THE perfection of landscape gardening depends on a concealment of those operations of art by which nature is embellished; but where buildings are introduced, art declares herself openly, and should, therefore, be very careful, lest she have cause to blush at her interference. It is this circumstance that renders it absolutely necessary for the landscape gardener to have a competent knowledge of architecture: I am, however, well aware that no art is more difficult to be acquired; and although every inferior workman pretends to give plans for building, yet perfection in that art is confined to a very few gentlemen, who, with native genius, and a liberal education, have acquired good taste by travel and observation. This remark proceeds from the frequent instances I continually see of good houses built without any taste, and attempts to embellish scenery by ornamental buildings, that are totally incongruous to their respective situations. The country carpenter or bricklayer is only accustomed to consider detached parts; the architect, on the contrary, finds it his office to consider the whole. There is some degree of merit in building good rooms, but there is more in connecting these rooms together: however, it is the regular bred architect alone who can add to these an outside according to the established rules of art: and where these rules are grossly violated, the eye of genuine taste will instantly be offended, although it may not always be able to explain the cause of its disgust.
