THE \ 



JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Vol. IV. 



AUGUST, 1849. 



No. 2. 



All travellers agree, that while the 

 English people are far from heing remarka- 

 ble for their taste in the arts generally, 

 they are unrivalled in their taste for land- 

 scape gardening. So completely is this 

 true, that wherever on the continent one 

 finds a garden, conspicuous for the taste of 

 its design, one is certain to learn that it is 

 laid out in the "English style," and usu- 

 ally kept by an English gardener. 



Not, indeed, that the south of Europe is 

 wanting in magnificent gardens, which are 

 as essentially national in their character as 

 the parks and pleasure-grounds of England. 

 The surroundings of the superb villas of 

 Florence and Rome, are fine examples 

 of a species of scenery as distinct and 

 striking as any to be found in the world ; 

 but which, however splendid, fall as far 

 below the English gardens in interesting 

 the imagination, as a level plain does below 

 the finest mountain valley in Switzerland. 

 In the English landscape garden, one sees 

 and feels everywhere the spirit of nature, 

 only softened and refined by art. In the 

 French or Italian garden, one sees and 

 feels only the effects of art, slightly assisted 

 by nature. In one, the free and luxuriant 

 growth of every tree and shrub, the widen- 

 ing and curving of every walk, suggests 



Vol. iv. 7 



perhaps even a higher ideal of nature, — a 

 miniature of a primal paradise, as we 

 would imagine it to have been by divine 

 right ; in the other, the prodigality of works 

 of art, the variety of statues and vase?, ter- 

 races and balustrades, united with walk? 

 marked by the same studied symmetry and 

 artistic formality, and only mingled with 

 just foliage enough to constitute a garden, — 

 all this suggests rather a statue gallery in 

 the open air, — an accompaniment to the 

 fair architecture of the mansion, than any 

 pure or natural ideas of landscape beauty. 



The only writer who has ever attempted 

 to account for this striking distinction of 

 national taste in gardening, which distin- 

 guishes the people of northern and southern 

 Europe, is Humboldt. In his last great 

 work — Cosmos — he has devoted some pages 

 to the consideration of the study of nature, 

 and the descriptions of natural scenery, — a 

 portion of the work in the highest degree 

 interesting to every man of taste, as well 

 as every lover of nature. 



In this portion he shows, we think, very 

 conclusively, that certain races of mankind, 

 however great in other gifts, are deficient 

 in their perceptions of natural beauty; that 

 northern nations possess the love of nature 

 much more stronglv than those of the south ; 



