GARDENING. 



36 



animal, resembling both a lizard and a fish. After 

 a residence of nearly twenty years in America, 

 doctor Garden returned to England, hi consequence 

 of the political commotions which preceded the 

 American war. He was elected a fellow of the 

 royal society in 1773, but was not admitted until ten 

 years after. From that period, he resided in Lon- 

 don, where he died, April 15, 1791. Doctor Gar- 

 den published An Account of the Gymnotus Electri- 

 cus, or Electrical Eel, in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, and some other detached papers, but produced 

 no separate work. 



GARDENING. Herder, in the Kalligone, calls 

 gardening the second liberal art, architecture the 

 first. " A district," says he, " of which every part 

 bears what is best for it, in which no waste spot 

 accuses the indolence of the inhabitants, and which 

 is adorned by beautiful gardens, needs no statues on 

 the road ; Pomona, Ceres, Pales, Vertumnus, Sylvan, 

 and Flora meet us with all their gifts. Art and 

 nature are there harmoniously mingled. To distin- 

 guish, in nature, harmony from discord ; to discern 

 the character of every region with a taste which 

 developes and disposes to the best advantage the 

 beauties of nature if this is not a fine art, then none 

 exists." However true it may be, that gardening 

 deserves to be called a fine art, we can hardly agree 

 with Herder, that it is the second in the order of 

 time ; for though gardens must have originated 

 soon after man had advanced beyond the mere noma- 

 dic life, yet the practice of gardening as a fine art, 

 that is, not merely as a useful occupation, must 

 necessarily have been of a much later date. The 

 hanging gardens of Semiramis are reckoned among 

 the wonders of the world ; but that which astonishes 

 is not therefore beautiful. Scaffoldings, supported 

 by pillars, covered with earth, bearing trees, and 

 artificially watered, are, no doubt, wonderful ; but 

 we have no reason to suppose them beautiful. The 

 gardens of the Persians (paradises) are called by 

 Xenophon delightful places, fertile and beautiful ; 

 but they seem rather to have been places naturally 

 agreeable, with fruit-trees, flowers, &c., growing 

 spontaneously, than gardens artificially laid out and 

 cultivated. Whether the Greeks, so distinguished 

 in the fine arts, neglected the art of gardening, is a 

 question not yet decided. The gardens of Alcinous 

 (Odyssey, vii, 112 132) were nothing but well laid 

 out fruit orchards and vineyards, with some flowers. 

 The grotto of Calypso (Odyssey, v, 63 73) is more 

 romantic, but probably is not intended to be described 

 as a work of art. The common gardens which the 

 Greeks had near their farms, were more or less like 

 the gardens of Alcinous. Attention was paid to the 

 useful and the agreeable, to culinary plants, fruits, 

 flowers, shadowing trees, and irrigation. Shady 

 groves, cool fountains, with some statues, were the 

 only ornaments of the gardens of the philosophers at 

 Athens. The descriptions of gardens in the later 

 Greek novelists do not show any great progress in 

 the art of gardening in their time ; and it would be 

 worth while to inquire, whether the same cause, 

 which prevented the cultivation of landscape paint- 

 ing with the ancients, did not also prevent the pro- 

 gress of the art of gardening. The aucients stood 

 in a different relation to nature from the moderns. 



The true art of gardening is probably connected 

 with that element of the romantic, which has exer- 

 cised so great an influence on all arts ever since the 

 revival of arts and letters, and, in some degree, ever 

 since the Christian era. Even the grottoes of the 

 ancients owed their origin merely to the desire for the 

 coolness they afforded. Natural grottoes led to arti- 

 ficial ones, which were constructed in the palaces in 

 Home, and iu which, as Pliny ?ays, nature was conn 



terfeited. But a grotto does not constitute a garden 5 

 and that the Romans had no fine gardens, in our 

 sense of the word, is proved by several passages of 

 their authors, and by the accounts we have of their 

 gardens. In Pliny's description of his Tuscan villa, 

 we find, indeed, all conveniences protection against 

 the weather, an agreeable mixture of coolness and 

 warmth ; but every thing beautiful relates merely to 

 buildings, not to the garden, which, with its innu- 

 merable figures of box, and in its whole disposition, 

 was as tasteless as possible. Of the gardens of Lu- 

 cullus, Varro says, that they were not remarkable for 

 flowers and fruits, but for the paintings of the villa. 

 A fertile soil, and a fine prospect from the villas, 

 which were generally beautifully situated, seem to 

 have satisfied the Romans. Whatever the art of 

 gardening had produced among them, was, with 

 every other trace of refinement, swept away by the 

 barbarians who devastated Italy. Charlemagne 

 directed his attention to this art, but his views did 

 not extend beyond mere utility. The Troubadours 

 of the middle ages speak of symmetrical gardens. 

 In Italy, at the time of the revival of learning, atten- 

 tion was again turned towards pleasure gardens, 

 some of which were so famous, that drawings were 

 made of them. They may have been very agreeable 

 places, but we have no reason to suppose them to 

 have exhibited much of the skill of the scientific gar- 

 dener. 



At a later period, a new taste in gardening pre- 

 vailed in France. Regularity was carried to excess ; 

 clipped hedges, alleys laid out in straight lines, 

 flower-beds tortured into fantastic shapes, trees cut 

 into the form of pyramids, hay stacks, animals, &c., 

 were now the order of the day. The gardens cor- 

 responded with the taste of the time, which displayed 

 itself with the same artificial stiffness in dress, archi- 

 tecture, and poetry. Lenotre was the inventor of 

 this style of French gardening, which, however, his 

 successors carried to greater excess. Nothing na- 

 tural was left, and yet nature was often imitated in 

 artificial rocks, fountains, &c. Only one thing 

 strikes us as truly grand in gardens of this sort the 

 fountains, which were constructed at great expense. 

 The Dutch imitated the French. The English were 

 the first who felt the absurdity of this style. Addi- 

 son attacked it in his famous Essays on Gardening, 

 in the Spectator ; and Pope, in his fourth Moral 

 Epistle, lashed its petty, cramped, and unnatural 

 character, and displayed a better taste in the garden 

 of his little villa, at Twickenham ; crowds followed 

 him, and practice went before theory. See Horace 

 Walpole's History of Modern Taste in Gardening. 



This style, however, was also carried to excess. 

 All appearance of regularity was rejected as hurtful 

 to the beauty of nature, and it was forgotten, that if 

 in a garden we want nothing but nature, we had bet- 

 ter leave gardening altogether. This extreme pre- 

 vailed, particularly after the Oriental and Chinese 

 style (see Chambers' Dissertations on Oriental Gar- 

 dening) had become known. What in nature is dis- 

 persed over thousands of miles, was huddled together 

 on a small spot of a few acres square urns, tombs ; 

 Chinese, Turkish, and New Zealand temples; bridges, 

 which could not be passed without risk ; damp grot 

 toes ; moist walks ; noisome pools, which were 

 meant to represent lakes ; houses, huts, castles, con- 

 vents, hermitages, ruins, decaying trees, heaps of 

 stones ; a pattern card of everything strange, from 

 all nations under heaven, was exhibited in surh a 

 garden. Stables took the shape of palaces, kennels 

 of Gothic temples, &c.; an>l mis was called nature ! 

 The folly of this was soon felt, and a chaster style 

 took its place. At this point we have now ax- 

 rived. 



