There are now but few places where the surrounding belts, planted in Brown's time, have not been cut down, for the sake of the timber, or the ground cleared for the sake of the pasture; but where they exist, especially in a flat country, the trees have acquired such height as to exclude all distant view; and, consequently, an air of confinement is produced, which was not intended in Brown's original belts. Two instances of this kind have occurred to me in the neighbourhoods of Ealing and Acton; where a pleasing offskip, with wooded distance, and such features as the pagoda and palace of Kew, were totally hid by the lofty trees which formed the belt. In one of them, an attempt had been made to break the continuity; but some few tall trees that were left produced more mischief than all the others before they were taken away; because, while the belt remained, we might suppose it concealed some unsightly object; or, that nothing existed beyond it deserving a place in the landscape; but now we perceive features whose beauty is by no means increased by being partially concealed.
