LANDSCAPE GARDENING 293 



shells, for they are at least all alike, but like those which in- 

 genious youthful architects make with glass and beads, bits of 

 coral, and so forth, as if — and perhaps it is so — the value of 

 the building were to be estimated by the variety of materials 

 on the face of it ; and when we expressed surprise, we were 

 directed to a dozen more in the metropolis, some in houses, 

 some out of doors, but all looking excessively small, and very 

 ridiculous. This, therefore, above all things, should be 

 avoided ; and we earnestly beg some of our most distmguished 

 amateurs to blow up their rock-work as soon as they wish to 

 get rid of the responsibility of enforcing by example a very 

 bad taste shown under the auspices of very fine plants and 

 very good establishments. The plan of your rock requires as 

 much architectural taste as the plan of your house : let the 

 crags and interstices preserve a character as if the rock Avere 

 real ; beauty, as some people would call it, must be sacrificed 

 to propriety. We would rather see rock-plants growmg upon 

 the imitative ruins of a broken do^vn castle than upon some 

 of the kinds of so-called rock-work that grace very high 

 places. There must be no one-sided contrivances, no back 

 that is not fit to be seen, no blemishes to be hidden by 

 plantation ; what is proper in one place is proper in another, 

 and the only varieties that should be seen in the different 

 faces of the rock should be only such as could be seen in 

 nature. 



The Isle of Wight affords many fine specimens of inland 

 rocks, which might be studied with advantage ; and both 

 Wales and Scotland, as well as Derbyshire and Devonshire, 

 give us splendid examples. We may fiLnd rocks of all sizes, 

 and fragments of rock on one another, but nothing so con- 

 temptible as the affectation of rock-work in modern gardens. 

 Avoid, then, this puny work ; countenance nothing but such 

 as will be creditable as to size and character. In excavations, 

 where the sides of chalk-pits, or stone, or slate-quarries, are 

 almost perpendicular, these sides must in part be broken 

 down to a slope of crags, leaving a portion upright just where 

 it may seem to aid best the general eifect, and the falling of 

 the sides as they are disturbed will alniost form the work 

 without the labour of the mason or the architect ; at all 

 events, the work ^vill be greatly facilitated. 



When rock- work is constructed by the side of water, a path 

 must be made at the foot, or there must be «ome standing- 



