The prevalence of fashion, in all subjects of taste, will at times have its influence, but as fashion is more the effect of whim and caprice, than of reason and argument, it has been my great object to rescue landscape gardening from its fascinating power; and, while accommodating myself to the wishes of those who consult me, to the customs of the times, or to the peculiarity of various situations and characters, I hope never to lose sight of the great and essential object of my profession, the elegance, the magnificence, and the convenience of rural scenes, appropriated to the uses of a* gentleman's habitation. This may be equally effected, whether we revert to the formal fashion of straight walled gardening, or adopt the serpentine lines of modern improvers, under the pretended notion of imitating nature. But there is a certain dignity of style in BURLEY, which, like the cumbrous robes of our nobility, neither can nor ought to be sacrificed to the innovation of fashion or the affectation of ease and simplicity.
*[By this term I mean to express scenery, less rude and neglected than the forest haunts of wild animals, and less artificial than the farmer's field, laid out for gain, and not for appearance: or, in the words of a celebrated author, to create a scenery more pure, more harmonious, and more expressive, than any that is to be found in nature itself.]
