This may appear like a contradiction; but it must be remembered, that what would be abfurd in many other arts (as for instance, in architecture) is proper in your's, where vegetation is the chief inftrument in your operations. Trees and plants of every kind (confidered as materials for landscape) should have room to spread in various degrees, and in various directions, and then accident will produce unthought-of varieties and beauties, without injuring the general defign: but if they are allowed to spread in one direction only, you in a great measure prevent the operation of accident; and thence the fameness and heavinefs of the outfides of clumps, and of all close plantations. The

En veut on augmenter le nombre dans une nation? Qu'on obferve les moyens dont se sert le hazard pour inspirer aux hommes le defir de s'illuftrer. Cette obfervation faite, qu'on les place a dessein, et frequemment dans les memes pofitions ou le hazard les place rarement. C'est le feul moyen de les multiplier." `Helvetius de l'Homme, chap. 8.

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old gardeners of the Dutch school totally prevented its operation, and imitated architecture; and thence the still greater formality and stiffness of vegetable walls, and of all that is called topiary work. It has been faid in defence of Mr. Brown, that allowing the clump to be bad, yet ftill it is better than an obelisk or pyramid of lime, or yew: this defence would be good, had such pyramids and obelifks, and all the ornaments of a Dutch garden, been ftuck upon the fides and fummits of hills, and all the moft confpicuous points of a whole district; the clump would then have taken the place of more glaring pieces of formality, and therefore would comparatively have been an improvement: but as the cafe ftands, while Mr. Brown was removing old pieces of formality, he was establishing new ones of a more extensive and mischievous confequence. Besides, thofe old formalities were acknowledged

as fuch, and confined to the garden only ; but these new ones have no limits, and are not only cried up as fpecimens of pure, genuine nature, but of nature refined and embellished; from which the painter, as well as the gardener, may learn to correct and enlarge his ideas and his practice.

As I have attributed much of the defect in Mr. Brown's fyftem to his not having attended to the effects which had been produced by accident, and to his having, in a great degree, prevented its future operation in his own works-as this is in my opinion a point of no little confequence, though (as you have fhewn) extremely open to mifrepresentation; and as it is a point on which I have touched but flightly in my Effay, I will beg leave to dwell upon it a little longer.

Every man will allow that painters and improvers ought to ftudy nature, and nature in contradiftinction to art. Are then

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all parts of nature to be ftudied indifcriminately? No one will make fuch an affertion. But whence do thefe various combinations arife, of trees fo happily grouped and connected with ground, buildings, and water; of open lawns, of clofer glades, and skirtings, in planting and forming which no art has been employed? As it cannot be from design, it must be from accident. Of these lucky accidents painters have made the greatest ufe; wherever they meet with them they eagerly trace them in their sketchbook; these they study, arrange, and combine in a thoufand different ways; thefe are the ftores whence their greater compofitions are afterwards formed. But of these accidents (if we may judge from their works) improvers have as yet made but little use.

Again, wherever art interferes, the effect of these beautiful and ftriking accidents

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dents is generally spoiled to the painter's eye; for the prevailing taste for clearing either indifcriminately, or in diftinct clumps and patches, deftroys their connection, their playful variety, and intricacy. Neglect, therefore, as well as accident, is neceffary to furnish these examples of nature in her most picturesque state; that is (according to the common use of the word) the state in which painters do, and improvers ought to ftudy and imitate her; but, in the latter cafe particularly, with fuch modifications as the character of the scenery may require. Accident and neglect are therefore two principal causes of those beauties (and they often deferve that name in its strictest sense) which painters, lovers of painting, and many whose natural judgment has not been vitiated by falfe ideas of refinement, admire: and whoever means to ftudy nature, muft principally attend to the effects

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