Chambers, William: A Dissertation On Oriental Gardening (London: Griffin [u.a.], 1773)

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In the present Publication, has been to give the general
■outline of their style of Gardening, without entering into
trissing particulars, and without enumerating many little
rules of which their Artists occassonally avail themselves;
being persuaded that, to men of genius, such minute
discriminations are always unnecessary, and often pre-
judicial, as they burden the memory, and clog the
imagination with superssuous restrictions.
The dispositions and different artifices mentioned in
the preceding pages, are those which are chiessy pradtised in
China, and such as best characterize their style of Garden-
ing. But the Artists of that country are so inventive, and
so various in their combinations, that no two of their
compositions are ever alike: they never copy nor imitate
each other; they do not even repeat their own pro-
ductions ; saying, that what has once been seen, operates
feebly at a second inspeCtion; and that whatever bears
even a distant resemblance to a known object, seldom
excites a new idea. The reader is therefore not to
imagine that what has been related is all that exists; on
the