The cherishing and training of some trees; the
cautious pruning of others; the nice distribution of flowers and
plants of tender and graceful foliage; the introduction of a
green slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of blue
distance, or silver gleam of water;-all these are managed with a
delicate tact, a pervading yet quiet assiduity, like the magic
touchings with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture.
The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the country,
has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy that
descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched
cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their
embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the door,
the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine
trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the
lattice; the pot of flowers in the window; the holly, providently
planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and
to throw in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fireside;
all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down from high
sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the public mind. If
ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage, it must be
the cottage of an English peasant.
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