Buildings, as materials of scenery, are entirely tinder the power of man ; and, from that circumstance, were carried to an unwarrantable excess in the decline of the ancient, and the infancy of the modern style. Improvements on ground are forgotten by their effect ; that of planting may be accounted too distant or too slow by ordinary minds ; hut a building is complete the moment it is finished. It affords immediate satisfaction to the owner ; and, being known as a costly object, full credit is given to him for the expense incurred. Thus wealth, confiding in its powers, multiplied garden buildings to an excess, which ended in creating a disgust, which still exists, in some degree, at their appear ance in improved scenery. Buildings, as independent ar chitectural compositions, are treated of under our article CIVIL ARCHITECTURE. WC shall here, therefore; confine ourselves to a consideration of their effect as parts in a composition of verdant scenery, and to their natural ex pression in scenes of improvement in both styles of gar dening.
Ae parts of a verdant composition. Shenstone observes, that a landscape, to him, is never complete without a build ing or rocks ; and certainly, considering it merely in the light of a picturesque view, a building, in addition to mere ly verdant scenery, forms a better picture, by giving a de sirable feature or resting place for the eye. Considered, however, in the light of natural expression, the meanness of root-houses, and grottos—the absurdity of hermits' cells, heathen temples, and triumphal arches, mock chapels, ru ins, Chinese buildings, &c. ; and the inutility of all of them, render them positive deformities in scenes of natural or picturesque beauty. The last species break in upon re pose, simplicity, and all allusion to natural scenery, by their frequency, and suggest ideas of ostentatious vanity in the owner, rather than of propriety and elegance of taste. But though their excess is so general and so obnoxious, the oc casional introduction of some sorts may be made with pro priety. Garden scats are necessary for shade or shelter ; bridges for communication between the banks of rivers or rills; cottages, gate or entrance lodges, as abodes for la bourers ; and open sheds, as places of resort for cattle. Even a prospect-tower is a desirable object in a flat coun try, affording no other means of obtaining a bird's eye view. A temple, after all, is in many cases but a garden-seat ; and if beautiful in itself, and judiciously placed, we can see no objection to its introduction in the garden-scene of a prince ly mansion ; certainly none to more than one of them, under the geometric style of planting.
To raise a monument in memory of a great public cha racter, or consecrate an urn to private friendship, or paren tal memory, can hardly be offensive to any mind. A sun
dial is both a useful and an agreeable object ; and statues and busts, in highly polished scenery, by the contrast in the kind of beauty displayed, recal the mind for a moment from contemplating the wide range of nature, to admire the hand of art concentrated in a single point. In this view, per haps, there may be other objects of this description admis sible in the more polished scenes of gardens, &c. as marble fountains, fragments of antiquity, Ste. But when simplicity and natural-like beauty are the prevailing idea, all works art must interfere more or less with the idea ; and unless they can raise up and maintain a more interesting expres sion, they must be regarded as injurious rather than beau tiful.
Of these, the first are roads ; and of roads, the principal is the approach. This article of beauty, as well as of con venience, ought to display to advantage the beauties of that part of the place it passes through, and as many other beau ties as may be displayed without sheering the principal, which are generally those of the garden front. In both styles, it ought to ascend to the house rather than descend, and pass along a flat or hollow rather than over inequali ties of surface.
In the geometric style, it was generally a wooded avenue, in one or in several lines. In the modern, it is generally a bold, free, gently waving line ; every turn of which is produced either by some gentle variation in the surface, or by the position of a group, or two or three single trees. It may pass through wood only, or through forest-like scene ry. The first view obtained of the house ought to be as favourable as possible, and not of any particular front, but rather an angular view, bosomed in trees. The second, or, if there are two or more, the last view, on a nearer approach, should be different, and shew the entrance front, and porch, or portico ; the road approaching it at such a distance, ob liquely, as that the eye may now readily comprehend the whole. By an optical law, it appears, that objects are seen to most advantage when a line drawn from the centre of the eye to the summit of the building forms, with a horizontal line also drawn from the centre of the eye, an angle of 36'. But as a knowledge of optics and perspective are absolutely necessary both for an architect and landscape gardener, we have not considered it necessary, in this rapid sketch, to apply them in the case of terraces, views from rooms, views of buildings, &c. where they are of the greatest conseL• quence to the full effect.