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REPORT CONCERNING A VILLA AT STREATHAM,
BELONGING TO THE EARL OF COVENTRY.
MY LORDS
I CANNOT but rejoice in the honour your Lordship
has done me, in requiring my opinion concerning a Villa, which,
when compared with Croom or Spring Park, may be deemed
inconsiderable by those who value a place by its size or extent,
and not by its real importance, as it regards beauty, conve-
nience, and utility. I must therefore request leave to deliver
my opinion concerning Streatham at some length, as it will
give me an opportunity of explaining my reasons for treating
the subject very differently from those followers of Brown, who
copied his manner, without attending to his proportions or mo-
tives, and adopted the same expedients for two acres, which he
thought advisable for two hundred. Mr. Brown's attention
had generally been called to places. of great extent, in many
of which he had introduced that practice distinguished by the
name of a belt of plantation, and a drive within that belt. This,
when the surface was varied by hill and dale, became a conve-
nient mode of connecting the most striking spots, and the most
interesting scenes at a distance from the mansion, and from each
other. But when the same expedient is used round a small
field, with no inequality of ground, and particularly with a
public road, bounding the premises, it is impossible to conceive