there is no efcaping from the belt ; it hems you in on all fides, and if you pleafe yourfelf with hsving difcovered fome wild fequeftered part (if fuch there ever be when a belt-maker has been ad- mitted) or fome new pathway, and are in the pleafing uncertainty whereabouts you are, and whither it will lead you, the belt foon appears, and the charm of expecta- tion is over. If you turn to the right or to the left, it keeps winding round you j if you break through it, it catches you at your return ; and the idea of this dif- tinct unavoidable line of feparation damps all fearch after novelty: Far different from thofe magic circles of fairies and enchant- ers that gave birth to fuch potent and fplendid illufions, to fcenes of luxuriant imagination, the palaces and gardens of Alcina and Armida, this, like the ring of Angelica, inftantly diffipates every il- lation, every enchantment. O 3 Jf r 198 1 If ever a belt is allowable, it is where the houfe is fituated in a dead flat, and in a naked ugly country 5 there at leafl it can* not injure any variety of ground or of dif- tant profpect; it will alfo be the real boundary to the eye* however Unvaried, and any exclufion in fuch cafes is a bene- fit ; but where there is variety of ground, and a defcent from the houfe, it more completely disfigures the place than any other improvement. What moft delights us in the intricacy of varied ground, of fwelling knolls, and of vallies between them, retiring from the fight in different directions amidft trees or thickets, is, that it leads the eye (according to Hogarth's expreflion) a kind of wanton chace ; this is what he properly calls the beauty of in- tricacy, and which difUnguifhes that which is prcduced by foft winding fhapes, from that more fudden and quickly-varying kind which anfes from broken and rugged forms. All this wanton chace, as well as the ef- fects of more wild and picturefque intri- cacy, t J 99 ] eacy, is immediately checked and put an end to by any circular plantation ; which never appears to retire from the eye and lofe itfelf in the diftance, nor ever admits of partial concealments. Whatever va- rieties of hills and dales there may be, fuch a plantation mud fbiffly cut acrofs them, and the undulations, and what in feamen's language may be called the trending of the ground, cannot in that cafe be humoured, or its playful character marked by that ftyle of planting which at once points out and adds to its beautiful intricacy. This may ferve to mew how impoffible it is to plan any forms of plantations that will fuit all places *, however convenient it * In the art of medicine, after general principles arc acquired, the judgment lies in the application ; and tvery cafe (as an eminent phyfician obferved to me) mult be confidered as a fpecial cafe. This holds precifely in improving, and in both art the quacks are alike ; they have no principles, but ©nly a few noftrums which they apply indifcriminately O 4 to it may be to the profeffor to eftablifh fuch a doctrine. I have perhaps exprefled myfelf more ftrongly, and more at length than I other- wife mould have done, on the fubject of this paltry invention, from the extreme difguft I felt at feeing its effect in a place whofe general features are among the no- blefb in the kingdom. In front, the fea embayed amidlt iflands, mountains, and promontories ; a hanging defcent of un- equal ground from the houfe to the more, on which defcent different mattes of wood, groupes, and fingle trees, more or lefs dif- perfed or connected together, with lawns and glades between them, gently leading to all fituations and all conftitutions. Clumps and belts, pills and drops, arc diftributed with equal fkillj the one plants the right, and clears the left, as the othtr bleeds the eaft and purges the weft ward. The beft improver or phyfician is he who leaves moft to na- ture, who watches and takes advantage ofthofe indica- tions which me points out when left to exert her own powers, but which, when once deftroyed or fupprelfed by an empyric of either kind, prefent themfelves ng mare. the [ Z01 ] the eye among their intricacies to the more might have been planted, or left if grow- «g there : this would have formed a rich and varied foreground to the magnificent but it is not fufficient to attend to the giant fons of the foreft ; often the lofs of a few, nay of a finglc tree of middling fize, is of more confequence to the general efFea of the place, by making an irreparable breach in the outline of a principal wood; often fome of the moft beautiful groups owe the playful variety of their form, and their happy conneaion with other groups, to fome apparently infignificant, and, to com- mon obfervers, even ugly trees *. To at- tend to all thefe niceties of outline, con- nealons, and grouping, would require much time as well as {kill, and therefore a more eafy and compendious method has been adopted: the different groups are * Vide Sir Jofhua Reynolds's Notes to Mafon's Du Frefnov, page 89. to t 203 ] to be cleared round till they become a* clumplike as their untrained natures will allow, and even many of thofe outfide trees that belong to the groups them- felves (and to which they owe, not only their beauty, but their feeurity againft wind and froft) are cut down without pity if they will not range according to their model; till mangled, ftarved, and cut off from all connection, thefe unhappy newly drilled corps , if other trees are planted before it, to them it gives confequence, and they give it lightnefs and variety. But when it is clumpt, and you can fee through it, and compare each of the feparate clumps with the objetts before and behind them, the lira it line is apparent from whatever point you view it : In its clofe array the avenue is like the Grecian phalanx; each tree, like each foldier, is firmly wedged in be- tween its companions ; its branches, like their fpears, prefent a front impenetrable to all attacks j but the moment this com- pact order is broken, their fides become naked and expofed. Mr. Brown, like an- other Paulus JEmiYwt, has broken the firm embodied ranks of many a noble pha- x lanx lanx of trees *, and in this, perhaps, more than in any other inftance, he has mewn how far the perverfion of tafte may be carried, when, at the fame time that he deprived the avenue of its made and its folemn grandeur* he encreafed its for- mality. * I do not know a more interesting account of a battle than Plutarch's defcription of that between Per- feus and Paulus iEmilius, in which the famous Ma- cedonian phalanx was at laft, after repeated efforts, completely broken- and vanquished. It is in his life of P. ^milius, which, if any of my readers mould noc be acquainted with, and fhould be tempted to read from this alluiion, I think they will feel highly obliged fa met CHAP- [ 206 ] CHAPTER II. IT is in the arrangement and manage- ment of trees that the great art of im- provement coniifts : earth is too cumbrous and lumpim for man to contend much with, and its effects when worked upon are flat and dead like its nature. But trees, detaching themfelves at once from the furface, and rifing boldly into the air, have a more lively and immediate effect on the eye*. They alone form a canopy over us, * I have generally obferved, that perfons not con- ven at in piaures and drawings, are in travelling much more attentive to diftant objects than to near ones; and yet the variety and quick fucceffion of pic- tures depends infinitely more on the latter. Piftant objeas do not rife fo fuddenly, or fo immediately and powerfully ftrike upon the fight as near ones. 1 rees or. ihe foreground, as you proceed, alter their pofition every r 207 ] us, and a varied frame to all other objects, which they admit, exclude, and group with, almoft at the will of the improver. In beauty, they not only far excel every thing of inanimate nature, but their beauty is compleat and perfect in itfelf, while that of almoft every* other object abfolutely re- quires their affiftance : without them, the moft varied inequality of ground; rocks, and mountains * ; even water itfelf in -f all its every inftant; diitant woods remain the fame for a long- way. An extended profpect which, feen continually and uninterruptedly, had tired the eye, if afterwards viewed partially through trees, has the effect, and almoft the reality, of novelty. Inftead of one unchanging view of remote objects, each diviuon of that view becomes a fubordinate though a beautiful part of a new compofi- tion, of which the trees and the foreground are the prin- cipal. * It is not meant that the mountains themfelves muft be wooded, but that there muft be wood in the landfcape; fcenes of mere defolation, however grand, foon fatigue the mind. f I have not mentioned the fea, as in this country at leafr, frees will not fucceed near it, unlefs when it is land-locked, and then (though their combination, as at Mount [ ^ } its characters of brooks, lakes, rivers, cata- racts, is cold, favage, and uninterefting : with them, even a dead flat may be full of variety and intricacy and it is perhaps from their porTeffing thefe two laft quali- Mount Edgcumbe* is no lefs beautifftl than uncommon) the fea itfelf lofes its grand impofing character, and puts on fomething of the appearance of a lake. There trees are necefiary ; for a lake bounded by naked rocks is a rude and dull landfcape ; but change the character of the one element only, let the fea break againft thofe rocks, and trees will no longer be thought of. The iiiblimity of fuch a picture abforbs all idea of lefler orna- ments ; for no one can view the foam, the gulphs, the impetuous motion of that world of waters, without a deep impreflion of its deftru&ive and irrefiftible power. Butfublimity is not its only character 5 for after that firft awful fenfation is weakened by ufe, the infinite variety, both in the forms of the waves, in their light and fha- dow, in the darning of their fpray, and, above all, the perpetual change of motion, continues to amufe the eye in detail, as much as the grandeur of the whole poffeffed the mind. It is in this that it differs not only from motionlefs objects, but even from rivers and catara&s> however diverfified in their parts. In them the fpectator fees no change from what he faw at firft j the fame breaks in the current, the fame falls continue, and poi- fibly on that account they require the aid of trees ; but the intricacies and varieties of waves breaking againft rocks are as endlefs as their motion. [ 2o 9 ] ties in fo eminent a degree, that trees are almoft indifpenfibly necelTary to pictu- refque and beautiful fcenery. The infinite variety of their forms, tints, and light and made, muft flrike every bo- dy ; the quality of intricacy they polTefs, if poffible, in a flill higher degree, and in a more exclufive and peculiar manner. Take a fingle tree only, and confider it in this point of view. It is compofed of millions of boughs, fprays, and leaves, in- termixed with and croffing each other ia as many directions, while through the va- rious openings the eye ftill difcovers new and infinite combinations of them : yet, what is moll: furprifing in this labyrinth of intricacy, there is no unpleafant confu* fion ; the general effect is as fimple as the detail is complicate, and a tree is perhaps the only obj eel: where a * grand whole (or * Ground, rocks, and buildings, if the parts are much broken, become fantaftic and trifling ; befides, they have not that loofe pliant texture fo Well adapted to partial concealment. P at [ ] at lean: what is moft confpicuoiis in it) is chiefly compofed of innumerable minute and diftindt parts. To mew how much thofe who ought to be the beft judges confider the qualities I have mentioned, no tree, however large and vigorous, however luxuriant the fo- liage, will be admired by the painter, if it prefent one uniform unbroken mafs of leaves ; while others, not only inferior in fize and in thicknefs of foliage, but of forms that many improvers would fee little merit in, and fome cut down, will attract and fix their attention. The reafons of this preference are obvious 5 but as on thefe reafons, according to the ideas I have formed, the whole fyflem of planting, pruning, and thinning for the purpofe of beauty (in its more general acceptation) depends, I mufr. be allowed to dwell _ a little longer on them. A tree whofe foliage is every where full and unbroken, of courfe can have but lit- tle variety of form then as the fun fcrikes only E «I ] only on the furface, neither can there be much variety of light and Jhadey and as the apparent colour of objects changes according to the different degrees of light or of (hade in which they are placed, there can be as little * variety of tint ; and laft- ly, as there are none of thofe openings that excite and nourifh curiofity, but the eye is every where oppofed by one uniform leafy fkreen, there is as little intricacy as variety. What is here faid of a Jingle tree is equally true of all combiiiatiom of them, and appears to me to account perfectly for the bad efFect of clumps, and of all plan- tations and woods where the trees grow clofe together : Indeed, in all thefe cafes the effect is in one refpecl: much worfe ; we are difpofed to admire the bulk of a iingle tree, the ipfe nemus, though its form Jhould be heavy ; but there is a mean- nefs as well as a heavinefs in feeing a * Lux varium vivumqtie dabit, nullum umbra co~ lorem. Du Frefnoy. P % lumpy [ 212 ] lumpy mafs produced by a multitude of little flems. What the qualities are that painters do admire in fingle trees, groups, and woods, may eaiily be concluded from what they do not ; the detail would be infinite, for luckily where art does not interfere, the abfolute exclulions are few. If their tafte is to be preferred to that of improvers, there is clearly fomething radically bad in the ufual method of making and manag- ing plantations j it otherwife would ne- ver happen that the woods, and arrange- ments of trees which they are leafl dif- pofed to admire, mould be thofe made for the exprefs purpofe of ornament. Under that idea, the fpontaneous trees of the country are often excluded as too common, or admitted in fmall propor- tions ; and others of peculiar form and colour take place of oak and beech. But of whatever trees the ejiablijhed woods of the country are compofed, the fame, I think, mould prevail in the new ones, or [ 2 *3 ] or thofe two grand principles, harmony and unity of character, will be deftroy- ed. It is very common, however, when there happens to be a vacant fpace be- tween two woods, to fill it up with firs, larches, &c. ; if this be done with the idea of connediing thofe woods (and that Jhould t>e the object) nothing can be more oppo- iite than the effedt: even plantations of the fame fpecies require time to make them accord with the old growths ; but fuch harm and fudden contrafts of form and colour make thefe infertions for ever appear like fo many awkward pieces of patch -work * ; and furely if a man was reduced ? It is not enpugh that trees fhould be naturalized to the climate, they muft alfo be naturalized to the landfcape, and mixed and incorporated with the natives. A patch of foreign trees planted by themfelves in the out-(kirts of a wood, or in fome open corner of it, mix with the natives much like a group of young Englifli- men at an Italian converfazione : But when fome plant of foreign growth appears to fpring up by acci- dent, and fhoots out its beautiful, but lefs familiar fo- liage among our natural trees, it has the fame pleafing efFecl: as when a beautiful and amiable foreigner has P 3 acquired induced to the neceiTity of having his coat pieced, he would wilh to have the join- ings concealed, and the colour matched, and not to be m2de a harlequin. Thefe dark (hades and fpire-Iike forms, that, when planted in patches, have fuch a motley appearance, may be fo grouped with the prevailing trees of the country as to produce infinite richnefs and variety, and yet feem part of the original defign ; but I imagine it to be an eftablifhed rule that plantations made for ornament, mould, both in their form and in the trees they are compofed of, be as diftinct as poflible from the woods of the country ; fo that no one may doubt an inftant what are the parts that have been improved. Inftead there- fore of * that " rich, ample, and flowing robe acquired our language and manners fo as to converfe with the freedom of a native, yet retains enough of original accent and character to give a peculiar grace and zeft lo all her words and anions. * Mr. Mafon's Poem on Modern Gardening is fo well known to all who have any tafte for the fubjeel: [ 215 3 robe that nature Jhould wear on her throned eminence," me is curtailed of her fair proportions, and pinched and fqueezed into fhape ; inftead of." hill united to hill with fweeping train of foreft, with prodigality of made," the prim fquat clump is perked up exactly on the top of every eminence. 'Sometimes, however, the extent is fo great, that common fized clumps would make no figure, unlefs they were exceffively multiplied ; in that cafe it has been very ingenioufly contrived to confolidate (and I am fure the word is not improperly ufed) a number of them into one great lump, and thefe condenfed unwieldy maffes are, without much choice, ftuck about the grounds. I have feen two places, on a very large fcale, laid out in this manner by a pro- or for poetry in general, that it is hardly neceffary to fay that the words between the inverted commas are chiefly taken from it. In the part from whence I have taken thefe two paflages, he has pointed out the noblefl: ftyle of planting in a ftyle of poetry no lefs noble and ele- vated. P 4 Med [ «6 ] fefTed improver of high reputation. The trees that principally (hewed themfelves were * larches, and from the multitude of their fharp points the whole country ap- peared en herhTon, and had much the fame degree of refemblance to natural icenery that one of the old military plans, with fcattered platoons of fpearmen, has to a print after Claude or Pouffin. With all my admiration of trees, I had rather be without them than have them fo difpof- ed ; indeed I have often feen hills, the outline of which, — the fwellings, — and the deep hollows were fo ftriking ; and whofe furface was fo varied by the mixture of * Wherever larches are mixed (though in frnall pro- portions) over the whole of a new plantation ; from the quicknefs of their growth, their pointed tops, and the peculiarity of their colour, they are fo confpicuous, that the whole wood feems to confift of nothing elfe. The fummits of all round headed trees (efpecially oak) vary in each tree ; but there can be but one furn- init to all pointed trees. Linea recta vclut fola eft, & mille recurvse. Du Frefnoy. fmooth [ 2I 7 1 fmooth clofe - bitten turf with the rich though fhort cloathing of fern, of heath, or furze, and by the different openings and fheep tracks among them, that I fhould have been forry to have had the whole covered with the finerr. wood ; nay, could hardly have wiflied for trees the moft happily difpofed, and of courfe mould have dreaded in proportion thofe which are ufually placed there by art. An improver has rarely fuch dread ; in general the firft idea that ftrikes him is that of diftinguifhing his property, nor is he eafy till he has put his pitch- mark on all the fummits*. Indeed this often gra- tifies * Vanity is a general enemy to all improvement, and there is no fuch enemy to the real improvement of the beauty of grounds as the foolifh vanity of making a parade of their extent, and of various marks of the owner's property, under the title of " Appropriation." Where there are any noble features that are debafed by meaner objects — where greater extent would fhew a rich and varied boundary, and that boundary propor- tioned to that extent — whatever choaks up or degrades fuck fcenes ftiould of courfe be removed 5 but where there [ ai8 ] tirles his defire of celebrity ; it excites the curiofity and admiration of the vulgar; and travellers of tafte will naturally be provoked to enquire from another mo- tive, to whom thofe unfortunate hills be- long. It is melancholy to compare the flow progrefs of beauty with the upftart growth of deformity ; trees and woods planted in the nobleft ftyle will not for 3 r ears ftrongly attract the painter's notice, though, luckily for their prefervation, the planter is like a there are no fuch features — no fuch boundaries — to ap- propriate by deftroying many a pleafant meadow, and by (hewing you, when they are laid into one great com- mon, green enough to furfeit a man in a calenture— to appropriate by clumping their naked hedgerows, and planting other clumps and patches of exotics that feem to flare about them, and wonder how they came there —to appropriate by demolifliing many a cheerful retired cottage that interfered with nothing but the defpotic love of exclufion ; and make amends, perhaps, by build- ing a village regularly piiturefque — is to appropriate by dif^ufting all whofe tafte is not infenfible or depraved, in the fame fenfe t at an alderman appropriates a plate of turtle by meezing over it. fond [ 219 ] fond * mother who feels the greateft ten- dernefs for her children at the time they are leaft interefting to others. But to the deformer (a name too often fynonymous to the improver) it is not ne- ceflary that his trees mould have attained their full growth ; as foon as he has made his round fences, and planted them, his principal work is done ; the eye which ufed to follow with delight the bold fweep of outline, and all the playful undulation of ground, finds itfelf fuddenly checked, and its progrefs ftopt even by.thefe em- bryo clumps. They have the fame ef- fect on the great features of nature as an excrefcence has on thofe of the human face ; in which, though the proportion of one feature to another greatly varies in different perfons, yet thefe differences, like fimilar ones in inanimate nature, give va- * Madame de Sevigne, whofe maternal tendernefs feems to have extended itfelf to her plantations, fays, • " Je fais abbattre de grands arbres parce qu'ils nuifent 4 mes jeunes enfants." riety [ 220 ] tiety of character, and all the parts accord together ; but let there be a wart or a pimple on any prominent feature, — no dig- nity or beauty of countenance can detach the attention from it ; that little, round, diftinct lump, wriile it difgufts the eye, has a fafcinating power of fixing it on its own deformity. This is precifely the ef- fect of clumps ; the beauty or grandeur of the furrounding parts only ferves to make them more horribly confpicuous, and the dark tint of the Scotch fir (of which they are generally compofed) as it feparates them by colour as well as by form from every other object, adds the laft finifh. But even large plantations of firs, when they are not the natural trees of the coun- try, and when, as it ufually happens, they are left too thick, have, in my mind, a harm look, and on the fame principle of their not harmonizing with the reft of the landfcape. A planter very naturally wimes to produce fome appearance of wood as foon as pofiible 3 he therefore fets his trees very very clofe together, ani ever af erwards his paternal fondnefs will fearer fuffer him to cut any cf them down. They are con- fequently all drawn up together, nearly to the fame height >, and as their heads touch each other, no variety, no diftinction of form can exift, but the whole is one enor* mous, unbroken, unvaried mafs of black. Its appearance is fo uniformly dead and heavy, that inflead of thofe cheering ideas that arife from the frelli and luxuriant * foliage, and the lighter tints of deciduous trees, it has fomething of that dreary image — that extinction of form and colour which Milton felt from blindnefs ; when he, who had viewed objects with a painter's * Perhaps, in ftrt® propriety, the term of foliage fhould never be applied to firs, as they have no leaves, and, I believe, it is partly to that circumftance that they owe their want of cheerful nefs. Thofe among the lower evergreens that have leaves, fuch as holly, laurel, arbutus, are much more chearful than the juniper, cy* prefs, arbor vitae, &c. The leaves (if one may fo call them) of the yew, have much the fame character a? fcmc of the firs, eye, [ 222 ] eye, as he defcribed them with a poet's lire, was Prefented with an unlverfal blank Of nature's works. It mull be confidered alfo, that the eye feels an impreffion from objects analogous to that of weight, as appears from the ex- preffion, a heavy colour, a heavy form ; hence arifes the necemty in landfcape of preferving a proper balance of both, and this is a very principal part of the art of painting. If in a picture the one half was to be light and airy both in the forms and in the tints, and the other half one black heavy lump, the mod ignorant perfon would probably be difpleafed (though he might not know upon what principle) with the want of balance and of harmony ; for thefe harm difcordant effects not only acl: more forcibly from being brought to- gether within a fmall compafs, but alfo be- caufe in painting they are not authorized by famion, or rendered familiar by cuftom. The infide of thefe plantations fully anfwers [ 223 1 anfwers to the dreary appearance of the * outride : Of all difmal fcenes it feems to me the mod likely for a man to hang him- felf in ; he would, however, find fome difficulty in the execution, for amidft the cndlefs multitude of items there is rarely a fingle fide branch to which a rope could be fattened. The whole wood is a col- lection of tall naked poles, with a few- ragged boughs near the top ; above, — one uniform rufty cope, feen through decayed and decaying fprays and branches; below, — * * I have known perfons who acknowledged that the infide of a clofe wood (either evergreen or deciduous) was poor and fhabby, yet thought that at fome diftance its outfide looked as well as that of a more open one. The defects of all objects are of courfe diminiflied as they are more removed from the eye, but as far as form can be diftinguiftied (and that includes a large circuit) the difference is very perceptible between a wood where the trees have been cramped by each other, and one where their heads have had full room to extend themfclves. If two fuch woods, even at the extremity Of an extenfive view, are lit up by a gleam of funmine, the depth of fhadow, and the fulnefs and richnefs of the one, will clearly diftinguifti it from the uniform heavU nefe of the other. the the foil parched and blafted with trie bale- ful droppings ; hardly a plant or a blade of grafs ; nothing that can give an idea of life or vegetation : even its gloom is with- out folemnity; it is only dull and dimial; and what light there is, like that of hell, « c Serves only to difcover fcenes of woe, Regions of forrow, doleful fhades." In a grove where the trees have had room to fpread (and in that cafe I by no means exclude the * Scotch fir or any of the pines) there is a folemn grandeur in the made, both from the broad and varied canopy over head, the fmall number and large fize of the trunks by which that canopy is fupported -j-, and from the large * Mr. Gilpin has admirably pointed out the pi&u-* tefque character of the Scotch fir (where it has had room to fpread) in his remarks on foreft fcenery ; and he as juftly condemns the ufual method of planting and leaving them in clofe array. f This circumftance feems to have ftruck Virgil in the cafe of a fingle tree : Media ipfa ingentem fuftinet umbram. undifturbed L 225 ] Undifturbed fpaces between them : but a clofe wood of firs is, perhaps, the only one from which the oppofite qualities of cheerfulnefs and grandeur, of fymmetry and variety are equally excluded - y and in which, though the fight is perplexed and harraifed by the confufion of petty ob- jects, there is not the fmalleili degree df intricacy. Firs, planted and left in the fame clofe array, are very commonly made ufe of as fcreens and boundaries in places where concealment is neceffary : as the lower part of fuch fcreens is in general of moll confequence, they are, for the reafons I mentioned before, the moft improper trees for that purpofe : but fuppofing them exactly in the condition the planter would ' wifh 3 that the outer boughs (on which alone they depend) were preferved from animals; and, though planted along the brow of a hill, they had efcaped from wind and mow, and the many accidents to which they are expofed in bleak fitua- tions j [ 226 ] tions; they would then exactly anfwer to that admirable defcription of Mr. Mafon ; « The Scottifh fir In murky file rears his inglorious head And blots the fair horizon.'* Nothing can be more accurately or more forcibly expreffed, or raife a j utter image in the mind. Every thick unbroken mafs of black (efpecially when it can be com- pared with fofter tints) is a blot ; and has the fame effect on the horizon in nature, as if a dab of ink were thrown upon that of a Claude. This, however, is viewing it in its moft favourable ftate, when at leaft it anfwers the purpofe of a fcreen, though a heavy one ; but it happens full as often that the outer boughs do not reach above half way down ; and then, befides the long, black, even line that cuts the hori- zon at the top, there is at bottom a ftreak of glaring light that pierces every where- through the meagre and nafeed poles (ftill more wretchedly meagre when oppofed to fuch [ ] fuch a back ground) and mews diffinctiy the poverty and thinnefs of the boundary* Many a common hedge that has been fuffered to grow wild, with a few trees in it, is a much more varied and effectual fcreen 5 but there are hedges, where yews and hollies are mixed with trees and thorns,-— fo thick from the ground upward s* 1 — fo diverfified in their outline* — in the tints, and in the light and made, — that the eye, which dwells on them with pleafure* is perfectly deceived 5 and can neither fee through them, nor difcover (hardly even fufpect) their want of depth. This ftriking contraft between a mere hedge and trees planted for the exprefs pur- pofe of concealment and beauty, affords a Very ufeful hint* not only for fcreens and boundaries, but for every fort of orna- mental plantation. It feems to point out that concealment cannot fo well be pro- duced without a mixture of the fmaller growths, fuch as thorns and hollies* Qj£ which* E «8- ] which, being naturally bufhy, fill up the lower parts where the larger trees are apt to be bare ; that fuch a mixture muft produce great variety of outline, as thefe fmaller growths will not hinder the larger from extending their heads ; at the fame time by reafon of their different heights, more or lefs approaching to thofe of the timber trees, they accompany and group with them, and prevent that fet formal appearance which trees generally have when there are large fpaces between them, even though they mould not be planted at regular diftances. It feems to me, that if this method was followed in all ornamental planta- tions, it would in a great meafure ob- viate the bad effects of their being left too clofe, either from foolim fondnefs or neg- lect. Suppofe, for inftance, that inftead of the ufual method of making an evergreen plantation of firs only, and thole fluck clofe together, the firs were planted eight, *f twelve, [ 229 J twelve, or more yards afunder (of courfc varying the diftances) and that the fpaces between them were filled with the lower evergreens % All thefe would for fome years grow up together, till at length the firs would moot above them all, and find nothing afterwards to check their growth in any direction. Suppofe fuch a wood, upon the largeft fcale, to be left to itfelf, and not a bough cut for twenty, thirty, any number of years, and that then i\ came into the hands of a perfon * I believe there are only three forts natural to this country, holly, box, and juniper; to which, on account of the flownefs of its growth, and its doing fo well under the drip of other trees, may be added the yew. There is, however, a great variety of exotics that are perfectly hardy, and many others that will fucceed in flickered fpots, and the mod: fcrupulous perfon will allow, that among firs (the greateft part of which are exotics) they are perfectly in character. — Whoever has been at Mount Edgcumbe, and remembers the mixture of the arbutus, &c. with the fpreading pines, will want no farther recommendation of this method : I mufi own, that amidft all the grand features of that noble place, it made no flight improflion on me. QL3 who [ 2 3 0 ] who wifhed to give variety to this rich but uniform mafs. He might in fome parts like an * open grove of firs only; in that cafe he would only have to clear away all the lower evergreens, and the firs which remained, from their free un- conftrained manner of growing, would ap- pear as if they had been planted with that defign. In other parts he might make that beautiful foreft-like mixture of open grove with thickets and loofely fcattered trees ; of lawns and glades of various fhapes and dimenfions, varioufly bounded. Sometimes he might find the ground fcooped out into a deep hollow, forming a fort of amphitheatre ; and there, in order to mew its general fhape, and yet pre- * A grove of large fpreading pines is very folemn, but that folemnity might occafionally be varied, and in fome refpects heightened, by a mixture of yews and cyprefles, which at the fame time, would give an idea of extreme retirement and of fepulchrai melancholy. In other parts a very pleafing contraft in winter might be formed by hollies, arbutus, lauruftinus, and others that bear berries and flowers at that feafon, ferve [ 231 ] ferve its fequeftered character, he might only make a partial clearing ; when all that can give intricacy, variety, and retirement to a fpot of this kind would be ready to his hands. v. It may indeed be objected, (and not without reafon) that this evergreen un- derwood will have grown fo clofe, that, when thinned, the plants which are left will look bare ; and bare they will look, for fuch mufl neceffarily be the ef- fect of leaving any trees too clofe. There are, however, feveral reafons why it is of lefs confequence in this cafe. The firft and raoft material is, that the great outline of the wood, formed by the higher!: trees, would not be affected ; another is, that thefe lower trees being of various growths, fome will have out- ftripped their fellows in the fame propor- tion as the firs outftripped them, and con^ fequently their heads will have had room to fpread, and form a gradation from the higheft fks to the lowed underwood. Q^4 Again, [ ] Again, many of thefe evergreens of lower growth fucceed well under the drip of taller trees, and alfo (to life the figurative expreflion of nurfery-men) love the knife : by pruning fome, therefore, and cutting down others, the bare parts of the taller ones would in a ihort time be covered ; and the whole of fuch a wood might be divided at pleafure into openings and groups, dif- fering in form, in fize, and in degrees of concealment, from ikirtings of the loofefl texture, to the clofeft and moft impene- trable thickets *, There * This method is equally good in making planta^ tions of deciduous trees, though not in the fame de- gree necefiary as in thofe of firs ; and though I have only mentioned ornamental plantations, yet, I believe, if thorns were always mixed with oak, beech., &c. be T fides their ufe in preventing the foreffc trees from be- ing planted too clofe to each other, they would by no means be unprofitable. If they were taken out before they were too large to be moved eafily, their ufe for hedges, and their ready fale for that purpofe, is well known ; if left longer they are particularly ufeful in planting in gaps, where fmaller ones would he ftifled i and if they remained, they would always make excel- 4 Jent [ 233 ] There are few operations in improve- ment more pleafant than that of opening gradually a fcene where the materials are only too abundant, but not abfolutely fpoiled j as they are in a thick wood of firs. In that, there is no room for felection, — no exercife of the j udgment in arranging the groups, mafTes, or fingle trees, — no power of renewing vegetation by pruning or cut- ting down, — or of producing by that, and hardly by any other means, the fmalleft intricacy or variety. If one bare pole is removed, that behind differs from it fo little that one might exclaim with Mac- beth, lent hedge wood, and anfwer all the common purpofes of underwood. For ornament, a great variety of lower growths might be added ; and, among the reft, of thorns of different fpecies, the maple leaved, &c. &c. It is not meant that the largeft growths mould never be planted near each other ; fome of the moft beautiful groups are often formed by fuch a clofe junction, but not when they have all been planted at the fame time, and drawn up together. A judicious' improver will know when and how to deviate from any method, how- ever generally g©od, « Thy [ *34 ] « Thy air « Is like the firft-— a third is like the former-— « Horrible fight!"—- and fo they would unvariedly go on, 14 tho' their line " Stretched out to the crack of doom." In defcribing thefe two w T oods, I do not think I have at all exaggerated the uglinefs and the incorrigible iamenefs of the one, and the variety and beauty of which the other is capable. I mean however that variety which arifes from the manner in which thefe evergreens may be difpofed, not from the number of diftind fpecies. I have indeed often obferved in forefts, (thofe great ftorehoufes of piclurefque difpotitions of trees) that merely from oak, beech, thorns, and hollies arofe fo many combinations, fo different in effect from what is gained by ever fo great a di- verfity of trees lumped together, that one hardly wifhed for more variety ; it put me in mind of what is mentioned of the more [ 3 more ancient Greek painters ; that with only four colours, they did what in the more degenerate days of the art could jiot be performed with all the aid of che- miftry. The true end of variety is to re- lieve the eye, not to perplex it it does not confirt in the diverfity of feparate ob- jects, but in the diverfity of their effects when combined together, in diverfity of compofition, and of character; many think, however, they have obtained that grand ob- ject when they have exhibited in one bo- dy all the hard names of the Linnaean fyfiem* ; but when as great a diverfity of * In a botanical light fuch a collection is extremely furious and entertaining, but it is about as good a fpe- » cimen of variety in landfcape as a line of Lilly's gram-t mar would be of variety in poetry : Et poftis, vectis, vermis focietur et axis. A collection of hardy exotics may alfo be confidered as a very valuable part of the improver's palet, and fuggeft many new and harmonious combinations of co- lours ; but then he muft not call the palet a picture* § plants [ 236 ] plants as can well be got together is exhi- bited in every flirubbery, or in every plan- tation, the refult is a famenefs of a differ- ent kind, but not lcfs truly a famenefs than would arife from there being no di- verfity at all ; for there is no having va- riety of character without a certain dif- tinctnefs, without certain marked features on which the eye can dwell. In forells and woody commons we fometimes come from a part where hollies had chiefly prevailed, to another where junipers or yews are the principal ever- greens; and where perhaps there is the fame fort of change in the deciduous trees and underwood : this ftrikes us with a new impreffion ; but mix them equally- together in all parts, and diverlity becomes a fource of monotony. Two of the principal defects in the compofition of landfcapes are the oppo- fite extremes of objects being too crouded or too fcatteredi the clump is a happy union [ 237 ] union of thefe two grand defects ; it is icattered with refpect to the general com- pofition, and clofe and lumpifh when con- iidered by itfelf. One great caufe of the fuperior variety and richnefs of unimproved parks and forefts, when compared with lawns and drerled ground, and of their being fo much more admired by painters, is, — -that the. trees and groups are feldom totally alone * and unconnected ; of this, and of all that is moil attractive in natural fcenery, the two great fources are accident and neg- lect f. In * In the Liber Veritatis, confifting of above three hundred drawings by Claude, I believe there are not more than th^ee Tingle trees. This is one ftrong proof (and I imagine the works of other painters would fully confirm it) that thofe who mod ftudied the effect of vifible objects attended infinitely more to connexion, than to feparate forms. The pra&ice of improvers is directly the reverfe. •J- I remember hearing what I thought a very juft cri- ticifm on a part of Mr. Crab's poem of the Library, He has there perfonified Negk£l % and given her the t 3 In forefis and in old parks the rough bufhes nurfe up young trees, and grow up ■with th^m; and thence arifes that infinite variety ef openings, of inlets, of glades, of forms of trees,&c. the effed of all which might be preferved and rendered more beautiful, by a judicious ftyle and degree of clearing and polifhing, and might be fuccefsfully imitated in other parts. Lawns are very commonly made by laying together a number of fields and meadows, the infides of which are gene- rally cleared of bufhes : when thofe hedges are taken away, it muft be a great piece of luck if the trees that were in them, and thofe which were fcattered about the «aive employment of fpreading duft on books of an* tient chivalry. But in producing pi&urefque effects, I begin to think her vis inertiae is in many cafes a very powerful agent. Should this criticifm induce any perfon who had not read the Library to look at that part I have men- tioned, he will foon forget his motive for looking at it in his admiration of one of the mod animated and highly poetical defcriptions I ever read; open [ 239 ] open parts, mould fo combine together as to form a connected whole. The cafe is much more defperate when a layer out of grounds has perfuaded the owner, To improve an old family feat, By fawning a hundred good acres of wheat ; for the infides of arable grounds have fel- dom any trees in them, and the hedges but few j and then clumps and belts arc the only refources. Such an improvement, however, is great- ly admired ; and I have frequently heard it wondered at, that a green lawn, which is fo charming in nature, mould look fo ill when painted. It muft be owned that it does look miferably flat and infipid in a picture ; but that is not entirely the fault of the painter * - 3 for it is hardly poffibk to * It is, I believe, out of the power of the art to make a long extent of fmooth unbroken green intereftingj but it muft alfo be allowed that it might be made lefs bad than the reprefentations of lawns I have happened to fee. Mr. Gilpin obferves, that " were a lake fpread w out on the canvafs in one fimple hue, it would be a « duil [ 240 ] to invent any thing more infipid than on© uniform green furface dotted with clumps and furrounded by a belt. If you will fuppofe a lawn with trees of every growth difperfed in the happieft manner, and with as much intricacy and variety as mere grafs and trees can give to a lawn without deftroying its character, — fuch a fcene, painted by a Claude, would be a foft pleafing picture ; but it would want pre- cifely what it wants in nature, — that happy union of warm and cool, of fmooth and rough, of picturefque and beautiful, which makes the charm of his beft compofi- tions. Were two fuch pictures (both equally well painted) hung up by each other, the defects of the fmooth green landfcape would be felt immediately ; and « dull fatiguing object"; he might have added, a very unnatural one : it would then bear the fame fort of re- femblance to a lake, as Come portraits of gentlemen's feats do to a lawn, which, though in general a diffi- dently .dull and fatiguing object, yet has tints, and lights and fhadows but ill reprefented by one limple hue of green fpread upon the canvas. were t 241 } were it pomble to bring two fuch fcenes in nature into as immediate a companion, he muft be a fturdy improver who would hefitate between the two. But though fuch fcenes as the great matters made choice of are much morq varied and animated than one of mere grafs can be, yet I am very far from wiuV ing the peculiar character of lawns to be denroyed. The ftudy of the principles of painting would be very ill applied by an improver, who mould endeavour to give to each fcene every variety that might pleafe in a picture feparately confidered, mftead of fuch varieties as are confident with the connections and dependencies it has on other objects, and its peculiar cha- racter and fituation. Smoothnefs and verdure are the two mo ft characterise beauties of a lawn, but they are in their nature clofely allied to monotony; im- provers, inftead of endeavouring to re- medy that defect, which is inherent in thofe elfential qualities of beauty, have on R the [ 242 J the contrary added to it and made ft much more ltriking, by the difpofition of their trees, and their method of forming the banks of artificial rivers : nor have they confined this fyftem of levelling and turfing to thofe fcenes where fmoothnefs and ver- dure ought to be the ground-work «f improvement, but have made it the fun- damental principle of their art *. * A perfe&ly flat fquare meadow furrounded by a neat hedge, and neither tree nor bum in it, is looked upon not only without difguft, but with pleafure ; for it pretends only to neatnefs and utility: the fame may be faid of a piece of arable of excellent husbandry. But when a dozen pieces are laid together, and called a lawrt or a pleafure-ground, with manifeft pretenfions to beau- ty, the eye grows faftidious, and has not the fame indul- gence for tafte as for agriculture. Men of property, who either from falfe tafte, or from a fordid defire of gain, fflf- figure fuch fcenes or buildings as painters admire, provoke our indignation : not fo when agriculture, in its general progrefs, (as is often unfortunately thecafe) interferes with, pidurefquenefs or beauty : the painter may indeed lament, but that fcience, which of all others moft benefits man- kind, has a right to more than his forgivenefs j when wild thickets are converted into fcenes of plenty and induftry, and when gypfies and vagrants give way to the lefs pidurefque figures of hufbandmen and their at- tendants. I believe t believe the idea that fmoothnefs and verdure will make amends for the want of variety and pi&urefquenefs, arifes from not diftinguifhing thofe qualities that are grateful to the mere organ of fight, from thofe various combinations,which, through the progreflive cultivation of that fenfe, .have produced inexhauftible fources of delight and admiration. Mr. Mafon obfcrves, that green is to the eye what harmony is to the ear j the com- parifon holds throughout, for a long continuance of either, without fome re- lief, is equally tirefome to either fenfe. Soft and fmooth founds are thole which are moft grateful to the mere fenfe the leaft artful combination (even that of a third below fung by another voice) af firft diftra&s the attention from the tune; when that is got over, a Venetian duet appears the perfection of melody and harmony. By degrees the ear, like the eye y tires of a repetition of the fame flowing {train, ancl requires fome marks of invention, of ori- R % ginal t *44 1 ginal .and ftriking character, as well as of fweetnefs, in the melodies of a com-* pofer ; it takes in more and more intricate- combinations of harmony and oppofition of parts, not only without confulion but with delight; and with that delight (the only lafting one) which is produced both from the effect of the whole, and the de- tail of the parts* : At the fame time the having acquired a relifh for fuch artful combinations, fo far from excluding (ex- cept in narrow pedantic minds) a tafte for fimple melodies, or fimple fcenes, height- * This I take to be the reafon why thofe who are real connoiffeurs in any art can give the raoft unwea- ried attention to what the general lover is foon tired of; Both are ftruck (though not in the fame manner or. de- gree) with the whole of a fcene j but the painter is aid > eagerly employed in examining the parts, and all the artifice of nature in compofing fuch a whole. The general lover flops at the firft gaze, and I have heard it faid by thofe who in other purfuits mewed the raoft difcriminating tafte ; « Why mould we look at thefe things any more — we have feen them." Non piu parlar di lor'* ma guarda & fftfla. ens [ *45 ] ens the enjoyment of them. It is only by fuch acquirements that a man learns to diftingiiim what is fimple,from what is bald and common-place i what is varied and intricate, from what is only perplexed. CHAP- [ 34-6 ] CHAPTER llh OF all the effects in kndfcapc, the moft brilliant and captivating are thofc produced by water, on the manage- ment of which I have heard Mr. Brown particularly piqued himfelf. If thofc beau- ties in natural rivers and lakes that are ins- table by art, and the feleftions of them in the works of great painters, are the beft guides in forming artificial ones, Mr, Brown grofsly miftook . his talent; for among all his tame productions, his pieces pf made water are perhaps the moft fo. One of the moft ftriking properties of water, and which moft diftinguifhes it from the grofler element of earth, is its being a mirror, and a mirror that gives a peculiar frefhnefs and tendernefs to the colour* C 2 47 ] colours it reflects ; it foftcns trie fcronger lights, though the lucid veil it throws over them feems hardly to diminiiTi their brilliancy ; it adds depth to the fhadows, while its glafly furface preferves and feems even to encreafe their tranfparency. Thefe beautiful and varied effects however, are chiefly produced by the near objects ; by trees and bufhes immediately on the banks ; by thofe that hang over the wa- ter, and form dark coves beneath their branches; by various tints of the foil where the ground is broken ; by roots and old trunks of trees, tuffucks of rufhes, large ftones that are partly whitened by the air and partly covered with moffes, lychens, and weather-flains 5 while the foft tufts of grafs, and the fmooth verdure of mea- dows with which they are intermixed* appear a thoufand times more foft, fmooth, and verdant by fuch contrails *. But * If a man really wifhes to form a juft and unbiaffed opinion of the merits of a beautiful river, and of an ar- il 4 tificiaj [ H* ] But to produce reflections there muft be objects - s for according to a maxim I have heard quoted from the old law of France (a maxim that hardly required the fanction of fuch venerable authority) ou il n y a ritn le roi perd fes droits and this is generally a cafe in point with re- fpect to Mr. Brown's artificial rivers % tifidal one as they have hitherto been made j let him obferve the circumftances I have juft mentioned at dif- ferent times of the day, and in different degrees of light and of fhadow ; and then, while all this is frefli in his recollection, let him as attentively examine an artificial river; and judge how far mere greennefs and fmooth- nefs make amends for the total abfence of every thing clfe. * I confider Mr. Brown a6 the Hercules to whom the labours of the lefler ones are to be attributed : When I fpeak of his artificial water, I mean to include all that has been done by his followers after his model ; and there can be no difficulty in copying that model ex- actly. Natural rivers, indeed, can only be imitated by the eye either in painting or reality; but his may be furvey- ed, and an exact plan taken cf them by admeafurement ; and though a reprefentation of them would not accord with a Claude or a Gafper, it might with great pro- priety be hung up with a map of the demeuie lands. 8 Even [ 249 ] Even when, according to Mr. Walpole's * defcription, " a few trees, fcattered here and there on its edges, fprinkle the tame bank that accompanies its meanders," the reflections would not have any great variety or brilliancy. The meanders of a river, which at every turn prefent fcenes of a different character, make us ftrongly feel the ufe and the charm of them ; but when the fame fweeps return as regularly as the fleps of a minuet, the eye is quite wearied with following them over and over again. * The paflage I have quoted is in his treatife on Modern Gardening : „ the general tenor of that part is in commendation of the prefent ftyle of made-water ; but this paflage contains more juft and pointed fatire than ever was conveyed in the fame number of words : a few treesjfcattered here and thereon its edges^fprinklethetame bank. It feems to me that in the midft of praifes, his natural tafte breaks out into perhaps unintended criti- cifms, and which on that account may well fting the improver who reads them; for the fting is always much fharper when Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipfis floribus angat. What [ 2 5° ] What makes the fweeps much more for- mal is their extreme nakednefs ; the fprink> ling a few fcattered trees on their edges wiU not do ; there mufl be mafles and groups, and various degrees of openings and concealment; and by fuch means fome little variety may be given even to thefe tame banks, for tame they always will re- main ; and it may be here obferved, that the fame objects which produce reflections alfo produce variety of outline, of tints, of lights and fhadows, as well as intricacy; fo intimate is the connection between all thefe different beauties, fo often does the abfence of one of them imply the abfence of the others. In the turns of a beautiful river, the lines are fo varied with projections, coves, and inlets ; with fmooth and broken ground ; with open parts, and with others fringed and overhung with trees and bufhes ; with peeping rocks, and large moffy flones, and all their foft and brilliant reflections, that the eve lingers upon them; the two banks feem C 251 ] fcem as k were to protract their meetings and the junction ©f them is formed infen- fxbly, they fo blend and unite with each other. In Mr. Brown's naked canals no- thing detains the eye a moment, and the two bare fharp extremities appear to cut into each other *. If a near approach to mathematical exa&nefs was a merit in- ftead of defect, the fweeps of Mr. Brown's water would be admirable; for they feem not to have been formed by degrees with fpades, but fcooped out at once by an im- menfe iron crefcent, which, after cutting * " When we look at a naked wall, from the even- nefs of the object the eye runs along its whole fpace, and arrives quickly at its termination." Mr. Burke's Sublime and Beautiful, p. lj. — This accounts for the total want of picturefquenefs, and of all intereft whatso- ever, in a continuation of naked edgy lines ; for where there is nothing to detain the eye, there is nothing to amufe it. I may add, that wherever ground is cut with a fharp inftrument, it has that ideal effect on the eye ; it is a metaphor which naturally prevails in many lan- guages where lines (from whatever caufe) are hard and edgy. When A. Caracci fpeaks of the edginefs of Ra- phael compared with Correggio, he ufes the expreffion ,;coh duro & tagliente— couleurs trajichantcs, &e. out t ] out the indented part on one fide, was applied to the oppofite fide, and - "then re- verfed to make the fweeps ; fo that in each fweep, the indented and projecting parts, if they could be moved together, would fit like the pieces of a dhTe&ed map. Where thefe pieces of water are made, if there happen to be any fudden breaks or inequalities in the ground; any thickets or bumes ; any thing, in mort, that might cover the rawnefs and formality of new work ; inftead of taking advantage of fuch accidents, all muft be made level and bare; and by a flrange perverfion of terms, the ftripping nature flark-naked is called dref- fing her. A piece of ftill water, with fuch a thin graffy edge, looks like a temporary over- flowing ; to give to the whole a character of age, of permanency, and capacity, it re- quires fome height, and fome degree of ab- ruptnefs in part of the banks— fome appear- ance of their having been gradually worn and undermined by the action of the water. As [ *51 .] As the banks are generally formed, a Granger might often fuppofe that when dry weather -came the -flood would go off, and the ?neddow be reftored to its natural ftate. And yet, however fond of art, and even of the appearance of it, fome improvers feem to be, I fancy, if a ftranger was to miftake one of their dabs of made water for the Thames, fuch an error would not only be forgiven, but confidered as the higheft compliment ; notwithftanding Mr, Brown's modefl*apoftrophe to that river. But though an imitation of the moil ftriking varieties of nature, fo fkilfully ar- ranged as to pafs for nature herfelf, would be acknowledged as the higheft attainment of art j yet it fe ems never to have occurred to any one to copy thofe circumftances which might occafion fo flattering a de- * " Thames ! Thames ! Thou wilt never forgive me." — A well known exclamation of Mr. Brown, when he was looking with rapture and exultation at one of his own canals. ceptiom [ 254 3 ception. If it was propofed to any of thefe profeffors to make an artificial ri- ver without regular curves *, flopes, and levelled banks, but with thofe charac- terise beauties and negligencies which give a certain air of naturalnefs as well as variety to real rivers, and which diftin- guifh them from what is univerfally done by art, they would, in Briggs's language, «< ftare like ftuck pigs— do no fuch thing;'* their talent lies another way ; and if you have a real river, and will let them im- prove it, you will be furprifed to find how foon they will make it like an artificial one ; fo much fo, that the moft critical eye could fcarcely difcovcr that it had not * The lines in natural rivers, in bye roads, in the fkirtings of glades of forefts,have fometimes the appear- ance of regular curves, and feem to juftify the ufe of them in artificial fcenery ; but fomething always faves them from fuch a crude degree of it. If, on a fubje£ fo very unmathematical, one might venture to ufe any allufioh to that fcience, or any tern drawn from it, fuch lines might be called pidurefque afymptotes; however thef may approach to regular curves, they never fell into them. 4- been [ 255 1 been planned by Mr. Brown, and formed by the fpade and the wheelbarrow. All thefe defects in the banks of made water, may, I am perfuaded, be got over by judicious management * ; but there is another conn 1 deration on this fubjeel: that * Mr. Repton, (who is defervedly at the head of his profefiion) might effectually correct the errors of his predeceffors, if to his tafte and facility in drawing (a» advantage they did not poffefs) to his quicknefs of ob- fervation, and to his experience in the practical part, he was to add an attentive ftudy of what the higher ar- tifrs have done, both in their pictures and drawings-: Their felections and arrangements would point out many beautiful eompofitions and effects in nature, which without fuch a fludy may efcape the moft ex- perienced obferver. The fatal rock on which all profeffed improvers are likely to fplit, is that of fyftem ; they become manned fts both from getting fond of what they have done before, and from the eafe of repeating what they have fo often practic- ed; but to be reckoned a mannerift. is at leaft as great a reproach to the improver as to the painter. I have never *feen any piece of water that Mr. Repton had both planned and fmifhed himfelf : Mr. Brown feems to have been per- fectly fatisfied when he had made a natural river look like an artificial one; I hope Mr. Repton will have a nobler ambition — that of having his artificial rivers and lakes miftaken for natural ones. deferves [ 256 ]; deferves to be weighed by every improver. To make an artificial river, you mufl ne- cefiarily begin by deftroying one of the greateft charms of a natural one ; and mo-, tion is fuch a charm, fo fuited to all taftcs, that before a running brook is forced into ilagnant water, the advantages of fuch an alteration ought to be very apparent: if it is determined, nothing that may com- penfate for fuch a lofs mould be neglect- ed i and as the water itfeif can have but one uniform furface, every variety of which banks are capable mould be ftudied both from nature and painting, and thofe fe- lected which will bed accord with the general fcenery. Obje&s of reflexion feem peculiarly fuited to Hill water, for, befides their diftindt beauty, they foften the cold white glare of what is ufually called a fine meet of water. This ex- preflion, as I before obferved (and I be- lieve it is the cafe with other common forms of compliment) contains a very juft criticifm on what it feems to commend, and t *$ ] and the origin of fuch mixtures of prailB arid cenfhre may, I think, be ea'fily ac- counted for. The perfon who flrft makes life of fuch a form, and brings it into vogue, only exprelTes a fudden idea that ftrikes him, without examining it accu- rately. Any perfon, for inftance, who was fhewn, for the firfr. time, a piece of made water, would probably be ftruck with the white glare of the water itfel£ and with the uniform greennefs and exact level of its banks, ot rather its border ; the idea of linen fpfeadupon grafs might thence very naturally occur to him, which, in civil language, he would exprefs bya fine meet of water, and this is always meant and taken as a flattering expreflion, though nothing carl more pointedly defcribe the defects of fuch a icene * : had there been any variety in the banks, * I happened to be at a gentleman's houfe, the ar- chitect of which (to ufe Colin Campbell's expre/Eon) " had not preferred the majefty of the front from the ill effect of crowded apertures." A neighbour of his* meaning to pay him a compliment on the number and S elofensfs E 2 S 5 } banks, with deep {hades, brilliant lights* and reflections, the idea of a meet would hardly have fuggefted itfelf, or if it had, he who made fuch a comparifon would have made a very bad one ; ¥ Aad liken'd things that are not like at all." But in the other cafe, nothing can be more like than a meet of water and a real meet ; and wherever there is a large blanching ground, the moft exact imitations of Mr. Brown's lakes and rivers might be made in linen ; and they would be juft as pro- per objects of jealoufy to the Thames as any of his performances. I am aware that Mr. Brown's admirers, with one voice, will quote the great; water at Blenheim as a complete anfwer to all I have faid againft him on this fubjed:. No one can admire more highly than I da clofenefs of his windows, exclaimed, " What a charm- ing houfe you have ! upon my word it is quite like a. lanthorn." I muft own I think the two compliments equally flattering ; but a charming lanthorn has not yet had the fuccefs of a fine Iheet* t 259 j that moft princely of all places } but it would be doing great injuftice to nature and Yanbrugh not to diftinguifh their merits in ^forming it from thofe of Mr; Brown. If there is an improvement more obvi- ous than all others, it is that of damming up a ftream which flows on an eafy level through a valley *, and it required no effort of genius to place the head in the narrowed and mort concealed part ; this is all that Mr. "Brown has done. He has, indeed > the negative merit (and that no fmall one, and to which he is not always entitled) of having left the oppofite bank fef wood in its natural ftate f >, and had he profited * I will not go quite fo far as a friend of mine (well known for his love of maintaining lingular opinions) Who, when we were talking, upon the fpot, of the great Water, and of Mr.' Brown's merit in conceiving it, de- clared he was quite certain there was not a houfe-maid in Blenheim to whom it would not immediately have oc- curred. f I am convinced, however, that a Mr. Brown, though he may not often venture on fo flagrant a piece S Z «f r 2 6 0 ] profited by fo excellent a model — had he formed and planted the other more diftant banks, fo as to have continued fomething of the fame ftyle and character round the lake, (though with thofediveriities which would naturally have occurred to a man of the leaft invention) he would, in my opinion, have had fome claim to a title created fince his time ; a title of no fmall pretention, that of landfcape gardener : but if thofe banks above and near the bridge were formed, or of mifchief as clumping and {having fuch a bank of wood as that at Blenheim, yet feldom, if ever, feels and diftin- guiihes the peculiar beauties of its unimproved ftate. A profefled improver is in all refpe&s like a profefled pio ture-cleaner ; the one is always occupied with grounds and the other with pictures ; but the eyes and tafte of both, are fo vitiated by their practice, that they fee nothing either but fubje&s for fmoothingand polifhing; and they work on till they have fkinncd and flead every thing they meddle with. Thofechara&eriflicand fpirited roughnefles, together with that patina, the varnifti of time, and which time only can give (and which in pi&ures may fometimes hide crudities which efcape even the laft glazing of the painter) immediately difappear ; and pictures and places are fcoured as bright as Scriblerus's fhield, and with as little remorfc on the part of the fcourers. [ *6i ] even approved of by him, his tafte had more of the engineer than the painter ; for they have fo ftrong a refemblance to the glacis of a fortification, that it might well be fuppofed that fhape had been given them in compliment to the lirft duke of Marlborough's campaigns in Flanders. The bank near the houfe, oppofite to the wooded one, and which forms part of the pleaiure ground, js extremely well done i for that required a high degree of polim, and there the gardener was at home. Without meaning to delrad: from his real merit in that part (But at the fame time to reduce it to what appears to me its juft value) I muft obferve that two things have contributed to give it a rich effecl: at a diflance, as well as a varied and dreffed look within kfelf ; in both refpects a very different one from his other plan- tations. In the firft place., there were fe- veral old trees there before he began his works ; and their high and fpreading tops would unavoidably prevent that dead flat- S 3 nefs [ 262 ] nefs of outline, cet air ecrase, which his pwn clofe * lumpy plantations of trees al- ways * It may perhaps be thought unjuft to make Mr. Brown anfwerable for the neglect: of gardeners ; it may be faid, that an improver's bufinefs is to form, not to thin plantations. But a phyfician would deferve very ill of his patient, who, after prefcribing for the moment, fliould abandon him to the care of his nurfe ; and who in his future vifits fliould concern himfelf no farther, but let the diforder take its courfe, till the patient was irrecoverably emaciated and exhaufted. Mr. Brown, during a long practice, frequently repeated his vifits; but as far as I have obferved, the trees in his plantations bear no mark of his attention: indeed, his clumps ilrongly prove his love of compactnefs. There is another circumftance in his plantations that deferves to be remarked : A favourite mixture of his was that of beech and Scotch firs, and in nearly equal pro- portion : if unity and fimplicity of character in a wood is t;o be given up, it mould be for the fake of a variety that will harmonize ; which two trees, fo equal incize and in numbers, and fo ftrongly contrafted in form and colour, can never do. This puts me in mind of an anecdote I heard of a, perfon very much ufed to look at objects with a painter's eye : — He had three cows ; when his wife with a very- proper oeconomy obferved, that two were quite fufficient for their family, and defired him to part with one of them. " Lord, my dear," faid he, « two cows you Jtnow will never group," A thirtj [ *«3' ] ways exhibit. In the next place, the fitu- ation of this fpot called for a large propor- tion of fhrubs, with exotick trees of various heights ; thefe fhrubs and plants of lower growth, though chiefly put in clumps, the edgy borders of which have a degree of formality *, yet being fubordinate, and not A third tree (like a third cow) might have conned cd and blended the difcordant forms and colours of the beech and Scotch fir j but every thing I have feen of Mr. Brown's works have convinced me that he had, in a figurative fenfe, no eye\ and if he had had none in. the literal fenfe, it would have only been a private misfortune, And partial evil, univerfal good. * All fuch edges are no lefs adverfe to the beautiful than to the picturefque: fhey are hard, cutting, and formal; they deftroy all play of outline — all beauty of intricacy. Digging, with the edges it occafions, is a blemifh, which is endured at firft (and with great reafon) for the fake of luxuriant vegetation ; but when the encj is anfwered, why continue the blemifh ? No one, I believe, would think it right to dig a circle or an oval, and keep its ep'ges pared, round a group of kal- meas, azaleas, rhododendrons, he. that grew luxuriantly in their own natural foil and climate, in order to make fhe... who}e look more beautiful. Why then continue to S i dig I * 6 4 ] not interfering with the higher growths, or with the original trees, have, from the op- pofite bank, the appearance of a rich un- derwood ; and the beauty, and compara> tjve variety of that garden fcene, from all points, are ftrongly in favour of the me- thod of planting I defcribed in a former part. It L clear to me, however, that Mr. Brown did not make ufe of this me- thod from principle for in that cafe he would fometimes at lealr have tried it m lefs polimed fcenes, by fubftituting thorns, hollies, &c. in the place of ihrubs. Of the rich, airy, and even drelfed. effect of fuch mixtures, he mull have feen numberlefs examples in forefts, in parks, on the banks of rivers ; and from them he might have drawn the moft ufeful inflru&ion, were it to be expected that thofe who profefs to 'Wig round them in this country, after they have begun to grow as freely as our own plants ? Why not fuffer them fo appear, without the marks of culture, As glowing in their native bed? improve [ *«5 ] improve nature mould ever deign to be- come her fcholars. But to judge properly of Mr. Brown'i tafte and invention in the accompaniments of water, we mull obferve thofe he has formed entirely himfelf, and that we may do without quitting Blenheim * ; for be- low the cafcade all is his own, and a more complete piece qf monotony could hardly be furnifhed even from his own works* When he was no longer among fhrubs * As Blenheim is the only place I have criticifed by name, an apology is due to the noble pofleflbrof it (to whom, on many accounts, I ftiould be particularly forry to give offence) for the freedom I have taken. I truft, however, that the liberality of mind, which naturally ac- companies that love and knowledge of the fine arts for which he is fo diftinguiflied, will make him feel that in criticifing modern gardening it would have been unfair to Mr. Brown not to have mentioned his moft famous work ; and that my filence on that head would have been attributed to other motives than thofe of delicacy and re/pec}. I muft alfo add in my defence, *hat I can hardly look upon Blenheim in the light of common private pro- perty J it has the glorious and fmgular diftinftion of be- ing a national reward for great national fervices \ and the public has a more than common intereft in all that concerns fp noble a monument. t 266 ] and gravel walks, the gardener was quite $t a lofs : his mind having never been prepared, by a ftudy of the great matters of landfcape, for a more enlarged one of nature ; finding no invention, no refources within himfelf, he copied what he had tnoft feen and moft admired — his ovfcn little works ; and in the fame fpirit in which he had magnified a parterre, he planned a gigantic gravel walk } when it was dug out, he filled it with another element, called it a river, and thought the nobleft in this kingdom mufi be jealous of fuch a rival *. * Mr. Brown and his followers are great oeconomifts of their invention : with them walks, roads, brooks, and rivers are, as it were, convertible works — dry one of th«ir rivers, it is a large walk or road — flood a walk or a road, it is a little brook or river' — and the ac- companiments (like the drone of a bagpipe) always re- gain the fame. A brook, indeed, is not always dammed up j it fome- times (though rarely) is allowed its liberty; but, like animals that are fuffered by the owner to run loofe, it is marked as private property, by being mutilated. N» operation in improvement has fuch an appearance of fyarbarity as that of defraying the modeft retired cha- i ra&sr [ *<7 3 jra&er of a brook : I remember fome burlefque line? on the treatment of Regulus by the Carthaginians, whici| perfectly defcribe the effecl: of that operation : His eyelids they pared, Good God ! how he ftared ! Juft fo do thefe improvers torture a brook by widening it, cutting away its beautiful fringe, and expofuig it to day's garifti eye. If, inftead of always turning them into regular pieces of water, brooks were fometimes flopped partially^ and to different degrees of height, where there appeared tq be natural beds, and where natural banks with trees or with thickets, would then hang over them ; there Would be a mixture and fucceflion of ftill and of running- water f of tjjiick motion, and of clear reflc&ion. I HAVE [ 268 ] I have now gone through the principal points of modern gardening ; but the obfervations I have made relate almoft entirely to the grounds, and not to what may properly be called the garden *. The em- bellishments near the houfe, and thofe de- corations which would be ft accord with architecture, and with buildings of every kind, deferve a feparate chapter ; and fome future time I may pombly attempt it, Should this work be received favourably. As the art of gardening, in its extended fenfe, vies with that of painting, and has been thought likely to form a new fchool of painters; I think I am juftified in hav- * A gentleman, whofe tafte and feeling, both for art and nature, rank as high as any man's, was lamenting to rne the extent of Mr. Brown's operations ; — w Former improvers," faid he, « at leaft kept near the houfe, but fhis fellow crawls like a fnail all over the grounds, and li&wes his curfed flime behind him wherever he goes." ing [ 26 9 3 ing compared its operations and effects' with thofe of the art it pretends to rival, nay, to inftruct. Thefe two rivals (whom I am fo defirous of reconciling) have hi- therto been guided by very oppofite prin- ciples, and the character of their produc- tions have .been as oppofite ; but the cold flat monotony of the new favourite has been preferred by many (" aye, and thofe great ones too") to the fpirited variety of her elder fitter ; me has, indeed, been £b puffed up by this high favour, that fhe has hardly deigned to acknowledge the relationfhip, and has even treated her with contempt; Thofe alfo, who from their fitu- ation and influence were belt qualified to have brought about an union between them, have, on the contrary, contributed to keep up her vanity, and to widen the breach - } for I have heard an eminent pro- feffor treat the idea of judging, in any de- gree, of places as of pictures, or of compar- ing them at all together, as quite abfurd. In real life the nobleft part a man can act — tke t *7° i the part that mofl conciliates the efteem and good will of all mankind, is that of pro- moting union and harmony wherever oc- cafion offers : In the prefent cafe, though a breach between thefe figurative perfonsi is not of ferious confequence to fociety, yet I ihall feel no fmall pleafure and pride if my endeavours mould be fuccefsful. I have fhewn, to the beft of my power, how much it is their mutual intereft to acl: cor- dially together, and have offered every motive for fuch an union j and I hope that prejudices, however ftrongly rooted— how- everenforcedbythofewhomaybe interefted in the feparation, will at laft give way. I may, perhaps, be thought fomewhat cauftick for a peace -maker, and, I muft own, " My zeal flows warm and eager from my bofom." But if war is to be made for the fake of peace (however the wifdom of the expe- dient may be doubted) all will agree that it ought to be profecuted with vigour if once begun* I never I 2 7* 3 I never was in company with Mr, Brown, nor even knew him by fight, and therefore can have no perfonal diflike to him; but I have heard numberlefs in- ftances of his arrogance and defpotifm, and fnch high pretenfions feem to me little juftified by his works. Arrogance and imperious manners, which, even joined to the trueft merit and the moft fplendid ta- lents, create difguft and oppofition, when they are the offspring of a little narrow mind, elated with temporary favour, pro- voke ridicule, and deferve to meet with it. Mr. Mafon's poem on Modern Garden- ing, is, in reality, as direcT: an attack on Mr. Brown's fyftem as what I have writ- ten ; he has as ftrongly guarded the reader againft the infipid formality of clumps, &c. and has equally recommended the ftudy of painting as the befl guide to. improvers; but the praife he has he- flowed on Mr. Brown himfelf (however generally conveyed), has fpoiled the efTec! of t *7* 1 fo powerful an antidote. Moft people, from natural indolence, are more inclin- ed to copy an eftablimed and approved practice, than to correct its defects, or to form a new one from theory ; Mr. Mafon's. eulogium has therefore fanctioned Mr. Brown's practice more effectually, than his precepts have guarded againft it. That eulogium, however (if I may be allowed to make a fuggeftion which I think is au- thorized by the tenor of the poem) has been given from the moft amiable motive — the fear of hurting the feelings of thofe with whom he was on a footing of friend- fhip j with whom he often refided ; and who had very much employed and ad- mired Mr. Brown : Silence would in fuch a work have been a tacit condemnation i ftill worfe to have " damned with faint praife :" my idea may poffibly be taken upon wrong grounds, but I have often admired Mr. Mafon's addrefs in fo delicate a fituation. Had Mr. Brown transfofed into his works any thing of the tafte and fpirit £ 2 73 I fyirk which prevail in Mr. Mafon's pre- cepts and defcriptions, he would have de- fended (and might poffibly have enjoyed) the high honour of having thofe works celebrated by him and Mr. Walpole ; and not have had them referred, as they have been by both, to future poets and hifto- rianSi It may perhaps be thought presump- tuous in an individual, who has never/ diftinguifhed himfelf by any work that might give authority to his opinion, fo boldly to condemn what has been admired and pra&ifed by men of the moft liberal tafte and education ; but the force of fafhion and example are well known, and it requires no little energy of mind, and confidence in one's own principles, to think and a£r. for one's felf, in oppofition to general opinion and practice. Some french writer (I do not reeolleel: who) ventures to exprefs a doubt, whether a tree waving in the wind with all its branches free and untouched, may not poflibly be t 274 3 an object more worthy of admiration than* one cut into form in the gardens of Ver- failles : — This bold fceptic in theory had moft probably his trees fhorn like thofe of his fovereign. It is equally probable that many an Englifh gentleman has felt deep regret when Mr. Brown had improved fome charming trout ftream into a piece of water ; and that many a time afterwards, when walking on its naked banks, and difgufted with its glare and formality, he has thought how beautifully fringed thofc of his little brook once had been ; how it fometimes ran rapidly over the ftones and mallows; and fometimes in a narrower channel ftole filently beneath the over- hanging boughs. Many rich natural groups of trees he might remember, — now thinned and rounded into clumps many fequeftered and fhady fpots which h«r, jhad loved when a boy, — now all open and 1 expofed, without made or variety ; an J •all thefe facrifices made, not W his own, but t m ] tbu't to the taftc of the day, and againft his natural feelings. It feems to me that there is fomething of patriotifm in the praifes Mr. Walpole and Mr. Mafon have beftowed on Englifh gardening 5 and that zeal for the honour of their country has made them, in the general view of the fubjedt, overlook de- fects which they have themfelves con- demned. My love for my country is, I truft, not lefs ardent than theirs, but it has taken a different turn ; and I feel anxious to free it from the difgrace of propagating a fyftem, which, mould it become univerfal, would disfigure the face of all Europe. I wifti a more liberal and extended idea of improvement to prevail ; that inftead of the narrow, me- chanical practice of a few Englifh gar- deners,— the noble and varied works of the eminent painters of every age and of every country* and thole of their fu- preme miftrefs, Nature, fliould be the great models of imitation* T % If t 276 ] If a tafte for drawing and paintings 2nd a knowledge of their principles, made 5i part of every gentleman's education; if inftead of hiring a profeffed improver to torture their grounds after an eftablimed model, each improved his own place ac- cording to general conceptions drawn from nature and pictures, or from hints favourite mailers in painting, or favourite parts of nature fuggefted to him, — there might in time be a great variety in the ftyles of improvement, and all of them with peculiar excellencies. No two painters ever faw nature with the fame eyes they tended to one point by a thoufand different routes, and that makes the charm of an acquaintance with their various modes of conception and execution ; but any of Mr. Brown's followers might fay, with great truth, we have but one idea among us. I have always underftood that Mr. Hamilton, who created Painfhill, not only had ftudied pictures, but had ftudied them for the exprefs purpofe of improving real landfcape* tendfcape. The place he created (a talk of quite another difficulty from correcting, or from adding to natural feenery) fully proves the ufe of fuch a jftudy. Among many circumftances of more finking ■effect, I was highly pleafed with a walk which leads through a bottom fkirted with wood i and I was pleafed with it, not from what bad, but from what had not, been done ? it had no edges, no borders, no diftinct lines of reparation ; nothing was done except keeping the ground properly neat, and the communi- cation free from any obftruction ; the eye and the footfteps were equally unconfincd, and if it is a high commendation to a writer or a painter, that he knows when to leave off, it is not lefs fo to an improver. In a place begun (I believe) by Kent, and finished by Brown, a wood with many old trees covered with ivy, mixed with thickets of hollies, yews, and thorns; a wood which Rouffeau might have dedi- cated a la reverie, — is fo interfered by T 3 walks [ *7* 3 walks and green alleys, all edged bordered, that there is no efcaping from them; they ad like flappers in Laputa, and inftantly wake you from any dream of retirement. The borders of thefe walks (and it is a very common cafe) are fo thick, and the reft of the wood fo rough and impracticable, that it feems as if the improver faid, " You mail never wander from my walks — never exercife your own taftc and judgment — never form your own compofitions ; neither your eyes nor your feet mail be allowed to ftray from trie boundaries I have traced"— a fpecies of thraldom unfit for a free country. There is, indeed, fomething defpotic in the general fyftem of improvement; all mull be laid open— all that obftructs, level- led to the ground — houfes, orchards, gar- dens, all fwept away. Painting, on the con- trary, tends to humanize the mind : where a defpot thinks every perfon an intruder who enters his domain, and willies to deftroy pottages and pathways, and to reign alone; t 279 1 the lover of painting confiders the dwell- ings, the inhabitants, and the marks of their intercourfe as ornaments to the land- fcape *. . For the honour of humanity there are minds which require no other motive than what paries within. And here I cannot refift paying a tribute to the memory of a beloved uncle, and recording a benevc*- lence towards all the inhabitants around him that ftruck me from my earlieft re- membrance; and it is an impreffion I wifh always to cherifh. It feemed as if he had made his extenfive walks as much for them as for himfelf; they ufed them as * Sir Jofhua Reynolds told me, that when he an£ "Wilfon the landfcape painter were looking at the view from Richmond terrace, Wilfon was pointing out fomc particular part, and in order to direct his eye to it, « There," faid he, « near thofe houfes— there ! where the figures are."— Though a painter, faid Sir Jofhua, I was puzzled ; I thought he meant ftatues, and wa* looking upon the tops of the houfes, for I did not at foil- conceive that the men and women we plainly faw walking about, were by him only thought of as figures in the landfcape* T 4 fiedft [ 280 ] freely, and their enjoyment was his. The village bore as ftrong marks of his and of his brother's attentions (for in that re- fpect they appeared to have but one mind) to the comforts and pleafures of its inha- bitants. Such attentive kindneffes are amply repaid by affectionate regard and reverence, and were they general through- out the kingdom, they would do much more towards guarding us againft demo- cratical opinions, u Than twenty thoufand foldiers arm'd in proof/' The cheerfulnefs of the fcene I have men- tioned, and all the interefling circumftances attending it (fo different from thofe of fo- litary grandeur) have convinced me, that he who deftroys dwellings, gardens, and inclofures for the fake of mere extent and parade of property, only extends the bounds of monotony, and of dreary, felfifh pride ; but contracts thofe of variety, amufement* and humanity. I own it does furprife me, that in an age and f 281 ] and in a country where the arts are fo highly cultivated, one fingle plan (and that but moderate) mould have been fo generally adopted; and that even the love of peculiarity fhould not fometimes have checked this method of levelling all dif- tinclions, of making all places alike *, all equally tame and iniipid. Few perfons have been fo lucky as ne- ver to have feen or heard the true profer- 9 fmiling, and diftin&ly uttering his flowing common -place nothings, with the fame placid countenance, the fame even-toned voice : he is the very emblem of fer- pentine walks, belts, and rivers, ancj. all Mr, Brown's works ; like him they are fmooth, flowing, even, and diftind f, and like him they wear one's foul out. There * A perfon well known for his tafte and abilities being at a gentleman's houfe where Mr. Brown was expe&ed, drew a plan by anticipation, which proved fo exaclr, that I believe the ridicule it threw on the ferious plan helped to prevent its execution. f The language (if it may be fo called) by whicfr #bje#s of fight make themfelves intelligible, is exadly [ 282 ] There is a very different and much rarer being, and who hardly appears to be of the fame fpecies ; full of unexpected turns,— of flames of light: objects the inoft familiar are placed by him in fuch fingular yet natural points of view, — he ftrikes out fuch unthought of agreements like that of fpeech. To a man who is ufed to look at nature, pi&ures, or drawings with a painter's eye, the flighteft hint, on the flighteft infpeaion, conveys a per- fect and intelligible meaning; jutt as the flighteft found, with the moft negligent articulation, conveys meaning to an ear that is well acquainted with the language of the fpeaker : But to a perfon little verfed in that lan- guage fuch a found is quite unintelligible; he muft have tvery word pronounced diftinctly and articulately. Then again, as thefe flight hints, and flurred articula- tions, Ifave often a grace and fpirit in language which is loft when words are diftinaiy pronounced ; fo many of ihefe flight and expreflive touches, both in art and in sature, give moft pleafure to thofe who are thoroughly yerfed in the language. This may perhaps in fome de- gree account for the plainly marked diftin&ions in im- provement ; for as in order to convey any idea to a inan unufed to a language in one fenfe, you muft mark •£very word; fo to a man unufed to it in another fenfc you muft mark every obje£l\ muft cut&arp lines, mull* lyhiten, redden, blacken, &c, &c. [ 2»3 3 and contrails,—- fuch combinations, fo lis* tie obvious, yet never forced or affected, that the attention cannot flag ; but from the delight of what is parTed, we eagerly liften for what is to come. This is the true picturefque, and the propriety of that term will be more felt if we attend to what correfponds to the beautiful in con- verfation. How different is the effect of that foft infinuating ftyle, of thofe gentle transitions, which, without dazzling or fur- prifing, keep up an increafing Intereft, and infenfibly wind round the heart. It requires a mind of fome fenfibility and habit of obfervation to diftinguiili what is really beautiful and interesting, from what is merely fmocth, flowing, and infipid, and to give a decided preference to the former $ it is not more common to have a true relifh for picture fquefce- nery, and even the quick turns and intri- cacies of converfation are not relifbed by all. I have fometimes feen a profer quite for- lorn in the company of a man of brilliant imagination | imagination; he feemed " dazzled with " excefs of light," and his dull faculties totally unable to keep pace with him : I have afterwards obferved the fame man, get clofe to a brother profer, and the two fnails have travelled on fo comforta- bly on their own flime, that they feemed to feel no more impreflion, either of plea- fure or envy, from what they had heard, than a real fnail may be fuppofed to do at the active bounds and leaps of a flag or a high-mettled courfer. This is exactly the cafe with that prac- tical profer the true improver: carry him to a fcene merely picturefque, he is bewildered with its variety and intricacy, the charms of which he neither relifhes nor comprehends; and longs to be crawl- ing among his clumps, and debating about the tenth part of an inch in the turn of a gravel walk. The mafs of improvers feem to forget that we are diftinguifhed from other animals, by being (as Milton de- scribes it) * Noble* * Nobler far, of look ertfi-;* they go about " With leaden eye that loves the ground,** and are fo continually occupied with turnfe and fweeps, and manoeuvring flakes, that they never gain an idea ®f the firft ele- ments of compofition. ^ Such a mechanical fyftem of operations little deferves the name of an art. There are indeed certain words in all languages that have a good and a bad fenfe, fuch as Jimplicity and fimple, art and artful, which as often exprefs our contempt as our admiration. It feems to me that whenever art, with regard to plan or dif- pofition, is ufed in a good fenfe, it means to convey an idea of fome degree of invention, —of contrivance that is not obvious,— of fomething that raifes expectation, —which differs, and with fuccefs, from what we re- coiled* having feen before. With regard to improving, that alone I fhould call art in a good fenfe which was employed in collecting from the infinite varieties of