Gardens 249 



spite of all these particulars it is in my opinion a 

 very contemptible garden when compared to that of 

 Stowe in Buckinghamshire, or even to those of Ken- 

 sington and Richmond." 



And yet Smollett says that of the gardens he has seen 

 in Italy that of the Villa Pinciana is the most remark- 

 able and the most extensive, including a space of three 

 miles in circuit, hard by the walls of Rome, containing 

 a variety of situations which favour all the natural em- 

 bellishments one would expect to meet in a garden, and 

 exhibit a diversity of noble views of the city and adjacent 

 country. 



Vernon Lee thus characterizes Italian gardens: 



"For your new gardens, your real Italian Gardens 

 bring in a new element — that of perspective, archi- 

 tecture, decoration, the trees used as building ma- 

 terial, the lie of the land as theatre arrangements, 

 the water as the most docile and multiform stage 

 property." 



Walter Savage Landor writes thus on gardens: 



"We Englishmen talk of planting a garden, the 

 modem Italians and ancient Romans talk of building 

 one." 



Thus you have the two schools contrasted and a con- 

 tradiction established, the Latin or Southern against 

 the North man, and yet out of this is emerging in all 

 countries the natural parks including the garden which 



