In Landscape Gardening the country gentleman of leisure finds a resource of the most agreeable nature. While there is no more rational pleasure than that derived from its practice by him, who "Plucks life's roses in his quiet fields," the enjoyment drawn from it (unlike many other amusements) is unembittered by the after recollection of pain or injury inflicted on others, or the loss of moral rectitude. In rendering his home more beautiful, he not only contributes to the happiness of his own family, but improves the taste, and adds loveliness to the country at large. There is, perhaps, something exclusive in the taste for some of the fine arts. A collection of pictures, for example, is comparatively shut up from the world, in the private gallery. But the sylvan and floral collections,- the groves and gardens, which surround the country residence of the man of taste,-are confined by no barriers narrower than the blue heaven above and around them. The taste and the treasures, gradually, but certainly, creep beyond the nominal boundaries of the estate, and reappear in the pot of flowers in the window, or the luxuriant, blossoming vines which clamber over the porch of the humblest cottage by the way side.
