XXXvi INTRODUCTION. 



play taste on a large scale, elegance should 

 be associated with neatness. 



Addison says there are as many kinds of 

 gardening as of poetry ; the makers of par- 

 terres and flower-gardens he styles the epi- 

 grammatists and sonnetteers in the art ; con- 

 trivers of bowers and grottos, treillages and 

 cascades, he compares to romance writers ; 

 whilst those who lay out extensive grounds, 

 he honours by the title of heroic poets. Thus, 

 to imitate the serpentine windings of large 

 plantations in small gardens, is scarcely less 

 ridiculous than it would be to use heroic strains 

 in writing an epitaph on a cock robin ; and it 

 discovers an equal want of judgment and good 

 taste when we see large grounds frittered into 

 the trifling minutiae of a parterre, displaying 

 hearts and diamonds, where nature ought to 

 appear as if at liberty to sport in all her gay, 

 luxuriant frolics. 



Even in the choice of our plants we should 

 take into consideration the extent of our 

 grounds, for large plants in small gardens are 

 like the use of hie-h-flown language when im- 

 properly selected for familiar subjects. 



