120 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



garden to unadorned Nature more inspiring. Nay, 

 what is one to make of even the logic of such argu- 

 ment as this ? "If the products of Nature rise in 

 value according as they more or less resemble those 

 of Art, we may be sure that artificial works receive a 

 greater advantage from their resemblance of such as 

 are natural." (Spectator.} But who does apply the 

 Art-standard to Nature, or value her products as 

 they resemble those of Art? And has not Sir 

 Walter well said : " Nothing is more the child of 

 Art than a garden " ? And Loudon : " All art, to be 

 acknowledged, as art must be avowed." 



One prefers to this cold Pindaric garden-homage 

 the unaffected, direct delight in the sweets of a 

 garden of an earlier day ; to realise with old Moun- 

 taine how your garden shall produce " a jucunditie 

 of minde ; " to think with Bishop Hall, as he gazes 

 at his tulips, " These Flowers are the true Clients of 

 the Sunne ; " to be brought to old Lawson's state of 

 simple ravishment, "What more delightsome than 

 an infinite varietie of sweet-smelling flowers ? deck- 

 ing with sundry colours the green mantle of the Earth, 

 colouring not onely the earth, but decking the ayre, 

 and sweetning every breath and spirit ; " to taste the 

 joys of living as, taking Robert Burton's hand, you 

 "walk amongst orchards, gardens, bowers, mounts 

 and arbours, artificial wildernesses, green thickets, 

 groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such like 

 pleasant places, between wood and water, in a fair 

 meadow, by a river side, to disport in some pleasant 

 plain or park, must needs be a delectable recreation ; " 



