118 Landscape Gardening 



with the verdure of the turf beneath; the still further 

 rambling off of vases, etc., into the brilliant i lower-garden, 

 which, through these ornaments, maintains an avowed con- 

 nection with the architecture of the house; all this, we think 

 it cannot be denied, forms a rich setting to the architecture, 

 and unites agreeably the forms of surrounding nature with 

 the more regular and uniform outlines of the building. 



The effect will not be less pleasing if viewed from an- 

 other point of view, viz., the terrace, or from the apart- 

 ments of the house itself. From either of these points, the 

 various objects enumerated, will form a rich foreground to 

 the pleasure-grounds or park - - a matter which painters 

 well know how to estimate, as a landscape is incomplete 

 and unsatisfactory to them, however beautiful the middle 

 or distant points, unless there are some strongly marked 

 objects in the foreground. In fine, the intervention of these 

 elegant accompaniments to our houses prevents us, as Mr. 

 Hope has observed, "from launching at once from the 

 threshold of the symmetric mansion, in the most abrupt 

 manner, into a scene wholly composed of the most unsym- 

 metric and desultory forms of mere nature, which are totally 

 out of character with the mansion, whatever may be its 

 style of architecture and furnishing." * 



The highly decorated terrace, as we have here supposed 

 it, would, it is evident, be in unison with villas of a some- 

 what superior style; or, in other words, the amount of 

 enrichment bestowed upon exterior decoration near the 

 house, should correspond to the style of art evinced in the 

 exterior of the mansion itself. An humble cottage with 

 sculptured vases on its terrace and parapet, would be in 

 bad taste; but any Grecian, Roman, or Italian villa, where 

 a moderate degree of exterior ornament is visible, or a 

 Gothic villa of the better class, will allow the additional 

 enrichment of the architectural terrace and its ornaments. 

 Indeed the terrace itself, in so far as it denotes a raised dry 

 platform around the house, is a suitable and appropriate 

 appendage to every dwelling, of whatever class. 



* Essay on Ornamental Gardening, by Thomas Hope. 



