FORBES WATSON 287 



the fine effects of summer sunlight and silvan shade, and making 

 many sketches of sweet garden scenes. Some of these have 

 found their way to the Royal gallery ; such as the fine view of 

 the Avenue of the Queen, enlivened by coaches and promenaders 

 from the palace. Another is a study of the Fountain of the 

 Tritons, a rich piece of sculpture in white marble, sometimes 

 attributed to the chisel of Berreguete, not unlike that which re- 

 freshed the garden of Boccaccio's immortal palace.^ Through 

 the bough of overarching trees, the light falls brokenly on a 

 group of courtly figures, that might pass for the fair sisterhood 

 and gallant following of Pampinea. — Annals of the Artists of 

 Spain. 



— A/V/Wv — 



NOW the faults of gardening, against which my present paper is FORBES 

 directed, all centre in this one thing — the constant subjec- WATSON, 

 tion of the imaginative, or higher, to the sensuous, or lower, 

 element of flower beauty. We will trace this, first, in the general 

 arrangement of gardens and of flowers in relation to each other, 

 and afterwards in the case of their individual culture. To begin, 

 then, we find flower-beds habitually considered too much as mere 

 masses of colour, instead of an assemblage of living beings. The 

 only thought is to delight the eye by the utmost possible splendour. 

 When we walk in our public gardens everything seems tending to 

 distract the attention from the separate plants, and to make us 

 look at them only with regard to their united effect. And this 

 universal brillianc}^, this striking effect of the masses, is the ac- 

 knowledged chief aim of the cultivator. . . . 



Has any of our readers, gifted with real love for flowers, ever 

 walked through one of those older gardens, and observed the 

 wide difference in its effect ? I am not here speaking necessarily 

 of the grounds of a mansion, but merely of such a garden as might 

 often be found, some twenty years ago, attached to any good-sized 

 house in a country town or village. Or even a little cottage-plot 



^ 'Decameron,' Giorn. III., Nov. I. 



