62 GA RDEN- CRA FT. 



found this out ; for the task of the gardener has been 

 rather that of translator than of creator ; he has not 

 had to labour at an artificial world he himself had 

 made, but only to adorn, to interpret the world as 

 it is, in all its blithe freedom. " The earth is the 

 garden of Nature, and each fruitful country a Para- 

 dise ; " and in England, "the world's best garden," 

 man has only had to focus the view and frame it. 

 Flowers, odours, dews, glistening waters, soft airs 

 and sounds, noble trees, woodland solitudes, moon- 

 light bowers, have been always with us. 



It migrht seem ungenerous to institute a com- 

 parison between the French and English styles of 

 gardening, and to put things in a light unfavourable 

 to the foreigner, had not the task been already done 

 for us by a Frenchman in a most out-spoken manner. 

 Speaking of the French gardens, Diderot, in his 

 Encyclopaedia ( Jardin) says : " We bring to bear 

 upon the most beautiful situations a ridiculous and 

 paltry taste. The long straight alleys appear to 

 us insipid ; the palisades cold and formless. We 

 delight in devising twisted alleys, scroll-work par- 

 terres, and shrubs formed into tufts ; the largest 

 lots are divided into little lots. It is not so with a 

 neighbouring nation, amongst whom gardens in good 

 taste are as common as magnificent palaces are rare. 

 In England, these kinds of walks, practicable in all 

 weathers, seem made to be the sanctuary of a sweet 

 and placid pleasure ; the body is there relaxed, the 

 mind diverted, the eyes are enchanted b)' the verdure 

 of the turf and the bowling-greens ; the variety of 



