If the knowledge of painting be insufficient without that of gardening, on the other hand, the mere gardener, without some skill in painting, will seldom be able to form a just idea of effects before they are carried into execution. This faculty of foreknowing effects constitutes the master, in every branch of the polite arts; and can only be the result of a correct eye, a ready conception, and a fertility of invention, to which the professor adds practical experience. But of this art, painting and gardening are not the only foundations: the artist must possess a competent knowledge of surveying, mechanics, hydraulics, agriculture, botany, and the general principles of architecture. It can hardly be expected that a man bred, and constantly living, in the kitchen garden, should possess all these requisites; yet because the immortal BROWN was originally a kitchen gardener, it is too common to find every man, who can handle a rake or spade, pretending to give his opinion on the most difficult points of improvement. It may perhaps be asked, from whence Mr. Brown derived his knowledge?-the answer is obvious: that, being at first patronised by a few persons of rank and acknowledged good taste, he acquired, by degrees, the faculty of prejudging effects; partly from repeated trials, and partly from the experience of those to whose conversation and intimacy his genius had introduced him: and, although he could not design, himself, there exist many pictures of scenery, made under his instruction, which his imagination alone had painted*. *[I must not, in this place, omit to acknowledge my obligations to Launcelot Brown, Esq., late member for Huntingtonshire, the son of my predecessor, for having presented me with the maps of the greatest works in which his late father had heen consulted, both in their original and improved states.].
