volume to the test of public opinion, assured that, v ever may be its fate, it will be judged by the subst of what it contains, and not by the mere accide manner and composition.

BIRKENHEAD PARK,

1st August, 1850.

that, in order to avoid following in the track, or trespassing on the domains of other writers, all the examples given should be drawn from the author's own practice. And it is hoped that, without savouring of self-confidence, this course will be the more useful, because the plans will exhibit, in nearly every instance, some adaptation to the peculiar outlines or characters of places; incidentally thus showing how little irregularities and difficulties may be dealt with, and in this way giving a greater reality and point to the hints that may be embodied.

Among the multitude of designs which every established practitioner must have concocted, it is of course hard to select such as will be most generally available for imparting information. The expense of engraving them, too, is such as to make a somewhat limited selection essential. Hence, I have had to omit the plans of many interesting places which I had wished to present, and also to reject other sketches that might have been serviceable. In fact, it would have been easy to multiply the engravings to almost any extent, but for the danger of making the book too costly and cumbersome.

To give a wider value to the illustrations, sections of ground, and representations of objects or processes of a practical kind, have, in some cases, been introduced. And in other parts, where words seemed but feeble instruments in conveying ideas, pictorial sketches have been employed. In preparing the latter class of designs, I have been indebted to the artistic pencil of my friend and former pupil, Mr. J. W. Chapman, of Dulwich, near London, whose capacity in this and other branches of our art I have much pleasure in indorsing.

Not to make the book at all unwieldy, the size of its pages has been kept as small as possible, and this has caused some

of the plans to be put on such a reduced scale, that the various clumps and plantations are often shown in a most attenuated form, and with a very awkward outline. For the same reason, the flower-beds and specimen plants in such plans are but imperfectly represented. Happily, however, these instances are mostly of a class in which the larger features of a place are intended to be exemplified, and the defective exhibition of the minor details is not of practical moment.

Where the scale to which any of the illustrations have been drawn is not attached to them, and would be of the least importance, it is, with the few exceptions pointed out in the text, and the instances now to be adduced, uniformly thirty feet to an inch. The departures from this rule are in the case of the architectural basins and beds, (figs. 85 to 96,) which are all on a scale of ten feet to the inch, and in every place (that is not otherwise noticed) where vertical heights are given; these being to a scale of double the size, or fifteen feet to an inch, that they may be rendered more distinct.

If, in the hurry of selection, or a too confident reliance on the propriety of his intentions, the author has in any instance. ventured to introduce the plans of places without having solicited the special authority of their proprietors, he trusts that the interest which may attach to such plans, and the information they may yield to the public, will be accepted as a sufficient justification and excuse.

In the cursory remarks which have been made on architectural gardening, and in the discussion of other matters relating to the arrangement and accompaniments of houses, it was hardly possible to pass over the subject of architecture without frequent allusion and comment. But, as no claim is asserted to anything like a technical knowledge of this

art, and as the references which have been made to it all bear more or less directly on the treatment of a landscape, the charge of presumption cannot fairly lie against the author. It is much to be regretted that architects and landscape-gardeners do not more usually work together, in complete unison, from the very commencement of any undertaking in which they are jointly consulted; and he who would produce a work in which the relation of the two arts to each other, and the elements of garden architecture and of architectural gardening, should be skilfully handled, and tastefully illustrated, would deserve the thanks of the entire art-loving community.

BIRKENHEAD PARK,

31st March, 1858.