24 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



shall be extended ; and though nature must needs 

 be removed a few paces further into her own proper 

 retreat, yet simplicity may still remain in regular 

 and symmetrical forms, as much as in undulations 

 and irregularities and mole-hills under the very 

 windows of the drawing-room. Nothing, as Scott 

 has remarked, is more completely the child of art 

 than a garden. It is, indeed, in our modern sense 

 of the term, one of the last refinements of civilised 

 life. " A man shall ever see," says Lord Bacon, 

 " that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men 

 come to build stately sooner than to garden finely." 

 To attempt, therefore, to disguise wholly its artificial 

 character is as great folly as if men were to make 

 their houses resemble as much as possible the rude- 

 ness of a natural cavern. So much mawkish senti- 

 mentality had been talked about the natural style, 

 that even Price himself dared not assert that a gar- 

 den must be avowedly artificial. And though now 

 it seems nothing strange to hazard such a remark, 

 yet its truth still requires to be brought more boldly 

 and closely home to us before we can expect to see 

 our gardens what they ought to be. 



Since the publication of Price's book no writer 

 has appeared advocating any particular theory or 

 system of gardening. Principles and practice have 

 become of a like composite order, and in general it 

 has been left to the gardener to adopt, at his own 

 pleasure, the stucco and cast-iron and wire orna- 

 ments, that fashion has from time to time produced, 

 to suit the last importations or the favourite flower 



