In China, our large Gardens are obtained at an almost incredible expence, and attended with many inconveniencys: amongst you, whose policy, whose manners are totally different from ours, they might often be had at a moderate charge, and without much trouble; for formidable as they may at first appear, it is certain that most of their scenery is easily executed, when proper opportunities occur, which is frequently the case in Europe, particularly in England; where your illustrious families have large domains; where agriculture is neater and more various than in other countries; and where the face of nature is in general more luxuriant; as well as better contrasted. It is natural enough for a stranger to be dazzled with the splendor of our Oriental plantations; upon a cursory inspection, to conclude them too vast, too magnificent, too expensive for European imitation; and that, in your part of the world, the greatest princes should not be indulged with such articles of luxury, calculated, as they seem, to exhaust their treasures, waste their lands, rob and oppress their subjects: but a more attentive examination will probably give birth to more favourable opinions, and serve to prove, that not only your princes, but even your private gentlemen, may emulate us in this particular very safely; and that our style of Gardening may be adopted amongst you, even in its whole extent, without being attended with any of the inconveniences just now recited. It is not the fence that constitutes the Garden; Cobham, Stourton, Blenheim, would still be what they are, though the pales or walls by which they are enclosed were taken away: neither is privacy necessary to the essence of a Garden; for Richmond and Kew are surely the same, when open to all the world, as when they are only accessible to the Royal Family; nor is useful or profitable culture incompatible with the idea, either of our Chinese, or your English Gardening. Any tract of land, therefore, whose characteristick expressions have been strengthened by art, and in which the spontaneous arrangements of nature have been corrected, improved and adorned by the hand of taste, ought to be considered as a Garden, though only fenced with common hedges, and although the roads or paths passing through it be publick, and the grounds of which it is composed cultivated to the utmost advantage.