I mean the most liberal public or recognized conception of the idea involved in the phrase “poetic sentiment.”  But Mr. Ellison imagined that the richest, and altogether the most natural and most suitable province, had been blindly neglected.  No definition had spoken of the Landscape-Gardener, as of the poet; yet my friend could not fail to perceive that the creation of the Landscape-Garden offered to the true muse the most magnificent of opportunities.  Here was, indeed, the fairest field for the display of invention, or imagination, in the endless combining of forms of novel Beauty; the elements which should enter into combination being, at all times, and by a vast superiority, the most glorious which the earth could afford.  In the multiform of the tree, and in the multicolor of the flower, he recognized the most direct and the most energetic efforts of Nature at physical loveliness.  And in the direction or concentration of this effort, or, still more properly, in its adaption to the eyes which were to behold it upon earth, he perceived that he should be employing the best means —­ laboring to the greatest advantage —­ in the fulfilment of his destiny as Poet.

“Its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it upon earth.”  In his explanation of this phraseology, Mr. Ellison did much towards solving what has always seemed to me an enigma.  I mean the fact (which none but the ignorant dispute,) that no such combinations of scenery exist in Nature as the painter of genius has in his power to produce.  No such Paradises are to be found in reality as have glowed upon the canvass of Claude.  In the most enchanting of natural landscapes, there will always be found a defect or an excess —­ many excesses and defects.  While the component parts may exceed, individually, the highest skill of the artist, the arrangement of the parts will always be susceptible of improvement.  In short, no position can be attained, from which an artistical eye, looking steadily, will not find matter of offence, in what is technically termed the composition of a natural landscape.  And yet how unintelligible is this!  In all other matters we are justly instructed to regard Nature as supreme.  With her details we shrink from competition.  Who shall presume to imitate the colors of the tulip, or to improve the proportions of the lily of the valley?  The criticism which says, of sculpture or of portraiture, that “Nature is to be exalted rather than imitated,” is in error.  No pictorial or sculptural combinations of points of human loveliness, do more than approach the living and breathing human beauty as it gladdens our daily path.  Byron, who often erred, erred not in saying,

I’ve seen more living beauty, ripe and real,