22 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



plying it, in its present usage, to the plot of ground 

 immediately surrounding the house. His own words 

 are all along in favour of a formal and artificial 

 character there, in keeping with the mansion itself; 

 and, as Sir Walter Scott remarks, he expresses in a 

 tone of exquisite feeling his regret at his own de- 

 struction of a garden on the old system. He might, 

 indeed, have used the term picturesque with refer- 

 ence to those splendid terraces, arcades, and balconies 

 of Italy with which we are familiar in the archi- 

 tectural pictures of Panini ; but he would have 

 shrunk with horror to have his theory applied to 

 justify the substitution of tadpole, and leech, and 

 comma, and sausage designs for the trim gardens of 

 symmetrical forms, even though he might see in the 

 latter (as Addison says) " the marks of the scissors 

 upon every plant and bush." 



Scott very justly finds fault with the term " land- 

 scape gardening," which is another that has proved 

 fatal to our parterres. If such a word as " land- 

 scaping " be inadmissible, it is high time to find 

 some phrase which will express the laying out of 

 park scenery, as completely distinct from " garden- 

 ing " as the things themselves are. 



Though it may be questioned whether a picture 

 should be the ultimate test of the taste in laying out 

 gardens and grounds, Price, even on this view, offers 

 some very ingenious arguments in defence not only 

 of Italian but even of the old English garden ; and 

 his feelings would evidently have led him still further 

 to adopt the formal system, had his theory not stood 



