roam from place to place at freedom. Winding walks have another advantage: at every step they open new views. In fhort, the walks in a field intended to please the eye, ought not to have any appearance of a road: my intention is not to make a journey, but to feaft my eye with the beauties of art and nature. This rule excludes not long straight openings terminating upon diftant objects, which openings, befide variety, never fail to raise an emotion of grandeur, by extending in appearance the fize of the field: an opening without a terminating object, foon clofes upon the eye; but an object, at whatever distance, continues the opening, and deludes the fpectator into a conviction, that the trees which confine the view are continued till they join the object and the object alfo, as obferved above, feems to be at a greater distance than it is in reality. Straight walks alfo in receffes do extremely well they vary the scenery, and are favourable to meditation.

An avenue ought not to be directed in a straight line upon a dwelling-houfe: better far an oblique approach in a waving line, with fingle trees and other fcattered objects interpofed. In a direct approach, the first appearance continues the fame to the end we see a houfe at a distance, and we fee it all along in the fame fpot without any variety. In an oblique approach, the interpofed objects put the houfe feemingly in motion: it moves with the paffenger, and appears to direct

its course so as hofpitably to intercept him. An oblique approach contributes alfo to variety: the house, being feen fucceffively in different directions, takes on at every step a new figure.

A garden on a flat ought to be highly and variously ornamented, in order to occupy the mind, and prevent its regretting the infipidity of an uniform plain. Artificial mounts in this view are common but no perfon has thought of an artificial walk elevated high above the plain. Such a walk is airy, and tends to elevate the mind: it extends and varies the profpect: and it makes the plain, feen from a height, appear more agree

able.

Whether fhould a ruin be in the Gothic or Grecian form? In the former, I think; because it exhibits the triumph of time over ftrength, a melancholy but not unpleasant thought: a Grecian ruin fuggefts rather the triumph of barbarity over taste, a gloomy and difcouraging thought.

Fountains are seldom in a good tafte. Statues of animals vomiting water, which prevail every where, ftand condemned. A statue of a whale fpouting water upward from its head, is in one fense natural, as whales of a certain fpecies have that power; but it is fufficient to make this defign be rejected, that its fingularity would make it appear unnatural: there is another reason against it, that the figure of a whale is in itself not agreeable. In the many fountains in and about Rome, tatues of fishes are frequently employ'd to fup

port

port a large bafon of water. This unnatural conceit is not accountable, unlefs from the connection between water and the fish that fwim in it; which by the way fhows the influence of even the Alighter relations. The only good design for a fountain I have met with, is what follows. In an artificial rock, rugged and abrupt, there is a cavity out of fight at the top: the water, convey'd to it by a pipe, pours or trickles down the broken parts of the rock, and is collected into a bafon at the foot: it is fo contrived, as to make the water fall in sheets or in rills at pleasure,

Hitherto a garden has been treated as a work intended folely for pleasure, or, in other words, for giving impreffions of intrinfic beauty. What comes next in order is the beauty of a garden de. ftined for ufe, termed relative beauty *; and this branch shall be dispatched in a few words. In gardening, luckily, relative beauty need never ftand in oppofition to intrinfic beauty: all the ground that can be requifite for use, makes but a finall proportion of an ornamented field; and may be put in any corner without obstructing the difpofition of the capital parts. At the fame time, a kitchen-garden or an orchard is fufceptible of intrinfic beauty; and may be fo artfully difpofed among the other parts, as by variety and contrast to contribute to the beauty of the whole. In this refpect, architecture is far more intricate,

as will be seen immediately; for as intrinfic and relative beauty must often be blended in the fame building, it becomes a difficult task to attain both in any perfection.

Gardening being in China brought to greater perfection than in any other known country, we shall close our present subject with a flight view of Chinese gardens, which will be found entirely obfequious to the principles that govern every one of the fine arts. In general, it is an indifpenfable law there, never to deviate from na ture: but in order to produce that degree of variety which is pleafing, every method is used that is confiftent with nature. Nature is ftrictly imitated in the banks of their artificial lakes and rivers; which fometimes are bare and gravelly, fometimes covered with wood quite to the brink of the water. To flat spots adorned with flowers and fhrubs, are oppofed others fteep and rocky, We fee meadows covered with cattle; ricegrounds that run into lakes; groves into which enter navigable creeks and rivulets: thefe generally conduct to fome interesting object, a magnificent building, terraces cut in a mountain, a cafcade, a grotto, an artificial rock, or fuch like. Their artificial rivers are generally ferpentine'; fometimes narrow, noify, and rapid; fometimes deep, broad, and flow and to make the scene still more active, mills and other moving machines are often erected. In the lakes are interspersed iflands; fome barren, furround

ed

ed with rocks and fhoals; others inriched with every thing that art and nature can furnish. Even in their cafcades they avoid regularity, as forcing nature out of its courfe: the waters are feen bursting from the caverns and windings of the artificial rocks, here an impetuous cataract, there many leffer falls; and the ftream often impeded by trees and ftones, that seem brought down by the violence of the current. Straight lines are sometimes indulged, in order to take the advantage of fome interesting object at a diftance, by directing openings upon it.

Senfible of the influence of contraft, the Chinefe artists deal in fudden tranfitions, and in oppofing to each other, forms, colours, and fhades, The eye is conducted, from limited to extenfive views, and from lakeş and rivers to plains, hills, and woods to dark and gloomy colours, are oppofed the more brilliant: the different maffes of light and fhade are difpofed in fuch a manner, as to render the compofition diftinct in its parts, and striking on the whole. In plantations, the trees are artfully mixed according to their shape and colour; those of spreading branches with the pyramidal, and the light green with the deep green. They even introduce decay'd trees, fome erect, and fome half out of the ground *. In

* Taste has suggested to Kent the fame artifice. The placing a decay'd tree properly, contributes to contraft; and also producos a fort of pity, grounded on an imaginary perfonification.

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