originally led me to fancy greater affinity betwixt Painting and Gardening, than I found to exist after more mature confideration, and more practical experience; because, in whatever relates to man, propriety and convenience are not lefs objects of good tafte, than picturesque effect; and a beautiful garden scene is not more defective because it would not look well on canvas, than a didactic poem because it neither furnishes a fubject for the painter or the mufician. There are a thousand fcenes in nature to delight the eye, befides thofe which may be copied as pictures; and indeed one of the keenest obfervers of picturefque fcenery (Mr. Gilpin), has often regretted that few are capable of being so reprefented, without confiderable license and alteration.

If therefore the painter's landscape be indifpenfible to the perfection of garden

ing, it would furely be far better to paint it on canvas at the end of an avenue, as they do in Holland, than to facrifice the health, cheerfulness, and comfort of a country refidence, to the wild but pleafing scenery of a painter's imagination.

There is no exercise so pleasing to the inquifitive mind, as that of deducing theories and fyftems from favourite opinions: I was therefore peculiarly interested and gratified by your ingenious diftinction betwixt the beautiful and the picturesque; but I cannot admit the propriety of its application to landfcape gardening; because beauty, and not " pic"turesqueness," is the chief object of modern improvement: for although fome nurserymen, or labourers in the kitchen garden, may have badly copied Mr. Brown's manner, yet the unprejudiced eye will difcover innumerable beauties in the works

of

of that great self-taught master: and fince you have fo judiciously marked the diftinction betwixt the beautiful and the picturefque, they will perhaps difcover, that, where the habitation and convenience of man can be improved by beauty, "pictu

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refqueness" may be transferred to the ragged gipfy, with whom "the wild ass, the "Pomeranian dog, and fhaggy goat" are more in harmony, than "the fleek-coated "horfe," or the dappled deer,* which have never till lately been discovered, when "in groups, to be meagre and spotty."

Amidst the severity of your satire on Mr. Brown and his followers, I cannot be ignorant that many pages are directly pointed at my opinions; although with more delicacy than your friend Mr. Knight

The continual moving and lively agitation obfervable in herds of deer, is one of the circumstances which painting cannot reprefent; but it is not less an object of beauty and cheerfulness in park scenery.

has

has fhewn, in the attempt to make me an object of ridicule, by mifquoting my unpublished MSS.

It is the misfortune of every liberal art to find amongst its profeffors fome men of uncouth manners; and fince my profeffion has more frequently been practised by mere day labourers, and perfons of no education, it is the more difficult to give it that rank amongst the polite arts, which I conceive it ought to hold. Yet it is now become my duty to support its respectability, fince you attack the very existence of that profeffion, at the head of which, both you and Mr. Knight have the goodness to say that I am deservedly placed.

Your new theory of deducing landscape gardening from painting is fo plaufible, that, like many other philofophic theories, it may captivate and mislead, unless duly examined by the teft of experience and practice.

practice. I cannot help seeing great affinity betwixt deducing gardening from the painter's ftudies of wild nature, and deducing government from the uncontrouled opinions of man in a savage state. The neatness, fimplicity, and elegance of English gardening, have acquired the approbation of the prefent century, as the happy medium betwixt the wildnefs of nature and the stiffness of art; in the fame manner as the English conftitution is the happy medium betwixt the liberty of favages, and the restraint of despotic government; and fo long as we enjoy the benefit of these middle degrees betwixt extremes of each, let experiments of untried theoretical improvement be made in fome other country.

So far I have endeavoured to defend Mr. Brown with respect to the general principle of improvement. But it is neceffary