The several constituent parts of the scenes of nature having now been considered, the next enquiry is into the particular principles and circumstances which may affect them, when they are applied to the subjects of gardening. It has always been supposed, that art must then interfere; but art was carried to excess, when from accessory it became principal; and the subject upon which it was employed, was brought under regulations, less applicable to that than to any other; when ground, wood, and water, were reduced to mathematical figures; and similarity and order were preferred to freedom and variety. These mischiefs, however, were occasioned, not by the use, but the perversion of art; it excluded, instead of improving upon nature; and thereby destroyed the very end it was called in to promote.

So strange an abuse probably arose from an idea of some necessary correspondence between the mansion, and the scene it immediately commanded; the forms, therefore, of both were determined by the same rules; and terraces, canals, and avenues, were but so many variations of the plan of the building. The regularity thus established spread afterwards to more distant quarters: there, indeed, the absurdity was acknowledged as soon as a more natural disposition appeared; but a prejudice in favour of art, as it is called, just about the house, still remains. If by the term, regularity is intended, the principle is equally applicable to the vicinity of any other building; and every temple in the garden ought to have its concomitant formal slopes and plantations; or the conformity may be reversed, and we may as reasonably contend that the building ought to be irregular, in order to be consistent with the scene it belongs to. The truth is, that both propositions are erroneous; architecture requires symmetry; the objects of nature freedom; and the properties of the one, cannot with justice be transferred to the other.