LETTER LVII.

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To the Reverend Father FILIPPO BONINI, at Rome.

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Dear Sir,

F the Italians were the first improvers of gardens, and plantations, the French have excelled us, and the English carried the tafte of that embellishment much higher, than it has appeared either in our country, or in France.

THEY have excluded that regularity of plan which makes the defign of all gardens in every other part of Europe, and following thofe ideas which are characteristic of fome fenfation relating to human nature, have made a garden in England a fenfible confideration, and adapted it to all states which are incident to human minds in general.

THE gay and airy temper finds the open and chearful spots of light, which are acceptable to that difpofition, and the melancholy mood finds

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the folitary and fhady grove, by the fide of which flowly creeps along the brook, complaining foftly amongst the pebbles.

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In the English gardens there is infinite variety without regularity, agreeable to the face of nature that diverfifies all, and not according to the ancient and prefent tafte of France and Italy, which difpofes a garden like a human creature, and carries the image of self into all its defigns, with alleys anfwering alleys, like legs to legs, and arms to arms, and the great walk in the middle for the trunk of the body.

A MANNER of difpofing things very natu ral to the mind of that man, which cannot divest itself of fuch interefting ideas as felf, and yet very unnatural with refpect to that which thefe difpofitions ought to resemble.

The jet d'eau is quite out of fashion in this kingdom; the cafcade, and falling ftreams bubling amongst rocks, the winding river without regularity of figure, or ftrait, parallel lines, make the water-works of this country.

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In truth, it is always unnatural to fee water rifing into the air, contrary to its original tendency,

THIS, however contrary it may be to pure tafte, I think in fome countries may be allowed of, fuch as in the fummer's days in our native land, when the fultry air is fanned' by the motion of the water in the jets d'eau, and the refreshing fense of coolnefs imparted at once to the feeling, seeing, and hearing; for the two laft fenfes have the ideas of coolnefs imparted to them, by the fight and found of water.

In this ifland, where intense heat is feldom known, and when it happens is of fhort duration, there does not feem to be the fame neceffity of violating the native propenfity of water, to obtain a greater pleasure by it, than can otherwise be had.

HOWEVER, this fimplicity and grandeur of taste in gardening, which has produced many fine plantations in this kind, is at present suffering with that of all other things; the caracatura and minute are again prevailing in too many places.

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THE citizen who vifits his rural retirement clofe to the road, thronged with coaches, carts, waggons, chaifes, and all kinds of carriages, which differs from London only in this, that in winter it rains smoke in the city, and in fummer duft in the country, muft have his plantation of an acre diverfified with all that is to be found in the most extenfive garden of fome thousand acres here must be temples to every goddess as well as Cloacina, woods, waters, lawns, and statues, which being thus contrived to contain fo many things, is in fact, nothing at all, and that which might be fomething by being but one, is entirely loft by being intended to be fo many; one wonders how so many things can be crammed into fo small a place, as we do at the whole furniture of a room in a cherry-ftone; it is a fcene for fairies.

THIS is but the old tafte of shaped flowerknots in box, cut yews, and clipt hedges, in another edition, which has no more taste than the former.

PERHAPS there is not a thing upon the face of the earth truer than the belief that tafte

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is the general poffeffion of all men; I mean every man affumes it to himself, tho' he denies it to his neighbour, by which it is at once universal in one view, and a non-existent in another.

THERE is however, fome analogy between man and all his defigns of this kind; the true tafte in gardens is formed on what we feel in ourselves, at the fight of different scenes in nature; a garden without this meaning in its difposition cannot please long; novelty indeed, will beget fome delight in the beginning, but without scenes which correfpond to all fituations of our minds, it foon becomes flat and irkfome.

To defign a garden well, the perfon must study the ground on which he intends to plant, the nature of those parts thro' which the water flows, and what ufe can be made of the woods already grown; from confiderations of this kind, taste may communicate characters to different parts, and adapt the whole to that variety of paffions and fenfations, which distinguish the human heart.

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