Page 133

133
round the court, is not to be described by painting; because
every step varies the position of the several parts as they advance
or recede perspectively.
Hitherto I have spoken of the north or entrance front and
court-yard of BURLEY, the whole of which I would treat only
as a work of art, and, if possible, exclude all view of the country.
But to the south the prospect, or natural landscape, is the leading
feature for our consideration.
The steep descent from the house has been cut into a number
of terraces, each supported by a red brick wall; and if these
several walls had been of stone, or architecturally finished like
the old costly hanging gardens of France and Italy, they might
perhaps have added more magnificence to the house, than any
improvement which modern gardening could suggest, but they
are mean in their forms, diminutive in their height, and out
of harmony in their colour. Yet the style of the house and
the steepness of the declivity will not admit of their being
all taken away to slope the ground in the manner too often
practised by modern improvers.
I therefore make a compromise between ancient and mo-
dern gardening, between art and nature, and by increasing the
height, or rather the depth, from the upper terrace to the lower
level of the ground, I make that the line of demarkation between
the dressed ground and the park, in the manner explained by
the view of BURLEY; and happy would it be for the magnifi-
cence of English scenery, if many such stately terraces near a
palace, had been thus preserved.