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INTRODUCTION.
If the knowledge of painting be insufficient without that of gardening, on
the other hand, the mere
gardener, without some skill in painting, will seldom be able to form a just
idea of elfects before they are
carried into execution. This faculty of foreknowing effects constitutes the
master in every branch of the
polite arts; and can only be the result of a correct eye, a ready conception,
and a fertility of invention
t which the professor adds practical experience.
But of this art, painting and gardening are not the only foundations: the
artist must possess a
competent knowledge of surveying, mechanics, hydraulics, agriculture, botany,
and the general prin-
ciples of architecture. It can hardly be expected, that a man bred, and constantly
living, in the
kitchen garden, should possess all these requisites; yet because the immortal
BROWN was originally a
kitchen gardener, it is too common to find every man, who can handle a rake
or spade, pretending to
give his opinion on the most difficult points of improvement. It may perhaps
be asked, from whence
Mr. Brown derived his knowledge?-the answer is obvious: that, being at first
patronised by a few
persons of rank and acknowledged good taste, he acquired by degrees the faculty
of prejudging efects;
partly from repeated trials, and partly from the experience of those to whose
conversation and inti-
macy his genius had introduced him: and although he could not design himself,
there exist many
pictures of scenery, made under his instruction, which his imagination alone
had painted.*
* I must not in this place omit to acknowledge my obligations to Launcelot
Brown, Esq. late member for Huntingtonshire, the son of imy
predecessor, for having presented me with the maps of the greatest works
in which his late father had been consulted, both in their original
and improved states.
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