IT is even more gratifying to the author of this work to know, from actual observation, that the public taste in Rural Embellishment has, within a few years past, made the most rapid progress in this country, than to feel assured by the call for a fourth edition, that his own imperfect labors for the accomplishment of that end have been most kindly appreciated. In the present edition considerable alterations and amendments have been made in some portions-especially in that section relating to the nature of the Beautiful and the Picturesque. The difference among critics regarding natural expression and its reproduction in Landscape Gardening, has led him more carefully to examine this part of the subject, in order, if possible, to present it in the clearest and most definite manner. The whole work has also been revised, and more copiously illustrated, and is now offered in a more complete form than in any previous edition.
A. J. D. Newburgh, New York, Jan. 1849.
