roposition;
and, accordingly, Squire Headlong and Mr Milestone leading the van,
they commenced their perambulation.

CHAPTER IV
The Grounds

"I perceive," said Mr Milestone, after they had walked a few paces,
"these grounds have never been touched by the finger of taste."

"The place is quite a wilderness," said Squire Headlong: "for, during
the latter part of my father's life, while I was _finishing_ my
_education_, he troubled himself about nothing but the cellar, and
suffered everything else to go to rack and ruin. A mere wilderness, as
you see, even now in December; but in summer a complete nursery of
briers, a forest of thistles, a plantation of nettles, without any
live stock but goats, that have eaten up all the bark of the trees.
Here you see is the pedestal of a statue, with only half a leg and
four toes remaining: there were many here once. When I was a boy, I
used to sit every day on the shoulders of Hercules: what became of
_him_ I have never been able to ascertain. Neptune has been lying
these seven years in the dust-hole; Atlas had his head knocked off to
fit him for propping a shed; and only the day before yesterday we
fished Bacchus out of the horse-pond."

"My dear sir," said Mr Milestone, "accord me your permission to wave
the wand of enchantment over your grounds. The rocks shall be blown
up, the trees shall be cut down, the wilderness and all its goats
shall vanish like mist. Pagodas and Chinese bridges, gravel walks and
shrubberies, bowling-greens, canals, and clumps of larch, shall rise
upon its ruins. One age, sir, has brought to light the treasures of
ancient learning; a second has penetrated into the depths of
metaphysics; a third has brought to perfection the science of
astronomy; but it was reserved for the exclusive genius of the present
times, to invent the noble art of picturesque gardening, which has
given, as it were, a new tint to the complexion of nature, and a new
outline to the physiognomy of the universe!"

"Give me leave," said Sir Patrick O'Prism, "to take an exception to
that same. Your system of levelling, and trimming, and clipping, and
docking, and clumping, and polishing, and cropping, and shaving,
destroys all the beautiful intricacies of natural luxuriance, and all
the graduated harmonies of light and shade, melting into one another,
as you see them on that rock over yonder. I never saw one of your
improved places, as you call them, and which are nothi