120 Landscape Gardening 



border and angles of the terrace, with suitable plants grow- 

 ing in them. 



Where there is a terrace ornamented with urns or vases, 

 and the proprietor wishes to give a corresponding air of 

 elegance to his grounds, vases, sundials, etc., may be placed 

 in various appropriate situations, not only in the architec- 

 tural flower-garden, but on the lawn, and through the 

 pleasure-grounds in various different points near the house. 

 We say near the house, because we think so highly arti- 

 ficial and architectural an object as a sculptured vase, is 

 never correctly introduced unless it appear in some way 

 connected with buildings, or objects of a like architectural 

 character. To place a beautiful vase in a distant part of 

 the grounds, where there is no direct allusion to art, and 

 where it is accompanied only by natural objects, as the 

 overhanging trees and the sloping turf, is in a measure 

 doing violence to our reason or taste, by bringing two 

 objects so strongly contrasted, in direct union. But when 

 we see a statue or a vase placed in any part of the grounds 

 where a near view is obtained of the house (and its accom- 

 panying statues or vases), the whole is accounted for, and 

 we feel the distant vase to be only a part of, or rather a 

 repetition of the same idea, - - in other words, that it forms 

 part of a whole, harmonious and consistent. 



Vases of real stone, as marble or granite, are decorations 

 of too costly a kind ever to come into general use among 

 us. Vases, however, of equally beautiful forms, are manu- 

 factured of artificial stone, of fine pottery, or of cast iron, 

 which have the same effect, and are of nearly equal dura- 

 bility, as garden decorations. 



A vase should never, in the open air, be set down upon 

 the ground or grass, without being placed upon a firm base 

 of some description, either a plinth or a pedestal. Without 

 a base of this kind it has a temporary look, as if it had been 

 left there by mere accident, and without any intention of 

 permanence. Placing it upon a pedestal, or square plinth 

 (block of stone), gives it a character of art, at once more 

 dignified and expressive of stability. Besides this, the 



