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William Gilpin's Picturesque
Beauty
Review of New Publications
... Observations Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty ...
William Gilpin ...
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What would our modern philosophers say to the following
manly and true remarks on the dismal dungeons of Cockermouth
castle, II. 150? "It makes one shudder to think of a human
creature shut up in those chambers of horror. How dreadful
would it be for the people of these more polished times to
be carried back into those barbarous periods when these
savage practices existed! And yet there is such a
correspondence throughout the whole system of manners in
each aera, that people are happier, perhaps, under the
entire habits of any one age than they would be under a
partial change, even though that change were for the better.
If we could all bear the mixture with such savage
contemporaries, they would perhaps be as much discomposed
with our polished manners. Nor did they feel, as we should,
a compassion for that barbarous treatment which they were
ready to suffer themselves from the chance of war."
... ...
Mr. G. considers Keswick lake as an inexhaustible fund of
beauty; yet thinks it capable of improvement, by
clearing the road about it, and by planting. The
rules for the latter are not so easily practised. "Man
cannot put a twig into the ground without formality; and if
he put in a dozen together, let him put them in with what
art he please, his awkward handywork will hardly ever be
effaced. Nature will be ashamed to own his work, at least
till it had been matured by a long course of years. The best
mode of planting is to plant profusely, and thus to afford
scope for the felling-axe, which is the instrument that
gives the finishing touch of picturesque effect." II. 165.
Mr. G. forgets that man can plant only twigs. If he
could plant the oak of
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