28 



offspring, these last speedily «aught the infection, and becom- 

 ina: as decidedly enervated, were punished, as it were, for their 

 filial ingratitude, by becoming in turn the easy prey of Na- 

 tions less debased by the vices of civilization. 



The Roman practice of the Artvi'e have seen in its various 

 departments was correct, and is evidence of the most powerful 

 encouragement. We cannot be charged with exageration if we 

 say that in its pursuit they were little inferior to us in our 

 present practice. We have traced the gradual advances by 

 ■which they attained to such proficiency, and in the highest 

 department, that of Garden Designing, it is apparent that if 

 the name of George the first was inserted in the place of that 

 of Nero, and those of Bridgeman and Kent, instead ofSeverus 

 and Celer, we cannot but consent to think that the description 

 of Nero's Garden by Tacitus, would answer for one in the 

 reign of the English monarch. 



That their progress in the Art was peculiarly rapid is cer- 

 tain. A Century does not intervene between the simple cioun- 

 try Villa described by Cato ; and the existence of the elaborate 

 Gardens of LucuUus, and this, notwithstanding that the civil 

 strife between the parties of Sylla and Marius intervened. 

 From LucuUus to the time of the first Pliny, another Century 

 elapsed, and when we compare the list of Fruits, Szc. given by 

 the latter, with that in the work of Cato, we receive another 

 evidence of the rapid prosperity of the Art. From thence through 

 the age of the second Pliny, Nero, and other Emperors, Garden- 

 ing continued to advance, and we cannot be much in error if we 

 place the summit of its rise in the reign of Tiberius. Under 

 the subsequent Emperors, 'such as Galba, Otho, Vitellius, 

 &c. when the monarchs were made and unmade as the brutal 

 passions of the soldiers dictated, and when each differed from 

 the other, only in the varied excess and enormity of his de- 

 baucheries and cruelties, the meanest Arts must hare stagnated. 



