Every variety in the outline of a wood must be a prominence, or a Breadth in either is not so important as length to the one, and depth to the other. If the former ends in an angle, the latter diminishes to a point, they have more force than a shallow dent, or a dwarf excrescence, how wide soever. They are greater deviations from the continued line which they are intended to break; and their effect is to enlarge the wood itself, which seems to stretch from the most advanced point, back beyond the most distant to which it retires. The extent of a large wood on a flat, but not commanded, can by no circumstance be so manifestly shewn, as by a deep recess; especially if that recess wind so as to conceal the extremity, and leave the i agination to pursue it. On the other hand, the poverty of a shallow wood might sanctimes be relieved by here and there a prominence, or clumps, which by their apparent junction should seem to be prominencies from it. A deeper wood with a continued outline, except when commanded, would not appear so considerable.,

An inlet into a wood seems to have been cut, if the oppo ite points of the entrance tally; and that shew of art depreciates its nerit: but a difference only in the situation of those points, by bringing one more forward than the other, prevents the appearance, though their forms be similar. Other points, which distinguish the great parts, should in general be strongly marked; a short turn has more spirit in it than a tedious circuity; and a line broken by angles has a precision and firmness, which in an undulated line are wanting: the angles should indeed commonly be a little softened; the rotundity of the plant which forms them is sometimes sufficient for the purpose; but if they are mellowed down too much, they lose all meaning. Three or four large parts thus boldly distinguished, will break a very long outline; more may be, and often ou ht to be, thrown in, but seldom are necessary: and when two woods are opposed on the sides of a narrow glade, neither has so much occasion for variety in itself, as if it were single: if they are very different from each other, the contrast supplies the deficiency to each, and the interval between them is full of variety. The form of that interval is indeed of as much consequence as their own: though the outlines of both the woods be separately beautiful, yet if together they do not cast the open space into an agreeable figure, the whole scene is not pleasing;, and that figure is never agreeable, when the sides too closely correspond; whether they are exactly the same, or exactly the reverse of each other, they equally appear artificial.

Every variety of outline hitherto mentioned, may be traced by the underwood alone; but frequently the same effects may be produced with ore ease, and with much more beauty by a few trees standing out from the thicket, and belonging, or seeming to belong to the wood, so as to make a part of its figure. Even where they are not wanted for that purpose, detached trees are such agreeable objects, so distinct, so light when compared to the covert about them, that skirting along it in some parts, and breaking it in others, they give an unaffected race, which can no otherwise be given to the outline. They have a still further effect, when they stretch across the whole breadth of an inlet, or before part of a recess into the wood: they are themselves shewn to advantage by the