While speaking of the three different aspects, I have slightly adverted to their respective views or landscapes; but I will speak further on that towards the south-east, to which all the others may be considered as subordinate, although not sacrificed. [The general result, in regard to aspect, is exhibited in the following diagram, fig. 206.] It is very common for admirers of landscape or natural scenery, to overlook the difference betwixt a tree and a pole, or betwixt a grove of old trees and a plantation of young ones. We fancy that time will reconcile the difference; but, alas! we grow old as fast as the trees; and, while we dot and clump a few starving saplings on an open lawn, we indulge hopes of seeing trees, when, in fact, we only live to see the clumsy fences by which, for many years, they must be protected. Happy, therefore, is that proprietor of the soil, who becomes possessed of large trees, already growing on the land he purchases; since no price can buy the effect of years, or create a full grown wood: and without that, we may possess a garden, or a shrubbery, but not a landscape. This consideration alone is sufficient to attach us to the vicinity of that venerable avenue, which it would be a sort of sacrilege to desert, and whose age and beauty will give an immediate degree of importance to the house, which could never be expected in any more open part of the estate.
