One of this kind of improvers was, some years ago, very cleverly satirized by Mr. Peacock, an English reviewer of celebrity, in a comic work entitled "Headlong Hall." The latter is the name of the supposed seat of Lord Littlebrain, who has assembled around him during the Christmas feastings an odd party, among whom is Mr. Milestone, the landscape gardener, evidently a portrait of "Capability Brown." Mr. Milestone has been examining the estate, and, full of his projected park, is exhibiting his portfolio of drawings of the proposed improvements to his host and some of the guests.
["Headlong Hall" by Thomas Love Peacock made fun of landscape gardeners in general and Humphry Repton in particular, as Mr Marmaduke Milestone]
MR. MILESTONE.-This, you perceive, is the natural state of one part of the grounds. Here is a wood, never yet touched by the finger of taste; thick, intricate, and gloomy. Here is a little stream, dashing from stone to stone, and overshadowed with these untrimmed boughs. MISS TENORINA.-The sweet romantic spot! How beautifully the birds must sing there on a summer evening. MISS GRAZIOSA.-Dear sister! how can you endure the horrid thicket? MR. MILESTONE.-You are right, Miss Graziosa; your taste is correct, perfectly en regle. Now, here is the same place corrected-trimmed- polished-decorated-adorned. Here sweeps a plantation, in that beautiful regular curve; there winds a gravel walk; here are parts of the old wood, left in these majestic circular clumps disposed at equal distances with wonderful symmetry; there are some single shrubs scattered in elegant profusion; here a Portugal laurel, there a juniper; here a laurustinus, there a spruce fir; here a larch, there a lilac; here a rhododendron, there an arbutus. The stream, you see, is become a canal: the banks are perfectly smooth and green, sloping to the water's edge, and there is Lord Littlebrain, rowing in an elegant boat. SQUIRE HEADLONG.-Magical, faith! MR. MILESTONE.-Here is another part of the ground in its natural state. Here is a large rock, with the mountain-ash rooted in its fissures, overgrown, as you see, with ivy and moss, and from this part of it bursts a little fountain, that runs bubbling down its rugged sides. MISS TENORINA.-O how beautiful! How I should love the melody of that miniature cascade ! MR. MILESTONE.-Beautiful, Miss Tenorina! Hideous. Base, common, and popular. Such a thing as you may see anywhere, in wild and mountainous districts. Now, observe the metamorphosis. Here is the same rock, cut into the shape of a giant. In one hand he holds a horn, through which the little fountain is thrown to a prodigious elevation. In the other is a ponderous stone, so exactly balanced as to be apparently ready to fall on the head of any person who may happen to be beneath,*(* See Knight on Taste.) and there is Lord Littlebrain walking under it. SQUIRE HEADLONG.-Miraculous, by Mahomet! MR. MILESTONE.-This is the summit of a hill, covered, as you perceive, with wood, and with those mossy stones scattered at random under the trees. MISS TENORINA.-What a delightful spot to read in, on a summer's day! The air must be so pure, and the wind must sound so divinely in the tops of those old pines! MR. MILESTONE.-Bad taste, Miss Tenorina. Bad taste, I assure you. Here is the spot improved. The trees are cut down; the stones are cleared away; this is an octagonal pavilion, exactly on the centre of the summit, and there you see Lord Littlebrain, on the top of the pavilion, enjoying the prospect with a telescope. SQUIRE HEADLONG.-Glorious, egad! MR. MILESTONE.-Here is a rugged, mountainous road, leading through impervious shades; the ass and the four goats characterize a wild uncultured scene. Here, as you perceive, it is totally changed into a beautiful gravel road, gracefully curving through a belt of limes, and there is Lord Littlebrain driving four-in-hand. SQUIRE HEADLONG.-Egregious, by Jupiter! MR. MILESTONE.-Here is Littlebrain Castle, a Gothic, moss-grown structure, half-bosomed in trees. Near the casement of that turret is an owl peeping from the ivy. SQUIRE HEADLONG.-And devilish wise he looks. MR. MILESTONE.-Here is the new house, without a tree near it, standing in the midst of an undulating lawn; a white, polished angular building, reflected to a nicety in this waveless lake, and there you see Lord Littlebrain looking out of the window.
