but its accompaniments may
(and to _make a picture_, should) be often different. The _fore-ground_
of a drawing _must_ be the artist's own; and it should be ample, since
an extended distance, and a narrow fore-ground is always awkward and bad
in a picture--N.B. Taste and observation will direct the student to
select for his fore-ground, clusters of trees, pieces of rock, or the
fragments of ruined fabrics, &c., according to the nature of his
subject.

8. On the accurate observation of _distances_ the beauty of landscape
depends; be careful therefore to get them correct at your outset, and
to keep them so, by shading lightly with pen or brush your black-lead
sketch, (should the parts be complicated,) whilst the view is before
you, or fresh in your memory.

9. The hand should be accustomed to the touch of various kinds of trees,
though in a mere _sketch_, little variety is required; the distinction,
however, between full foliaged, and straggling, branchy trees must be
preserved, for both are necessary even in a sketch, and the artist
should therefore be prepared to represent them.

10. The artist must attend to the composition, and the disposition of
his subject. By the _composition_ may be understood the objects with
which he composes his view; by the _disposition_, their picturesque and
tasteful arrangement.

11. Figures, must be such as are appropriate to the scene; thus, history
in miniature is bad, because a landscape is in itself a subject
sufficient for the employment both of pencil and eye; therefore
historical figures in a view, are lost and out of place.

12. Birds may be introduced with good effect, if thrown into proper
distance; to represent them _near_ is absurd: ruins and sea views are
the best subjects in which they can appear.

13. _Effect_ is to be produced best, by strong contrasts of _light_ and
_shade_ both in earth and sky; but the student's taste must determine
where these shall fall, and though the contrasts should be strong, yet
_gradation_, in both, must be observed.

14. A predominancy of _shade_ has the best effect; and light, though it
should not be scattered, must not be drawn, as it were, into one focus.

15. The light, in a picture, is best disposed when the fore-ground is
in shadow, and it falls in the middle; but this rule is subject to many
variations. Light should rarely be spread on the distance.[5]

[Footnote 5: Extraordinary and beautiful effects, however, are, by
superior