38 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



buildings, added to by each succeeding generation, who 

 often preserve also the older portions with the most 

 scrupulous care ; wide spread parks, clothed with a thick 

 velvet turf, which, amid their moist atmosphere, preserves 

 during great part of the year an emerald greenness — 

 studded with noble oaks and other forest trees which 

 number centuries of growth and maturity ; these advan- 

 tages, in the hands of the most intelligent and the 

 wealthiest aristocracy in the world, have indeed made 

 almost an entire landscape garden of " merry England." 

 Among a multitude of splendid examples of these noble 

 residences, we will only refer the reader to the celebrated 

 Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, where 

 the lake alone (probably the largest piece of artificial 

 water in the world) covers a surface of two hundred acres : 

 Chatsworth, the varied and magnificent seat of the Duke 

 of Devonshire, where there are scenes illustrative of almost 

 every style of the art : and Woburn Abbey, the grounds 

 of which are full of the choicest specimens of trees and 

 plants, and where the park, like that of Ashbridge, 

 Arundel Castle, and several other private residences in 

 England, is only embraced within a circumference of from 

 ten to twenty miles. 



On the continent of Europe, though there are a multi- 

 tude of examples of the modern style of landscape 

 gardening, which is there called the English or natural 

 style, yet in the neighborhood of many of the capitals, 

 especially those of the south of Europe, the taste for 

 the geometric or ancient style of gardening still prevails 

 to a considerable extent ; partially, no doubt, because that 

 style admits, with more facility, of those classical and 

 architectural accompaniments of vases, statues, busts, etc.. 



