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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GARDENII 



4. The Italian style of gardening is probably a perf(?cted continuation of 

 that of the Romans^ with whom it was an amphfication of tiie house itself. 



** A pillar'd shade, 

 With echoing walks beneath," 



Broad paved and sunny terraces and shady colonnades connected in their 

 Btyle with the house. Marble fountains, statuary, and vases, and other 

 vestiges of ancient art found in the ruins, out of which they have been 

 raised, are the chief characteristics of the magnificent gardens of modern 

 Italy, and nothing can be nobler than this style when the accessaries 

 are all in keeping. " In spite of Walpole's sneer," says Mr. BeUenden 

 Kerr, " about walking up and down stairs in the open air, there are few 

 things so beautiful in art as stately terraces, tier above tier, and bold 

 flights of stone steps, now stretching forward in a broad, unbroken 

 course ; now winding round the angle of the terrace in short steep 

 descents ; each landing afibrding some new scene, some change of sun or 

 shade — a genial basking-place or cool retreat, — here the rich perfume of 

 an ancestral orange-tree, wliich may have been in the family three 

 hundred years, — there the bright blossoms of some sunny creepei', — while 

 at another time a balcony juts out to catch some distant view, or a re- 

 cess is formed with seats for the loitering party to ' rest and be thankful.' 

 Let all this be connected, by means of colonnades, with the architectui*e 

 of the mansion, and you have a far more rational appendage to its 

 incessantly artificial character than the petty wildernesses and pic- 

 turesque abandon, wliich have not been without advocates, even on an 

 insignificant scale." 



5. The French and the Dutch have each their distinct styles of 

 gardening, — the French generally theatrical and affected, straining 

 after effect with spectacle and display. Even at Versailles, which 

 represents two hundred acres and eight millions sterling, the geometric 

 style of Le Notre differs in little from its predecessors or its fellows, 

 except in its extent and magnificence. Here, as elsewhere, in the 

 production of his school, — 



*' Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother. 

 And half the garden just reflects the other." 



Its wonder was the labyrinth in which thirty-nine of ^sop's fables were 

 represented by means of copper figures of birds and beasts, each group 

 being connected with a separate fountain, and all spouting water. 



6. In the Dutch style, there is a great pi-ofusion of ornament on a 

 Bmall scale : — 



** Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees ;" 

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