fee those objects in the reality, which we are used to admire in the representation; and we improve upon their intrinfic merit by recollecting their effects in the picture. The greatest beauties of nature will often fuggeft the remembrance; for it is the bufinefs of a landfkip painter to felect them; and his choice is abfolutely unreftrained; he is at liberty to exclude all objects which may hurt the compofition; he has the power of combining thofe which he admits in the most agreeable manner; he can even determine the feafon of the year, and the hour of the day, to fhew his landfkip in whatever light he prefers. The works therefore of a great mafter, are fine exhibitions of nature, and an excellent fchool wherein to form a taste for beauty; but still their authority is not abfolute; they must be ufed only as ftudies, not as models; for a picture and a scene in nature, though they agree in many, yet differ in fome particulars, which must always be taken into confideration, before we can decide upon the circumstances which may be transferred from the one to the other.

In their dimensions the diftinction is obvious; the fame objects on different scales have very different effects; thofe which feem monftrous on the one, may appear diminutive on the other; and a form which is elegant in a small object, may be too delicate for a large one. Befides, in a canvass of a few feet, there is not room for every fpecies of variety which in nature is pleafing. Though the characteristic diftinctions of trees may be marked, their more minute differences, which however enrich plantations, cannot be expreffed; and a multiplicity of enclosures, catches of water, cottages, cattle, and a thousand other circumstances, which enliven a profpect, are, when reduced into a narrow compafs, no better than a heap of confufion. Yet, on the other hand, the principal objects must often be more diversified in a picture than in a fcene; a building which occupies a confiderable portion of the former, will appear fmall in the latter, when compared to the space all around it; and the number of parts which may be necessary to break its famenefs in the one, will aggravate its infignificance in the other. A tree which prefents one rich mass of foliage, has fometimes a fine effect in nature; but when painted, is often a heavy lump, which can be lightened only by feparating the boughs, and fhewing the ramifications between them. In feveral other inftances the object is frequently affected by the proportion it bears to the actual, not the ideal, circumjacent

extent.

•

Painting, with all its powers, is ftill more unequal to fome fubje&s, and can give only a faint, if any, representation of them; but a gardiner is not therefore to reject them; he is

not

not debarred from a view down the fides of a hill, or a profpe& where the horizon is lower than the ftation, becaufe he never faw them in a picture. Even when painting exactly imitates the appearances of nature, it is often weak in conveying the ideas which they excite, and on which much of their effe& fometimes depends. This however is not always a disadvan tage; the appearance may be more pleasing than the idea which accompanies it; and the omiffion of the one may be an improvement of the other; many beautiful tints denote difagreeable circumftances; the hue of a barren heath is often finely diversified; a piece of bare ground is fometimes overspread with a number of delicate fhades; and yet we prefer a more uniform verdure to all their variety. In a picture, the feveral tints which occur in nature may be blended, and retain only their beauty, without fuggesting the poverty of the foil which occafions them; but in the reality, the caufe is more powerful than the effect; we are lefs pleafed with the fight, than we are hurt by the reflection: and a moft agreeable mixture of colours may prefent no other idea than of dreariness and fterility.

On the other hand, utility will fometimes fupply the want of beauty in the reality, but not in a picture. In the former, we are never totally inattentive to it; we are familiarifed to the marks of it; and we allow a degree of merit to an object which has no other recommendation. A reguler building is generally more agreeable in a scene than in a picture; and an adjacent platform, if evidently convenient, is tolerable in the one; it is always a right line too much in the other. Utility is at the least an excute, when it is real; but it is an idea never included in the reprefentation.

Many more inftances might be alledged to prove, that the fubjects for a painter and a gardiner are not always the fame; fome which are agreeable in the reality, lofe their effect in the imitation; and others, at the beft, have lefs merit in a fcene than in a picture. The term picturefque is therefore applicable only to fuch objects in nature, as, after allowing for the differences between the arts of painting and of gardening, are fit to be formed into groupes, or to enter into a compofìtion, where the feveral parts have a relation to each other; and in oppofition to those which may be spread abroad in detail, and have no merit but as individuals.'

To convey to the reader fome idea of the plan laid down in this work, he obferves: Nature, always fimple, employs but four materials in the compofition of her fcenes, ground, wood, water, and rocks. The cultivation of nature has introduced a

fifth

6

fifth fpecies, the buildings requifite for the accommodation of men. Each of these again admit of varieties in their figure, dimenfions, colour, and fituation. Every landskip is composed of these parts only; every beauty in a landfkip depends on the application of their several varieties.'

Upon these materials our author works, directing how to felect, range, diverfify, correct the faults and improve the beauties of the feveral objects prefented by any natural scene which may occur. But as it will be impoffible for us, in an analyfis, to pursue him through such a variety of beautiful remarks, we fhall content ourselves with prefenting to the reader his defcription of the Leafowes, that delightful paftoral scene, pruned by the hand of the inimitably tender and pathetic Shenftone.

• Of a FARM.

In fpeculation it might have been expected that the first effays of improvement fhould have been on a farm, to make it both advantageous and delightful; but the fact was otherwife; a fmall plot was appropriated to pleasure; the reft was preferved for profit only; and this may, perhaps, have been a principal cause of the vicious tafte which long prevailed in gardens: it was imagined that a fpot fet apart from the reft should not be like them; the conceit introduced deviations from nature, which were afterwards carried to fuch an excefs, that hardly any obje&s truly rural were left within the enclofure, and the view of thofe without was generally excluded. The first step, therefore, towards a reformation, was by opening the garden to the country, and that immediately led to affimilating them; but ftill the idea of a spot appropriated to pleasure only prevailed; and one of the lateft improvements has been to blend the useful with the agreeable; even the ornamented farm was prior in time to the more rural; and we have at laft returned to fimplicity by force of refinement.

The ideas of paftoral poetry feem now to be the standard of that fimplicity; and a place conformable to them is deemed a farm in its utmost purity. An allufion to them evidently enters into the defign of the Leafowes, where they appear fo lovely as to endear the memory of their author; and justify the re

In Shropshire, between Birmingham and Stourbridge. The late Mr. Dodfley published a more particular defcription than is here given of the Leafowes; and to that the reader is referred for the detail of thofe fcenes of which he will here find only a general idea.

putation

putation of Mr. Shenftone, who inhabited, made, and cele431 brated the place; it is a perfect picture of his mind, fimple, elegant, and amiable; and will always fuggeft a doubt, whether the spot infpired his verfe; or whether, in the fcenes which he formed, he only realized the paftoral images which abound in his fongs. The whole is in the fame tafte, yet full of variety; and except in two or three trifles, every part is rural and natural. It is literally a grazing farm lying round the houfe; and a walk as unaffected and as unadorned as a common field path, is conducted through the several enclofures.

Near the entrance into the grounds, this walk plunges fuddenly into a dark narrow dell, filled with fmall trees which grow upon abrupt and broken steeps, and watered by a brook, which falls among roots and ftones down a natural cascade into the hollow. The ftream at first is rapid and open; it is afterwards concealed by thickets, and can be traced only by its murmurs; but it is tamer when it appears again; and gliding then between little groupes of trees, lofes itself at last in a piece of water juft below. The end of this fequestered spot opens to a pretty landskip, which is very fimple; for the parts are but few, and all the objects are familiar; they are only the piece of water, fome fields on an easy ascent beyond it, and the fteeple of a church above them.

• The next scene is more folitary: it is confined within itfelf, a rude neglected bottom, the fides of which are over-run with bushes and fern, interfperfed with feveral trees. runs through this little valley, iffuing from a wood which A rill hangs on one of the declivities; the ftream winds through the wood in a fucceffion of cascades, down a quick descent of an hundred and fifty yards in continuance; alders and hornbeam grow in the midft of its bed; they shoot up in several stems from fame root; and the current trickles amongst them. On the banks are fome confiderable trees, which spread but a chequered fhade, and let in here and there a fun-beam to play upon the water: beyond them is a flight coppice, juft fufficient to skreen the spot from open view; but it cafts no gloom; and the space within is all an animated fcene; the stream has a peculiar vivacity; and the fingular appearance of the upper falls, high in the trees, and feen through the boughs, is equally romantic, beautiful, and lively. The walk having paffed through this wood, returns into the fame valley, but into another part of it, fimilar in itself to the former; and yet they appear to be very different scenes, from the conduct only of the path; for in the one, it is open, in the bottom, and. perfectly retired; in the other, it is on the brow, it is shaded,

and

and it over-looks not only the little wild below, but fome corr fields alfo on the oppofite fide, which by their chearfulness and their proximity diffipate every idea of folitude.

At the extremity of the vale is a grove of large forest trees, inclining down a fteep declivity; and near it are two fields, both irregular, both beautiful, but diftinguifhed in every particular the variety of the Leafowes is wonderful; all the enclosures are totally different; there is seldom a single circumftance in which they agree. Of these near the grove, the lower field comprehends both the fides of a deep dip: the upper is one large knole; the former is encompaffed with thick wood; the latter is open; a flight hedge, and a ferpentine river, are all its boundary. Several trees, fingle or in groupes, are scattered over the fwells of the ground: not a tree is to be seen on all the steeps of the hollow. The path creeps under a hedge round the one, and catches here and there only peeps of the country. It runs directly across the other to the highest eminence, and burfts at once upon the view.

This prospect is also a fource of endless variety: it is chearful and extenfive, over a fine hilly country, richly cultivated, and full of objects and inhabitants: Hales Owen, a large town, is near; and the Wrekin, at thirty miles distance, is distinaly visible in the horizon. From the knole, which has been mentioned, it is feen altogether, and the beautiful farm of the Leafowes is included in the landfkip. In other spots, plantations have been raised, or openings cut, on purpose to fhut out, or let in, parts of it, at certain points of view. Juft below the principal eminence, which commands the whole, is a feat, where all the ftriking objects being hid by a few trees, the scene is fimply a range of enclosed country. ́ This at other feats is excluded, and only the town, or the church, or the fteeple without the church, appears. A village, a farm houfe, or a cottage, which had been unobferved in the confufion of the general profpect, becomes principal in more contracted views; and the fame object which at one place seemed expofed and folitary, is accompanied at another with a foreground of wood, or backed by a beautiful hill. The attention to every circumftance which could diverfify the fcence has been indefatigable; but the art of the contrivance can never be perceived; the effect always feems accidental.

The transitions alfo are generally very sudden; from this elevated and gay fituation, the change is immediate to sober and quiet home views. The first is a pasture, elegant as a polished lawn, in fize not diminutive, and enriched with feveral fine trees scattered over ground which lies delightfully; just below it is a little wafte, fhut up by rude steps, and wild hanging