SCHOOLS OF GARDENING. 11 



been made which is recognised in most works 011 

 gardening, and may be useful in practice in keeping 

 us to that " leading idea " on which the critics insist 

 so strongly, but which has been sadly neglected in 

 most modern examples. 



The Italian style is undoubtedly the offspring, or 

 rather the continuation, of the xystus and quincunx 

 of the ancient Eomans. With them the garden was 

 only the amplification of the house : if indeed their 

 notion of a villa did not almost sink the consideration 

 of the roofed rooms in the magnificence of the colon- 

 nades and terraces that surrounded them. The same 

 spirit has animated the style of modern Italy. The 

 garden immediately about the house is but the ex- 

 tension of the style and materials of which the build- 

 ings themselves are composed. Broad paved ter- 

 races and, where the ground admits of them, tiers 

 rising one above the other vases and statues (not 

 half hidden in a shrubbery, or indiscriminately scat- 

 tered over a lawn, but) connected, and in character 

 with the house itself these, with marble fountains 

 and such relics of antiquity as may have been dis- 

 covered in the neighbourhood, form the chief beau- 

 ties of the magnificent gardens of Italy, which have 

 in many instances swallowed up the whole wealth of 

 their princely possessors. Spite of Walpole's sneer 

 about " walking up and down stairs in the open air," 

 we own that there are to us few things so beautiful 

 in art as stately terraces, tier above tier, and bold 

 flights of stone steps, now stretching forward in a 

 broad unbroken course, now winding round the 



