GAKDEN ORNAMENTS. 





5C5 



tion to aim at the vastness of nature, an endeavor to copy the minutice of nature is 

 not less a proof of inexperience and had taste, since both are equally inimitable. 



'Si la Kntiire est grande dans Ics grandcs choses, 

 Elle est ties grande dans les petites.' 



[If Xature is great in great things, slie is very great in little ones.] 



The model furnishes hints, not portraits ; yet such is the love of exact imitation in 

 common minds, that copies are made from copies, without end. 



" For this reason, houses are built to resemble castles, and abbeys, and Grecian or 

 Roman temples, forgetting their uses, and overlooking the general forms of each, 

 "ivhile their minutest detail of enrichment is copied and misapplied. In works of art 

 we can only use the forms of nature, not the exactness. Thus, in furniture, if we 

 introduce the head or the foot of an animal, it may be graceful ; but if we cover it 

 with hair, or feathers, it becomes ridiculous. And in the parts taken from the vege- 

 table kingdom, to enrich the ornaments of architecture, imitation goes no further than 

 the general forms, since we scarcely know the individual plant ; although some 

 writers have mentioned the Reed, the Acanthus, and the Lotus. 



Imaginaiy sketch, to shew the forms of enrichment in Gothic architecture from the bud ; Grecian fVom the 

 leaf; and Indian from the flower. 



"It is a curious circumstance, that the general forms of enrichments may be thus 

 classed : The Gothic are derived from the bud, or germ ; the Grecian from the leaf; 

 and the Indian from the floiver ; a singular coincidence, which seems to mark that 

 these three styles are, and ought to be, kept perfectly distinct. 



GARDEN ORNAMENTS.* 



Basket-work, both rustic and artistical, enters into the list of gardenesque decora- 

 tions ; and, when filled with plants, either in pots to be removed when they go out of 

 flower, or having them planted in them, has a good effect. They are valuable in 

 another point of view — namely, to be set on lawns or in flower-gardens to 



* From JV/nios/rs Book of th-e Gardfn. 



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