the situation of the house is elevated, so as to give a view from the principal rooms of a great part of the farm, it will be the more desirable. A desirable foundation for this improvement is an old English farm-house ; by adding to which one or two principal rooms, a very interesting group may be formed at little expellee.
4. Temporary residences, as marine villas, sporting or shooting boxes, seldom contain much land attached. No hot-houses, and but little pleasure•ground, is here required. What land there may be, should be applied to use rather than to beauty. Speaking of hunting boxes, Mr. Marshall observes, 66 a suit of paddocks should be seen from the house ; and if a view of distant covers can be caught, the back ground will be complete. The stable, the kennel, the leaping-bar, are the appendages, in the construction of which simplicity, substantialness,.and Conveniency, should prevail." 5. Public gardens. These, with very few exceptions, have been in all ages and countries laid out in the geome tric style. The Academus at Athens is an ancient exam ple. The summer garden at Petcrsburgh, a modern one. Even in China, where irregularity in gardening is so much desired in general, Mr. Ellis (Journal of the Embassy of 1816) informs us, that 44 the Fatee gardens at Canton, the resort of the fashionables, consist of straight walks ;" and however much our gardening has been praised and copied by private persons on the continent of Europe, yet, with the exception of Count Rumford's walk at Munich, and the late Earl of Findlater's at Carlsbad, almost all the others are very properly in straight lines.
The object of public gardens is less to display beautiful scenery, than to afford a free, wholesome air, and an ample uninterrupted promenade, cool and shaded in summer, and warm and sheltered in spring and winter. In a limited ex tent, these must be attempted in one principal walk, which, for that purpose, should, as much as possible, be laid in a north and south direction. In more extensive scenei, cer tain covered walks may be devoted to summer, and certain east and west open walks to spring and winter. The broad, open, and narrow covered avenues of the ancient style, are valuable resources on a large scale ; these conjoined, and, laid out in a south and north direction, give in the centre an opened sheltered sunshine walk in mid-winter ; and a close or covered avenue, being lined out along each side of the open central one, will afford shady walks for summer, and occasional places of retreat from casual showers in spring. Oxford and Cambridge afford some fine, open, and covered avenues, though far inferior to many on the con-4 tinent. • Public squares, of such magnitude as to admit of being laid out in ample walks, open and shady, are almost pecu liar to Britain. The grand object is to get as extended a
line of uninterrupted promenade as is possible within the given limits. A walk parallel to the boundary fence, and at a short distance within it, evidently indicates the maxi mum of extent ; but if the enclosure is small, the rapid succession of angles and turns becomes extremely dis agreeable, and continually breaks in upon the has des pro meneurs, the conversation of a party, or individual contem templation. The angles, therefore, must be avoided, by rounding thenz offin a large square ; in a small one, by form ing the walk into a circle ; and a small parallelogram, by adopting an oval form.
Russel Square, laid out from a design of Mr. Repton in 1810, is one of the most complete in these respects in Lon don. It has been objected to as over-planted ; but this is only a piece of vulgar injustice, applied indiscriminately to every rural artist, all of whom, as a matter of course, conclude, that when magnitude effects the purposes of number, the superfluous plants will of course be rooted out.
These remarks on public walks and squares are also in a great measure applicable to promenades en re gard being had to the difference in point of extent. Such promenades are scarcely known in Britain ; but are sources of considerable splendour and entertainment on the con tinent. The Moscow promenade of the first of May, held in a natural birch forest, which formed the burial place of the Germans in Peter the Great's time ; a similar one at Bielany, near Warsaw, held in a fir wood on the Banks of the Vistula ; and the numerous promenades of the Pate: (chap. i. sect. 5.) are eminent examples. Britain has at present only the inferior and ill arranged resource of Hyde Park ; but the Regent's Park, begun in 1810, chiefly from the design of the late surveyor of woods, Mr. Fordyce, will enable us to cope with, if not to surpass our continental neighbours. In this design some regard has been had to both styles ; for though the leading roads are in geo metric lines, part of the trees are in groups, and a piece of artificial water is of an irregular shape. According to our idea, however, the original intention of Mr. Fordyce, and the beauty and use of the whole to the public, will be much injured by certain additions to the plantations, of surrounding streets and interspersed villas, which can only be made lrom motives of profit, unworthy,one would sup pose, of a park royal. The recent walks, formed on the Calton Hill at Edinburgh, under the direction of Mr. Jardine and 'Mr. Stevenson, and certain proposed eques trian promenades in other directions, will add to the ele gance of that city, already so richly endowed with local beauties.