HISTORICAL NOTICES. 21 



been based upon natural beauty ; but as an extensively em- 

 bellished scene^ filled with rare trees, fountains, and statues 

 may, however artificial, be termed a landscape garden 

 the classical gardens are fairly included in a retrospective 

 view. 



All late authors agree in these two distinct and widely 

 diflferent modes of the art ; 1st, the Ancient, Formal, or 

 Geometric Style ; 2d, the Modern, Natural, or Irregular 

 Style. 



The Ancient Style. A predominance of regular forms 

 and right lines is the characteristic feature of the ancient 

 style of gardening. The value of art, of power, and of 

 wealth, were at once easily and strongly shown by an arti- 

 ficial arrangement of all the materials ; an arrangement the 

 more striking, as it differed most widely from nature. And 

 in an age when costly and stately architecture was most 

 abundant, as in the times of the Roman empire, it is natural 

 to suppose, that the symmetry and studied elegance of the 

 palace, or the villa, would be transferred and continued in 

 the surrounding gardens. 



Nothing fills so grand a place in the history of the gar- 

 dening of antiquity, as the great hanging gardens of Baby- 

 lon. A series of terraces supported by stone pillars, rising 

 one above the other three hundred feet in height, and 

 planted with rows of all manner of stately trees, shrubs and 

 flowers, interspersed with seats, and watered and supplied 

 with fountains from the Euphrates ; all this was indeed a 

 princely effort of the great king, to recall to his Median 

 queen the beauties of her native country. The " Paradises" 

 of the Persians seem not only to have had straight walks 

 bordered with blossoming trees, and overhung with exqui- 

 site lines of roses and other odoriferous shrubs, but to have 



