36 THE HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



words, they were what sumptuous gardens have heen in all ages 

 till the present, unnatural, enriched by art, possibly with fountains, 

 statues, balustrades, and summer-houses, and were anything but 

 verdant and rural. 



From the days of Homer to those of Pliny, we have no traces to 

 lead us to guess to what were the gardens of the intervening ages. 

 When Roman authors, whose climate instilled a wish for cool 

 retreats, speak of their enjoyments in that kind, they sigh for grottos, 

 caves, and the refreshing hollows of mountains, near irriguous and 

 shady founts; or boast of their porticos, walks of planes, canals, 

 baths, and breezes from the sea. Their gardens arc never mentioned 

 as affording shade and shelter from the rage of the dog-star. Pliny 

 has left us descriptions of two of his villas. As he used his 

 Laurentine villa for bis winter retreat, it is not surprising that 

 the garden makes no considerable part of the account. All he says 

 of it is, that the gestatio or place of exercise, which surrounded the 

 garden (the latter consequently not being very large), was bounded 

 by a hedge of box, and where that was perished, with rosemary ; 

 that there was a walk of vines, and that most of the trees were fig 

 and mulherrv, the soil not being proper for any other sorts. 



On his Tuscan villa he is more diffuse; the garden makes a con- 

 siderable part of the description : — and what was the principal beauty 

 of that pleasure ground? Exactly what was the admiration of this 

 country about eighty years ago ; box-trees cut into monsters, animals, 

 letters, and the names of the master and the artificer. In an age 

 when architecture displayed all its grandeur, all its purity, and all 

 its taste ; when arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the Temple of Peace, 

 Trajan's forum, Domitian's baths, and Adrian's villa, the ruins and 

 vestiges of which still excite our astonishment and curiosity ; a 

 Roman consul, a polished emperor's friend, and a man of elegant 

 literature and taste, delighted in what the mob now scarce admire in 

 a cottage garden. All the ingredients of Pliny's corresponded 

 exactly with those laid out by London and Wise on Dutch principles. 

 He talks of slopes, terraces, a wilderness, shrubs methodically 

 trimmed, a marble bason,* pipes spouting water, a cascade falling 



* The English gardens described by Ht-ntzner iu the reign of Elizabeth, are 

 exact copies of those of Pliny. In that at Whitehall was a sun-dial and jet d'eau, 

 which, on turning a cock, sorted out water and sprinkltd the *pectators. In 





