LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 275 



sorts of objects, and as no landscape gardener who has a name 

 to damage will undertake such work, the merest pretenders 

 are employed, and the place spoiled by attempting everything 

 and failing in all that is attempted. Within three miles of 

 this incongruous mass of things we have mentioned, there was 

 a house with just three-quarters of an acre, of an angular 

 form ; a twelve-feet road pretty nearly skirted it, except to 

 allow of a plantation of shrubs and trees in which there were 

 openings that led no one knew where from appearances, 

 though in fact they were to conceal the real boundary, and 

 led nowhere ; there were a few judicious clumps to account 

 for the necessary turns in the road, and at the most remote 

 angle from the house there was a temple composed of a facade 

 and four Ionic pillars on a floor raised by three or four steps, 

 and forming an apartment fifteen feet square with an open 

 front. However, all but the front was concealed by trees, and 

 although the eye commanded the whole real space, everything 

 was upon such a scale, that it appeared like a very beautiful 

 part of a large domain, instead of a three-cornered bit of ground 

 under an acre. We mention these two circumstances to ijiow 

 our contempt for the one, and our admiration of^.tibjg, other. 

 And we maintain, notwithstanding all that may be*«,ji(i about 

 mixed styles, that the landscape garden should hjp' entirely 

 free from anything artificial ; and as we approach a mansion, 

 or conservatory, or other architectural'*^bject where straight 

 lines are forced upon us, let the planting conceal it all till we 

 are upon it. Let us step out of natural scenery to the arti- 

 ficial, but not be able to view both at once. !N^obody can 

 admire artificial gardening, or rather formal gardening, more 

 than we do in its place ; but what can be worse than the 

 mixture now so common in public establishments,— a long 

 straight road, patched on each side with flower-beds, and a 

 miserable attempt at a landscape within sight 1 We hold 

 that one or the other shoidd be adopted in earnest. Let the 

 eye fall on nothing but landscape through all the main space, 

 and let the parterres, the conservatories, statues, fountains, 

 Dutch or geometrical flower-beds, vases, orange-trees and 

 general display be shut ofi', so as to form no part of the general 

 scenery. But according to our definition, the adoption of one 

 style lor the flower-garden, and another for the general 

 features, does not warrant the application of , the term mixed 

 style. There is no mixture in it. The landscape is to itself : 



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