Natural Planting.-About this time a total change in the fashion took place. It was asserted, that nature must be our only model, and that nature abhorred a straight line; it was not, therefore, to be wondered at, that Brown's illiterate followers should have copied the means he used, and not the model he proposed: they saw him prefer curved lines to straight ones; and hence proceeded those meandering, serpentine, and undulating lines in all their works, which were, unfortunately, confirmed by Hogarth's recommendation of his imaginary line of beauty. Thus we see roads sweeping round, to avoid the direct line, to their object, and fences fancifully taking a longer course; and even belts and plantations in useless curves, with a drive meandering in parallel lines, which are full as much out of nature as a straight one. Thus has fashion converted the belt or screen of plantation, introduced by Brown, into a drive quite as monotonous, and more tedious, than an avenue, or vista, because a curved line is always longer than a straight one.
