Writers who have given us an Account of China, tell us the Inhabitants of that Country laugh at the Plantations of our Europeans, which are laid out by the Rule and Line; because, they say, any one may place Trees in equal Rows and uniform Figures.  They chuse rather to shew a Genius in Works of this Nature, and therefore always conceal the Art by which they direct themselves.  They have a Word, it seems, in their Language, by which they express the particular Beauty of a Plantation that thus strikes the Imagination at first Sight, without discovering what it is that has so agreeable an Effect.  Our British Gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humouring Nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible.  Our Trees rise in Cones, Globes, and Pyramids.  We see the Marks of the Scissars upon every Plant and Bush.  I do not know whether I am singular in my Opinion, but, for my own part, I would rather look upon a Tree in all its Luxuriancy and Diffusion of Boughs and Branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a Mathematical Figure; and cannot but fancy that an Orchard in Flower looks infinitely more delightful, than all the little Labyrinths of the [more [1]] finished Parterre.  But as our great Modellers of Gardens have their Magazines of Plants to dispose of, it is very natural for them to tear up all the beautiful Plantations of Fruit Trees, and contrive a Plan that may most turn to their own Profit, in taking off their Evergreens, and the like Moveable Plants, with which their Shops are plentifully stocked.

O.

[Footnote 1:  [most]]

* * * * *

No. 415.  Thursday, June 26, 1712.  Addison.

  ‘Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem.’

  Virg.

Having already shewn how the Fancy is affected by the Works of Nature, and afterwards considered in general both the Works of Nature and of Art, how they mutually assist and compleat each other, in forming such Scenes and Prospects as are most apt to delight the Mind of the Beholder, I shall in this Paper throw together some Reflections on that Particular Art, which has a more immediate Tendency, than any other, to produce those Primary Pleasures of the Imagination, which have hitherto been the Subject of this Discourse.  The Art I mean is that of Architecture, which I shall consider only with regard to the Light in which the foregoing Speculations have placed it, without entring into those Rules and Maxims which the great Masters of Architecture have laid down, and explained at large in numberless Treatises upon that Subject.

Greatness, in the Works of Architecture, may be considered as relating to the Bulk and Body of the Structure, or to the Manner in which it is built.  As for the first, we find the Ancients, especially among the Eastern Nations of the World, infinitely superior to the Moderns.