CHAPTER II 

 BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART 



"Here Nature in her unaffected dresse, 

 Plaited with vallies and imbost with hills, 

 Enchast with silver streams, and fringed with woods 

 Sits lovely." - 



CHAMBERLAYNE. 



"II est des soins plus doux, un art plus enchanteur. 

 C'est peu de charmer Pceil, il faut parler au cceur. 

 Avez-vous done connu ces rapports invisibles, 

 Des corps inanimes et des etres sensibles? 

 Avez-vous entendu des eaux, des pres, des bois, 

 La muette eloquence et la secrete voix? 

 Rendez-nous ces effets." Les Jardins, Book I. 



BEFORE we proceed to a detailed and more practical 

 consideration of the subject, let us occupy ourselves 

 for a moment with the consideration of the different 

 results which are to be sought after, or, in other words, 

 what kinds of beauty we may hope to produce by Land- 

 scape Gardening. To attempt the smallest work in any 

 art, without knowing either the capacities of that art, or 

 the schools, or modes, by which it has previously been 

 characterized, is but to be groping about in a dim twilight, 

 without the power of knowing, even should we be successful 

 in our efforts, the real excellence of our production; or of 

 judging its merit, comparatively, as a work of taste and 

 imagination. 



The beauties elicited by the ancient style of gardening 

 were those of regularity, symmetry, and the display of 

 labored art. These were attained in a merely mechanical 

 manner, and usually involved little or no theory. The 

 geometrical form and lines of the buildings were only ex- 

 tended and carried out in the garden. In the best classical 



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