

JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Vol. L 



NOVEMBER, 1846. 



No. 5. 



Landscape Gardening embraces, in the cir- 

 cle of its perfections, many elements of 

 beauty ; certainly not a less number than 

 the modern chemists count as the simplest 

 conditions of matter. But with something 

 of the feeling of the old philosophers, who 

 believed that earth, air, fire and water, in- 

 cluded every thing in nature, we like to go 

 back to plain and simple facts, of breadth 

 and importance enough to embrace a mul- 

 titude of little details. The great elements 

 then, of landscape gardening, as we under- 

 stand it, are trees and grass. 



Trees — delicate, beautiful, grand, or ma- 

 jestic trees — pliantly answering to the woo" 

 ing of the softest west wind, like the AVil- 

 low ; or bravely and sturdily defying centu- 

 ries of storm and tempest, like the Oak — they 

 are indeed the great " princes, potentates, 

 and people," of our realm of beauty. But it 

 is not to-day that we are permitted to sing 

 triumphal songs in their praise. 



In behalf of the grass — the turf, the lawn, 

 — then, we ask our readers to listen to us 

 for a short time. And by this we do not 

 mean to speak of it in a moral sense, as did 

 the inspired preacher of old, when he 

 gravely told us that "all flesh is grass ;" 

 or in a style savoring of the vanities of 



26 



costume, as did Prior, when he wrote the 

 couplet, 



" Those limbs in lawn and softest silk arrayed, 

 I'rom sunbeams guarded, and of winds afi-aid." 



Or with the keen relish of the English jockey, 

 whose only idea of " the turf," is that of 

 the place nature has specially provided him 

 upon which to race horses. 



Neither do we look upon grass, at the 

 present moment, with the eyes of our friend 

 Tom Thrifty, the farmer, who cuts " three 

 tons to the acre." We have, in our present 

 mood, no patience with the tall and gigantic 

 fodder, by this name, that grows in the fer- 

 tile bottoms of the west, so tall that the lar- 

 gest Durham is lost to view while walking 

 through it. 



No — we love most the soft turf which, 

 beneath the flickering shadows of scattered 

 trees, is thrown like a smooth natural car- 

 pet over the swelling outline of the smiling 

 earth. Grass, not grown into tall meadows, 

 or Avild bog tussocks, but softened and re- 

 fined by the frequent touches of the patient 

 mower, till at last it becomes a perfect won- 

 der of tufted freshness and verdure. Such 

 grass, in short, as Shakspeare had in his 

 mind, when he said, in words since echoed 

 ten thousand times, 



