Resumen de Sir John Dalrymple's "An Essay on Landscape Gardening"

• Little known even today, John Dalrymple's essay on gardening proved to be an elusive paper following its composition in the 1750s. In December 1759 Robert Dodsley promised to obtain a copy of the "Scotch Paper on Gardening", as he called it, from Joseph Spence for their mutual friend at The Leasowes, William Shenstone. But Spence, too, had found it difficult to locate: "He has never been able to get DALRYMPLE'S Essay on Garden Grounds", Dodsley wrote a month later. Yet by March 1760 Shenstone had received a copy from Dodsley and another, also handwritten, now among the Spence Papers at Yale, confirms that one reached Spence - probably at about the same time. In September of the same year Dalrymple himself sent a copy to his friend Charles Yorke at Highgate and it seems likely, therefore, that through the 1760s, Dalrymple's essay became known gradually to enthusiasts of garden theory and design. It was not actually published - and then without the author's name - until 1774 when it appeared as an Essay on the Different Natural Situations of Gardens, based on a copy that had remained with the Dodsleys. The version reproduced below is that of 1823 which appeared - with Dalrymple's name - as An Essay on Landscape Gardening. This was based on Shenstone-s manuscript copy then in the possession of Bolton Corney who had arranged publication.