VIII APOLOGIA PRO BAMBUSIS MEIS 205 
sesquipedalian names at their victim’s heads with an air of 
conscious superiority. It is strange that one never hears of 
those plants a second time. I believe that if they ever 
existed they die of despair, killed by their names! 
When all is said and done, it is certain that though there 
are many bad and ugly gardens in England, still there is no 
country in the world that can show so many really beautiful 
pleasure grounds, and that the number of these is increasing 
as taste improves and larger views prevail. Washington 
Irving is not the only traveller who has done homage to our 
skill as landscape gardeners. There are many reasons which 
combine to give England the pre-eminence in this respect. In 
the first place, there is the much abused climate. Foreigners 
may sneer as they please at our fogs and our gray skies, 
but with all their contempt where can they show such turf 
and such trees? and are not these the foundation of all 
gardening? It was a wise as well as a gallant Frenchman 
who asserted that the most beautiful thing in nature is an 
English girl, mounted on an English horse, on English turf, 
and under an English tree. True it is that the rays of the sun 
caress rather than scorch up our plants; but our vegetation 
is the greener, and our flowers last the longer, not meeting 
the fate of Semele. After all there is some malice and not 
a little envy in the attacks upon us. If I were asked to quote 
the most insolent speech that ever was made in polite society, 
I think I should cite the reply of the Neapolitan ambassador 
(to Sir Robert Walpole, I think), when he was asked to ad- 
mire an effect of sunlight on the Thames at Chelsea, “La 
lune du Roi mon maitre vaut bien votre soleil.” After all 
we may be contented with a climate that admittedly gives us 
