The readier and more common method, now-a-days, is to cut down the wood on one part of the ground, to pay for beautifying the other.
FREEMANTLE.
A good device, Sir Level; but my worthy mother likes the old woods as they are; and you might as well bring her own grey head to the block, as lift an axe against any veteran oak on the estate.
SIR LEVEL.
Ah! those old people, with their prejudices, are the bane to all taste and improvement.—Good morning; I see Mr. Smitchenstault in search of me.
CRAFTON.
Is that the German philosopher we have heard of?
SIR LEVEL.
Yes; so he calls himself. I only pretend to make these grounds visibly beautiful; he will demonstrate, forsooth, that they become at the same time philosophically so. Poor man! though mighty clever in his way, he is altogether occupied with his own notions; and to indulge him a little, I have promised to meet him in the further part of the wood. Have you a mind for a lecture?
