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XVIII. When in a romantic situation, very broken ground is overspread with wood, it may be proper on the surface of the wood, to mark the inequalities of the ground. udeness, not creatness, is the prevailing idea; and a choice directly the reverse of t at which is productive of unity, will produce it; strong contrasts, even oppositions, ray be eligible; the aim is rather to disjoint than to connect; a deep hollow may sink into dark greens; an abrupt bank may be shown by a rising stage of aspiring trees; a sharp ridge by a narrow line of conical shapes: firs are of great use upon such occasions; their tint, their form, their singularity, recommend them.

A hanging wood, thin of forest trees, and seen from below, is seldom pleasing: those few trees are by the perspective brought near together; it loses the beauty of a thin wood, and is defective as a thick one; the most obvious improvement therefore is to thicken it. But when spen from an eminence, a thin wood is often a lively and elegant circumstance in a view; it is full of bbjects; and every separate tree shows its beauty. To encrease that vivacity, which is the peculiar excellence of a thin wood, the trees should be characteristically distinguished both in their tints and their shapes; and such as for their airiness have been proscribed in a thick wood, are frequently the Lost eligible here. Differences also in their growths are a further source of variety; cach should be considered as a distinct object, unless where a small number are grouped together; and then all that compose the little cluster must agree; but the groupes themselves, for the same reason as the separate trees, should be strongly contrasted; the continued underwood is their only connexion; and that is not affected by their variety.

XIX. Though the surface of a wood, when commanded, deserves all these attentions, yet the outline more frequently calls for our regard; it is also more in our power; it may sometimes be great, and may always be beautiful. The first requisite is irregularity. That a mixture of trees and underwood should form a long strait line, can never be natural; and a succession of easy sweeps and gentle rounds, each a portion of a creater or less circle, con osing altogether a line literally serpentine, is, if possible worse. It is but a number of regularitics put together in a disorderly manner, and equally distant from the beautiful both of art and of nature. The true b auty of an outlinconsists nore in breaks than in sweeps; rather in angles than in rounds; in variety not in succession.

The outline of a wood is a continued line, and small variations do not save it from the insipidity of sameness: one deep recess, one bold prominence, has more effect than twenty little irregularities. bat one divides the line into parts, but no breach is thereby rade in its unity; a continuation of wood always remains; the form of it only is altered, and the extent is encreased. The eye, which hurrics to the extremity of whatever is uniform, delights to trace a varied line through all its intricacies to pause from stage to stage, and to longthen the progress. The parts must not, however, on that account be ultiplied, till they are too minute to be interesting, and so numerous as to create confusion. A few large parts should be strongly distinguished in their forms, their directions, and their situations; each of those nay afterwards be decorated with subordinate varieties; and the mere growth of the plants will occasion some irregularity; on many occasions more will not bo required.

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