NOTES ON DECORATIVE GARDENING— FOUNTAINS. 

 BY H. NOEL HUMPHREYS, ESQ.* 



The most highly wrought effects produced in 

 garden architecture have been those effected 

 by means of fountains ; of this, the well- 

 known gardenesque water-works of Versailles 

 and St. Cloud are sufficient evidence. 



Sir Uvedale Price says: — "With respect 

 to fountains and statues, as they are among 

 the most refined of all 

 garden ornaments, so 

 are they the most lia- 

 ble to be introduced 

 with impropriety. The 

 effect, however, (espe- 

 cially that of water 

 mixed with sculpture,) 

 is of the most brilliant 

 kind." Some have as- 

 serted, that fountains 

 are unnatural ; but na- 

 tural jds d^eau, though 

 rare, do exist, and are 

 among the most sur- 

 prising exhibitions of 

 nature, which, in Ice- 

 land, and other volcanic 

 regions, have struck the 

 traveller with wonder. 



But though we find natural fountains in the 

 wildest scenes of nature, it is not, however, 

 necessary, in making artistic use of a natural 

 law that produces a jet d^eau, to surround the 

 artificial jet with the circumstances that sur- 

 round it in nature, any more than it is neces- 

 sary that the architect, in building with stone, 

 should imitate in his work the rude form of 

 the quarry from which it was taken. On the 

 contrary, as fountains produce the best effect 

 near buildings, and in combination with sta- 

 tuary, architects and sculptors, like Bernini, 

 says Sir U. Price, would not think of inquiring 

 what were the precise forms of natural water- 

 spouts ; but knowing that water forced into 

 the air must necessarily assume a great variety 

 of beautiful effects, which, added to its native 

 clearness and brilliancy, would admirably ac- 

 cord with the forms and colours of statues and 

 architecture, would use it accordingly. 



* From Gard. Magazine of Botany. 



Nature and art are more closely allied than 

 appears at a first glance ; for all art is found- 

 ed upon the development of some natural law, 

 which Shakespeare perceived when he makes 

 Polixenes, in the "Winter's Tale," say, 



" This is an art 

 Wliich does mend nature — change it rather ; bul 



The art is nature'' s self." 



Fig. 55.— Natural Jet D^Eau. 



Under ordinary circumstances the scenic 

 features that surround garden fountains are 

 such that the impression one receives on see- 

 ing water forced into the air is, that art has 

 been employed to produce the effect. There- 

 fore, while still water finds its more appropri- 

 ate locality in the lower portion of the grounds, 

 fountains may be more properly placed in the 

 higher levels of a garden, as their evidently arti- 

 ficial character seems to find its appropriate 

 situation in a position where water would be 

 highly desirable and ornamental, but where it 

 could only be brought by scientific and artistic 

 means. Here, then, the display of art, even to a 

 degree of ostentation, becomes legitimate ; and 

 foiintains, of elaborate character and compli- 

 cated architectural design, find their most im- 

 posing station at the extremities, or cen- 

 tres, of elevated terraces, and places of si- 

 milar character, where the gardenesque, and 

 semi-architectural character of the surround- 



