Theory and Practice 



43 



choice and variety of the plants, the direction of the 

 walks, the enrichment of art, and the attention to every 

 circumstance of elegance and magnificence, the pleasure- 

 ground is perfect as a whole, while its several parts may 

 furnish models of the following different characters of 

 taste in gardening : the ancient garden, the American 

 garden, the modern terrace-walks, and the flower-gar- 

 den. The latter is, perhaps, one of the most varied and 

 extensive of its kind, and therefore too large to be other- 

 wise artificial than in the choice of its flowers and the 

 embellishments of art in its ornaments. 



Flower-gardens on a small scale may, with propriety, 

 be formal and artificial ; but in all cases they require 

 neatness and attention. On this subject I shall tran- 

 scribe the following passage from the Red Book of 

 Valley Field.^' 



To common observers, the most obvious difference 

 between Mr. Brown's style and that of ancient gardens 

 was the change from straight to waving or serpentine 

 lines. Hence many of his followers had supposed good 

 taste in gardening to consist in avoiding all lines that 

 are straight or parallel, and in adopting forms which 

 they deem more consonant to nature, without consid- 

 ering what objects were natural and what were artificial. 



This explanation is necessary to justify the plan which 

 I recommended for the canal in this flower-garden 

 [Plate xv] ; for while I should condemn a long straight 

 line of water in an open park, where everything else is 

 natural, I should equally object to a meandering canal 

 or walk, by the side of a longstraight wall, where every- 

 thing else is artificial. 



A flower-garden should be an object detached and 

 distinct from the general scenery of the place ; and, 

 whether large or small, whether varied or formal, it 



