LETTER LXVIII. Copy of a Letter to the DEAN and CHAPTER. Lichfield, Oct. 3, 1801. GENTLEMEN, I have heard, with deep concern, of your design to impoverish still farther the useful and lovely shades of the Dean's Walk, already much injured by the unsightly bareness at the top of the walk; by the disproportioned width of the trees before the deanery and Mr Danniel's house; and by their awkward lopping before Dr Falconer's. The now-purposed devastation is of tenfold magnitude. I am conscious that all power to carry it into effect exists in the Dean and Chapter; but I write humbly to deprecate its exertion, the mischief of which must be irreparable to the beauty of the Close, as the demolition of the conduit, by a similar decree, has proved to the convenience of its inhabitants, and to its safety in case of fire. Consider, Gentlemen, that this now gracefully shaded area is the admiration of travellers, the pride and delight of those who live within its boundaries!—that it is a fixed principle in land scape-taste, that wherever there is continuous shade, if it is not full and luxuriant, it ceases to be beautiful; that the effect of taking away every other tree, will be like drawing every other tooth in the front of a well-furnished mouth; that the disposition of trees to approximate, will, after such sad thinning, produce, in length of time, an effort of the boughs to shoot horizontally, which must form a straight line, or something near a straight line, at top. That free, irregular, and graceful outline, which, since they have been allowed to grow naturally, they form where they have not been thinned, will be broken and lost. If only the few short and weaker trees were to be felled, the mischief might not be of a magnitude so deplorable, -but it is grievous to see the seal of destruction on a number of the very noblest amongst those which have hitherto been spared. Milton's description of the Garden of Eden, is allowed to have formed that taste in landscape, which has rendered the English pleasure-grounds so celebrated. He there mentions impervious shade amongst the beauties of Paradise,—thus : "And where the morning sun first warmly smote I entreat, Gentlemen, that you will, at least, redeem the marked victims, which now stand in the pride of their strength and grace, before the gates of the house in which I dwell. A handsome house is a much more picturesque object, at a little distance, from being in part shaded; and the walk once entered, the palace appears with much better effect for having been, for an instant, partially veiled. Ah! why deprive her who now inhabits it, and those by whom it may hereafter be occupied, of the pleasant shade which those devoted trees now cast over the court? Pray, pray spare them! I should be happy if my pleadings might avail for the preservation of all the fine trees now bearing the fatal warrant; that it might, ere yet too late, be considered how dangerous it is to alter what cannot be restored, and what is already at once useful and lovely. Every person with whom I have conversed upon the subject, has lamented this plan. I have the honour to remain, Gentlemen, your faithful and obedient servant. LETTER LXIX. RIGHT HON. LADY ELEANOR BUTLER, AND MISS PONSONBY. Lichfield, Oct. 3, 1801. RECENTLY returned from Buxton, it is one of the first employments of my pen to thank you, dearest ladies, for the transparency you were so good as to send me by your late delighted and grateful visitors. Afresh are Mr Saville and his pleasing daughter obliged and charmed by kindness, which even surpassed the hopes they entertained of a welcome reception in the Cambrian Eden. It has been our theme each time we have met, since the devoted bowers of the cathedral area again received me. I said devoted. It is a sore, sore subject; never did my local attachments sustain so deep a wound. It will rankle, it will fester incurably. O! what a curse is formed by human folly, obstinacy, and pride, combined with the power to commit outrage. All the inhabitants of this yet lovely Close have been, for years, suffering daily inconvenience, the result of innovations; while its safety, in case A large stone placed on the of fire, is put in constant peril. conduit, ascended by steps, and highest part of the area, supplied us with plenty of fine soft-water, descending by separate pipes to all our houses and gardens. It was a monument of the wisdom and liberality of the former inhabitants, who, at a great expence, and by subscription, caused it to be erected. Nor was it by any means an object of deformity. Our dignitaries thought it would be better away, and down sunk our capacious bed of waters. A miserable pump became its substitute, utterly unable to supply the necessities of the surrounding families. A similar edict to sink, and to widen the approach to the west front of the cathedral, has endangered the foundation of a whole row of houses, and the safety of all who live in them, and of every foot-passenger. That was last summer's mischief; and now an order is gone forth, from the same dire source, to destroy the beauty of this celebrated close, by cutting down alternately its noble lime-trees, "From storms our shelter, and from heat our shade.” By the bad taste of former times they had been cut into formal arches, and their level top-line, |