poem is the completest exemplification of Tasso's precept in a more exalted art. The improver (if I may be allowed to compare small things with great) should pursue the same line of conduct in his humbler art, though by a different process; and while he employs his whole skill to lead the spectator in the best direction, through the most interesting scenes, and towards the most striking points of view, and to facilitate his approach to them, he should not strive to confine him to one single route, and should often, where it is practi cable, conceal his having made any route at all. There is in our nature a repugnance to despotism even in trifles, and we are never so heartily pleased as when we appear to have made every discovery ourselves; it is this sort of feeling, as opposed to the one which arises from what is plainly and avowedly artificial, that Tasso seems to indicate by

il bello e'l caro accresce a l'opre.

It is a feeling that I have more than once

experienced myself and observed in others, when after having been long confined to egular walks, however judiciously taken, we have enjoyed the dear delight of getting to some spot where there were no traces of art, and no other walk or communication than a sheep-track, or some foot-path winding among the thickets.

It is in such spots as those, that art, if it interfere at all, should most carefully conceal itself; and in such, a Mr. Hamilton .would proceed with a very cautious hand : but whatever effect an acquaintance with the fine arts, or perhaps the precept of Tasso, or the example of Homer may have had on such a mind as his, nothing of that kind has influenced those of professed improvers; and a style very different from that of Painshill has been exhibited at no very great distance from it, in a place be gun I believe by Kent, and finished by Brown. A wood with many old trees covered with ivy, mixed with thickets of hollies, yews, and thorns; a wood, which Rousseau might have dedicated a la reverie, is so in

tersected by walks and green alleys all edged and bordered, that there is no escaping from them; they act like flappers in Laputa, and instantly wake you from any

dream of retirement. The borders of these walks are so thickly planted, and the rest of the wood so impracticable, that it seems as if the improver said, “You shall never wander from my walks; never exercise your own taste and judgment, never form your own compositions: neither your eyes nor your feet shall be allowed to stray from the boundaries I have traced:" a species of thraldom unfit for a free country.

There is, indeed, something despotic in the general system of improvement; all must be laid open; all that obstructs, levelled to the ground; houses, orchards, gardens, all swept away. Painting, on the contrary, tends to humanize the mind: where a despot thinks every person an intruder who enters his domain, and wishes to destroy cottages and pathways, and to reign alone, the lover of painting, considers the dwellings, the inhabitants, and the

marks of their intercourse, as ornaments to the landscape *.

For the honour of humanity there are minds, which require no other motive than what passes within. And here I cannot resist paying a tribute to the memory of a beloved uncle, and recording a benevolence towards all the inhabitants around him, that struck me from my earliest remembrance; and it is an impression I wish always to cherish. It seemed as if he had made his extensive walks as much for them as for himself; they used them as freely, and their enjoyment was his. The

*Sir Joshua Reynolds told me, that when he and Wilson the landscape painter were looking at the view from Richmond terrace, Wilson was pointing out some particular part; and in order to direct his eye to it, "There," said he, "near those houses---there! where the figures are."---Though a painter, said Sir Joshua, I was puzzled: I thought he meant statues, and was looking upon the tops of the houses; for I did not at first conceive that the men and women we plainly saw walking about, were by him only thought of as figures in the landscape.

village bore as strong marks of his and of his brother's attentions (for in that respect they appeared to have but one mind) to the comforts and pleasures of its inhabi tants, Such attentive kindnesses are amply repaid by affectionate regard and reverence; and were they general throughout the kingdom, they would do much more towards guarding us against democratical opinions,

"Than twenty thousand soldiers arm'd in proof."

The cheerfulness of the scene I have mentioned, and all the interesting circumstances attending it, so different from those of solitary grandeur, have convinced me, that he who destroys dwellings, gardens, and inclosures, for the sake of mere extent and parade of property, only extends the bounds of monotony, and of dreary selfish pride; but contracts those of variety, amusement, and humanity.

I own it does surprise me, that in an age and in a country where the arts are so