HISTORICAL AXD COMPARATIVE. 67 



is handled with more reverence, her rights are more 

 respected. I am wilHng to allow that something of 

 the reserv^e traceable in English art is begotten of the 

 phlegmatic temper of the race that rarely gets be- 

 yond a quiescent fervour ; and this temper, exhibited 

 in a garden would incline us always to let well alone 

 and not press things too hard. If the qualities of an 

 English garden that I speak of are to be attributed 

 to this temper, then, to judge by results, laisscz faire 

 is not a bad motto for the gardener ! Certain it is 

 that the dominance of man is more hinted at here 

 than proclaimed. Compared with foreign examples 

 we sooner read through its quaintnesses and 

 braveries their sweet originals in Nature : nay, 

 even when we have idealised things to our hearts' 

 full bent, they shall yet retain the very note and 

 rhythm of the woodland world from whence they 

 sprang — " English in all, of genius blithely free."* 



And this is true even in that extreme case, the 

 Jacobean garden, where we have much the same 

 quips and cranks, the same quaint power of metrical 

 changes and playful fancy of the poetry of Herbert, 

 Vaughan, Herrick, and Donne ; even the little clean- 

 cut pedantries of this artfullest of all phases of Eng- 

 lish earden-craft make for a kind of bland state- 

 liness and high-flown serenity, that bases its appeal 

 upon placid beauty rather than upon mere ingenuity 

 or specious extravagance. The conventionalities of 

 its borders, its terraces and steps and images in lead 

 or marble, its ornamental water, its trim geometrical 



* Lowell's " Ode to Fielding." 



E 2 



