-All rational improvement of grounds is necessarily founded on a due attention to the CHARACTER and SITUATION of the place to be improved: the former teaches what is advisable, the latter what is possible to be done. Nothing can be more distinct than these two objects, yet they must be jointly taken into consideration, because one is often influenced by the other. The situation of a place always depends on Nature, which can only be assisted, but cannot be entirely changed, or greatly controlled by ART: but the character of a place is wholly dependant on ART: thus the house, the buildings., the gardens, the roads, the bridges, and every circumstance which marks the habitation of man, must be artificial; and although, in the works of art, we may imitate the forms and graces of nature, yet, to make them truly natural, always leads to absurdity.
