Hitherto I have spoken of the north, or entrance front, and courtyard of BURLEY, the whole of which I would treat only as a work of art, and, if possible, exclude all view of the country. But to the south, the prospect, or natural landscape, is the leading feature for our consideration. The steep descent from the house has been cut into a number of terraces, each supported by a red brick wall [see fig. 83]; and if these several walls had been of stone, or architecturally finished like the old costly hanging gardens of France and Italy, they might, perhaps, have added more magnificence to the house than any improvement which modern gardening could suggest; but they are mean in their forms, diminutive in their height, and out of harmony in their colour. Yet the style of the house and the steepness of the declivity will not admit of their being all taken away to slope the ground, in the manner too often practised by modern improvers.
