Our ancestors were so apt to be guided by utility, that they at length imagined it was in all cases a substitute for beauty; and thus we frequently see ancient houses surrounded not only by terraces, avenues, and fish-ponds, but even stables, and the meanest offices, formed a part of the view from the windows of their principal rooms. I am far from recommending a return to these absurdities; yet, in the rage for picturesque beauty, let us remember that the landscape holds an inferior rank to the historical picture; one represents nature, the other relates to man in a state of society; if we banish winter comforts from the country seats of our nobility, we shall also banish their inhabitants, who generally reside there more in winter than in summer; and there is surely no object of greater comfort and utility belonging to a garden and a country mansion, than a dry, spacious walk for winter, sheltered by such trees as preserve their clothing, while all other plants are destitute of foliage. "Vernantesque comas tristis ademit hyems."* [Dreary winter has stripped off the green leaves.]
*["In the summer season the whole country blooms, and is a kind of garden, for which reason we are not so sensible of those beauties, that at this time may be everywhere met with; but when nature is in her desolation, and presents us with nothing but bleak and barren prospects, there is something unspeakably cheerful in a spot of ground which is covered with trees, that smile amidst all the rigours of winter, and give us a view of the most gay season, in the midst of that which is the most dead and melancholy."-Spectator, No. 477. And the great Lord Bacon says, "In the royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for every month in the year."]
