Mr. Burke justly observes, that "a true artist should put a generous deceit on the spectators, and effect the noblest designs by easy methods. Designs that are vast, only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a common and low imagination. No work of art can be great but as it deceives;** to be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only." This precept seems to have been overlooked in the attempts to modernise BURLEY: the spacious court, surrounded by a colonnade, has been frequently quoted as a wonderful effort of art: and when the distant country was excluded by a wall, by the village, and by trees beyond it, this ample area was undoubtedly one of the most striking appendages of a palace.*** But the moment one side of the quadrangle is opened to the adjacent country, it shrinks from the comparison, and the long fronts of opposite offices seem extended into the vast expanse, without any line of connexion. This comparative insignificancy of art is nowhere more strongly exemplified than in the large wet docks of Liverpool and Hull: while the margins of the river are left dry by the ebbing tides, we look with astonishment at the capacious basins, filled with a vast body of water; but when the tide flows to the same level, and the floodgates are thrown open, the extent and importance of the river convert these artificial basins into creeks or mere pools. It is, therefore, only by avoiding a comparison with the works of nature, that we can produce the effect of greatness in artificial objects; and a large court surrounded by buildings, can have no pretensions to be deemed a natural object. After removing the wall, which formed the front of the court, a doubt arose whether the present gate and porter's lodge should or should not remain, and how to approach the house to the greatest advantage.
**[See our note on this subject, p. 77.-J.C.L.]
***[Lest this should look like an implied censure on the person by whose advice the wall was removed, I must acknowledge that, till I had seen the effect, I might have adopted the same error, in compliance with the prevailing fashion of opening lawns.]
