On some of them are seen gibbets, with wretches hanging in terrorem upon them; on others, forges, collieries, mines, coal tracts, brick or lime kilns, glass-works, and different objects of the horrid kind: what little vegetation they have, is dismal; the animals that feed upon it, are half-famished to the artist's hands; and the cottagers, with the huts in which they dwell, want no additional touches, to indicate their misery: a few uncouth straggling trees, some ruins, caverns, rocks, torrents, abandoned villages, in part consumed by fire, solitary hermitages, and other similar objects, artfully introduced and blended with gloomy plantations, would compleat the aspect of desolation, and serve to fill the mind, where there was no possibility of gratifying the senses. In prosecuting a plan of this extensive nature, many other opportunities would present themselves to the able artist, of dignifying nature, and of heightening his compositions with all the force of novelty and grandeur; stone quarries, chalk pits, mines, might as easily be framed into vast amphitheatres, rustic arcades and perystiles, extensive subterraneous habitations, grottos, vaulted roads, and passages, as into other shapes; hills might, without much difficulty, be transformed into stupendous rocks, by partial incrustations of stone, judiciously mixed with turf, fern, wild shrubs and forest trees; gravel pits, or other similar excavations, might be converted into the most romantic scenery imaginable, by the addition of some planting, intermixed with ruins, fragments of sculpture, inscriptions, or any other little embellishments; and, in short, there would be no deviation, however trifling, from the usual march of nature, but what would suggest, to a fruitful imagination, some extraordinary arrangement, something to disguise her vulgarity, to rouse the attention of the spectator, and to excite in his mind a succession of strong and opposite sensations. It is thus that far the noblest part of our Chinese Gardens, and those which at first sight appear most impracticable, may be obtained even amongst the common dispositions of English nature; and the great might thus have pleasure-grounds, extensive and extraordinary as those of the East, without any very considerable expence: men of less note would naturally imitate their superiors, by embellishing their possessions in the same manner; and instead of spending large sums to fence and to lard a little field with twigs, to give it the name of a Garden, they would beautify their whole estate; which, by a proper attention to the [oe]conomical precepts of our Chinese Gardeners, might be done in such a manner as to encrease its value, as well as improve its appearance.