202 Landscape Gardening 



ficial pleasure grounds. A pretty little natural glen, filled 

 with old trees and made alive by a clear perennial stream, 

 is often a cheaper and more unwearying source of enjoy- 

 ment than the gayest flower garden. Not that we mean to 

 disparage beautiful parks, pleasure grounds, or flower-gar- 

 dens; we only wish our readers about settling in the country 

 to understand that they do not constitute the highest and 

 most expressive kind of rural beauty, - - as they certainly 

 do the most expensive. 



It is so hard to be content with simplicity! Why, we 

 have seen thousands expended on a few acres of ground, 

 and the result was, after all, only a showy villa, a green- 

 house, and a flower garden, - - not half so captivating to 

 the man of true taste as a cottage embosomed in shrubbery, 

 a little park filled with a few fine trees, a law r n kept short 

 by a flock of favorite sheep, and a knot of flowers woven 

 gayly together in the green turf of the terrace under the 

 parlor windows. But the man of wealth so loves to astonish 

 the admiring world by the display of riches, and it is so 

 rare to find those who comprehend the charm of grace and 

 beauty in their simple dress! 



Note. --It seems certain that the attitude toward country life in 

 America has greatly improved since Mr. Downing wrote this essay. 

 Everybody understands better what country life, in its various forms, 

 implies. Also the public taste in country living has risen by many 

 degrees. F. A. W. 



