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"better executed; and the task deferred to declining years, Is
"frequently deferred for ever; or at best performed with
" languor and indifference."
Twenty years have now passed away, and it is possible
that life may be extended twenty years longer, but. from
my feelings more probable that it will not reach as many
weeks; and therefore I may now perhaps be writing the last
Fragment of my Labours. I have lived to see many of my
plans beautifully realized, but many more, cruelly marred;
sometimes byfalse ceconomy; sometimes by injudicious extra-
vagance. I have also lived to reach that period,, when the
improvement of Houses and Gardens is more delightful to me,
than that of Parks or Forests, Landscapes, or distant prospects.
I can now expect to produce little that is new, I have there-
fore end eavoured to collect and arrange the observations of my
past life: this has formed the amusement of the last two winters,
betwixt intervals of spasm, from a disease incurable, during
which time I have called up (by my pencil) the places and
scenes of which I was most proud, and marshalled them
before me; happy in many pleasing remembrances, which
revive the sunshine of my days, though sometimes clouded by
the recollection of friends removed, of scenes destroyed, and of
promised happiness changed to sadness.
The most valuable lesson now left me-to communicate is this:
I am convinced that the delight I have always taken in Land-
scapes and Gardens, without any reference to their Quantity or
Appropriation, or without caring whether they were Forests