A general review of Sir Uvedale's ideas on this subject, is candidly given by Mr. Loudon at p. 78 of his Encyclop. after a mature study of all the modern writers who have endeavoured to form "a taste for the harmony and connection of natural scenery." Mr. Loudon farther calls him "the great reformer of landscape gardening."
We have to regret, that though so many springs must have cheered the long life of Sir Uvedale Price, (and which he calls the dolce prima vera, gioventū dell'anno, and whose blossoms, flowers, and "profusion of fresh, gay, and beautiful colours and sweets," he so warmly dwelt on in many of his pages,) and though the number of these springs must have nearly equalled those which gilded the days of Lord Kames, of the honourable Horace Walpole, of Mr. Gilpin, and of Joseph Cradock, Esq. yet we have to regret that his classic pen has presented to the public no other efforts of his genius and cultivated taste, than the few respectable ones above stated. Had he chose to have indulged his own powers in describing what has been done towards "embellishing the face of this noble kingdom," (to quote his own words,) we might have perused descriptive pages equal to his own critical and refined review of Blenheim, or of Powis Castle, and of a character as high and pure, as those of Thomas Whateley. In proof of this, we need only refer to many pages in his Essays,—not only when he so well paints the charms of sequestered nature, whether in its deep recesses, o'er canopied with luscious eglantine,—in the "modest and retired character of a brook,"—the rural simplicity of a cottage, with its lilacs and fruit trees, its rustic porch, covered with vine or ivy, but when he dwells on the ruins and on "the religious calm" of our abbeys,[103] or on our old mansion-houses, with their terraces, their summer-houses covered with ivy, and mixed with wild vegetation. And we need farther only to refer to those feeling pages in his second volume, where he laments that his own youth and inexperience should (in order to follow the silly folly of being in the fashion,) have doomed to sudden and total destruction an old paternal garden, with all its embellishments, and whose destruction revives in these pages all the emotions of his youth; and he concludes these pages of regret, by candidly confessing, that he gained little but "much difficulty, expence and dirt," and that he thus detains his readers in relating what so personally concerns himself, "because there is nothing so useful to others, however humiliating to ourselves, as the frank confession of our errors and of their causes. No man can equally with the person who committed them, impress upon others the extent of the mischief done, and the regret that follows it." It is painful to quit pages so interesting as those that immediately follow this quotation.[104]
There are few objects that the enlightened mind of Sir Uvedale has not remarked. Take the following as an instance:
"Nothing is so captivating, or seems so much to accord with our ideas of beauty, as the smiles of a beautiful countenance; yet they have sometimes a striking mixture of the other character. Of this kind are those smiles which break out suddenly from a serious, sometimes from almost a severe countenance, and which, when that gleam is over, leave no trace of it behind—
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,
And e'er a man has time to say, behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up.
There is another smile, which seems in the same degree to accord with the ideas of beauty only: it is that smile which proceeds from a mind full of sweetness and sensibility, and which, when it is over, still leaves on the countenance its mild and amiable impression; as after the sun is set, the mild glow of his rays is still diffused over every object. This smile, with the glow that accompanies it, is beautifully painted by Milton, as most becoming an inhabitant of heaven:
To whom the angel, with a smile that glow'd
Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue,
Thus answered."
The great object in the above Essays, is to improve the laying out of grounds by studying the productions "of those great artists who have most diligently studied the beauties of nature. On this subject he has in these volumes poured forth the effusions of his richly gifted mind, in his contemplation of the works of those really great painters, whose landscape scenery, from the most rural to the grandest, "have been consecrated by long uninterrupted admiration." Instead of the narrow, mechanical practice of a few English gardeners, or layers-out of grounds, he wishes "the noble and varied works of the eminent painters of every age, and of every country, and those of their supreme mistress Nature, should be the great models of imitation."[105] He has supported many of his opinions or observations, or embellished or enlivened them, by acute allusions, not only to Milton but to Shakspeare, whom he calls "that most original creator, and most accurate observer."[106]
He has depicted his own mind in p. 378 of the first volume of his Essays; for after lamenting that despotic system of improvement which demands all to be laid open,—all that obstructs to be levelled to the ground,—houses, orchards, gardens, all swept away,—nothing tending to humanize the mind—and that a despot thinks every person an intruder who enters his domain, wishing to destroy cottages and pathways, and to reign alone, he thus proceeds:—"Here I cannot resist paying a tribute to the memory of a beloved uncle, and recording a benevolence towards all the inhabitants around him, that struck me from my earliest remembrance; and it is an impression I wish always to cherish. It seemed as if he had made his extensive walks as much for them as for himself; they used them as freely, and their enjoyment was his. The village bore as strong marks of his and of his brother's attentions (for in that respect they appeared to have but one mind), to the comforts and pleasures of its inhabitants. Such attentive kindnesses, are amply repaid by affectionate regard and reverence; and were they general throughout the kingdom, they would do much more towards guarding us against democratical opinions
Than twenty thousand soldiers, arm'd in proof.