DECORATIVE PLANTING. 71 



the rocky beauties of mountain scenery are sometimes those of 

 which the poet says — 



" 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view." 



The noble exhilaration of climbing and roaming over mountain 

 scenery is a charm not so much of their beauties, seen near by, as 

 of the tonic air, and tonic exercise, and bounding blood, and glow 

 of pride to be above some part of the world and to look down 

 upon it. 



Tennyson thus nobly contrasts the mountain with the valley : 



" Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height ; 



What pleasure lives in height (the sliepherd sang), 



In height and cold, the pleasure of the hills ? 



But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease 



To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine, 



To sit a star upc.i the sparkling spire, 



And come ! for Love is of the valley ; * * * 



* * * * let the torrent dance thee down, 



To find him in the valley ; let the wild 



Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave 



The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 



Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 



That like a broken purpose waste in air ; 



So waste not thou : but come ; for all the vales 



Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 



Arise to thee ; the children call, and I, 



Thy shepherd, pipe ; and sweet is every sound, 



Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 



Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawii, 



The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 



And murmuring of innumerable bees." 



We turn from where we stand upon the mountain, not so much 

 to look at the vast and rugged forms around us, as upon the lovely 

 scenery at its base ; scenes where the hand of Art has set its im- 

 press on the works of Nature, and added human interests to their 

 normal beauty. 



Mountain and picturesque scenery is something which can 

 neither be transplanted nor successfully imitated, and is, therefore, 

 rarely within the pale of decorative gardening, as applied to the 

 grounds of towns-people. Great mossy boulders, little ledges, and 

 stony brooks, are nov/ and then natural features of suburban sites, 

 and should be prized for the picturesque effects and variety of in- 



