To give, however, such general rules for thinning woods as might be understood by those who have never attentively and scientifically considered the subject, would be like attempting to direct a man who had never used a pencil, to imitate the groups of a Claude or a Poussin *.
*[It is in the act of removing trees and thinning woods that the landscape gardener must shew his intimate knowledge of pleasing combinations, his genius for painting, and his acute preception of the principles of an art which transfers the imitative, though permanent beauties of a picture, to the purpose of elegant and comfortable habitation, the ever-varying effects of light and shade, and the inimitable circumstances of a natural landscape.]
