highly cultivated, one single plan, and such a plán, should have been so generally adopted; and that even the love of peculiarity should not sometimes have checked this method of levelling all distinctions, of making all places alike *; all equally tame and insipid..

Few persons have been so lucky as never to have seen or heard the true proser; smiling, and distinctly uttering his flowing common-place nothings, with the same placid countenance, the same even-toned voice: he is the very emblem of serpentine walks, belts, and rivers, and all Mr. Brown's works; like him they are smooth, flowing, even, and distinct; and like him they wear one's soul out.

There is a very different being of a much rarer kind, who hardly appears to be of the same species; full of unexpected

* A person, well known for his taste and abilities, being at a gentleman's house where Mr. Brown was expected, drew a plan by anticipation; which proved so exact, that I believe the ridicule it threw on the serious plan, helped to prevent its execution,

turns, of flashes of light: objects the most familiar, are placed by him in such singular, yet natural points of view; he strikes out such unthought-of agreements and contrasts; such combinations, so little obvious, yet never forced nor affected, that the attention cannot flag; but from the delight of what is passed, we eagerly listen for what is to come. This is the true picturesque, and the propriety of that term will be more felt, if we attend to what corresponds to the beautiful in conversation. How different is the effect of that soft insinuating style, of those gentle transitions, which, without dazzling or surprising, keep up an increasing interest, and insensibly wind round the heart.

It is only by a habit of observation added to natural sensibility, that we learn to distinguish what is really beautiful, from what is merely smooth and flowing, and to give a decided preference to the former: by the same means also we gain a true relish for the picturesque in visible objects, and likewise for what in some measure

66

answers to it,the quick, lively and sudden turns of fancy in conversation. I have sometimes seen a proser quite forlorn in the company of a man of brilliant imagination; he seemed "dazzled with excess of light," his dull faculties totally unable to keep pace with the other's rapid ideas. I have afterwards observed the same man get close to a brother proser; and the two snails have travelled on so comfortably upon their own slime, that they seemed to feel no more impression either of pleasure or envy from what they had heard, than a real snail may be supposed to do, at the active bounds and leaps of a stag, or of a high-mettled courser.

This is exactly the case with that practical proser, the true improver: carry him to a scene merely picturesque, he is bewildered with its variety and intricacy, the charms of which he neither relishes nor comprehends; and longs to be crawling among his clumps, and debating about the tenth part of an inch in the turn of a gra

vel walk. The mass of improvers seem indeed to forget that we are distinguished from other animals, by being

"With leaden eye that loves the ground,"

and are so continually occupied with turns and sweeps, and manoeuvring stakes, that they never gain an idea of the first elements of composition.

Such a mechanical system of operations little deserves the name of an art. There are indeed certain words in all languages that have a good and a bad sense; such as simplicity and simple, art and artful, which as often express our contempt as our admiration. It seems to me, that whenever art, with regard to plan or disposition, is used in a good sense, it means to convey an idea of some degree of invention; of contrivance that is not obvious; of something that raises expectation, and which differs with success from what we

recollect having seen before. With regard to improving, that alone I should call art in a good sense, which was employed in collecting from the infinite varieties of accident (which is commonly called nature, in opposition to what is called art) such circumstances as may happily be introduced, according to the real capabilities of the place to be improved. This is what painters have done in their art; and thence it is, that many of these lucky accidents being strongly pointed out by them, are called picturesque.

He therefore, in my mind, will shew most art in improving, who leaves (a very material point) or who creates the greatest variety of landscapes; that is of such different compositions as painters will least wish to alter: not he who begins his work by general clearing and smoothing, or in other words, by destroying all those accidents of which such advantages might have been made; but which afterwards, the most enlightened and experienced artist can never hope to restore. When I hear how much has been done