THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 97 



undress, and suffer us to brush our faces and our hearts with fern-fronds, 

 tufts of towering grass, plumes of humea, and filagree knots of meadow- 

 sweet. To place the banks and braes where they will not offend is not all 

 that is needful ; they must be located where they are likely to be useful ; 

 in fact, everything in a garden, even to an individual blade of grass, should 

 have its place and its purpose. K'ow suppose my friend comes to see the 

 garden ; or, better still, comes to see me (for I don't like people who 

 merely comes to see the garden), of course he takes a peep at new 

 geraniums, fuchsias, rhododendrons, and lobelias, but it is not likely we 

 can talk in earnest either about these, or anything else, in the burning sun 

 and with our poor feet on hard gravel. No, I coax him away over the 

 soft turf to the roses, then among the bushes, and next among the brakes, 

 and so downhill to the banks and braes, and there in a shady arbour we 

 take our rest, and perhaps fumigate the beech leaves overhead with the 

 exhalations of a leaf that does not come to perfection in this climate. 

 Tou can really talk when you are shut in between shelves of rock and 

 slopes of heather, and tumble down precipices smothered with fern, and 

 that is one use of banks and braes in gardens. But suppose you are alone, 

 tasting the sweets of solitude; then where else would you go to enjoy 

 the song of the thrush at three a.m., or that of the nightingale before the 

 turn of midnight, or to peep into a robin's nest, and exchange courtesies 

 with Kahgahgee, the king of ravens. There is another use of green 

 retreats and mossy dells, to make one happy in communion with nature, 

 and see — 



" The horizontal sun 

 Hjeave his broad shoulder o'er the edge of the world," 



when the rosy dawn has awakened all the voices of the grove, and the 

 first slanting beams of sunshine have to fight their way through bars of 

 amber and glittering dewdrops. It is true that it is amidst the works of 

 art that we thus enjoy our reveries, but it is art shaping its works to the 

 model of nature, and selecting things grotesque with a full regard for all 

 accompaniments and accessories. No doubt many other uses may be 

 thought of, but there is, at least, one more worth naming, and that is the 

 service of such nooks for the cultivation of plants that like to bask in the 

 full sunshine, or hide in the cool shadows, or nestle close in clefts and 

 hollows where there is a trickle of water or a bed of moist peat, or a 

 cushion of moss to keep them company, as in the days when they dwelt 

 with the wild bee, and heard the tinkle of the sheep bells on banks of 

 yellow tormentil and bosky thyme. 



My present garden is so small that it is beyond all my hope to carry 

 out my own A'iews on the disposition and forms of rockeries, but I have 

 some banks and braes inclosing my quiet retreat ; and here is a picture of 

 the entrance to what is commonly called a "summer-house" in my garden, 

 and which is one of the prettiest and most comfortable structures of the 

 kind I have ever seen, even in the paradise of a great duke. My summer- 

 house is all of woods— that is to say, woods in their natural colours, yew 

 posts, gnarled apple-tree pediment, oak wainscoat, yew blocks for seats, 

 supported on oak pillars, and of course not a particle of paint used any- 

 where. The front has two wings of hazel rod lattice, and one of these is 

 just visible in the picture to indicate that the path leads somewhere. The 

 picture is from a photograph taken last summer, and is another instalment 



