1881.] TRANSACTIONS. 47 



I have thus briefly noticed, though not in chronological order, 

 for tliat would be hardly possible, all those nations, ancient and 

 modern, chiefly noted for the practice of the horticultural art ; 

 and the distinguishing features of their gardening ; until we come 

 to England from which nation we have most closely copied and 

 where we find the nearest approach to perfection in taste. 



I recognize the force of the maxim "de gustibus non disputan- 

 dum," tliere must be no dispute about taste. And yet there are cer- 

 tain elementary principles upon which all good taste is founded 

 about which there can be 7io dispute. One is that the best taste is 

 always the nearest approach to nature. " The ranunculus 

 giacialis," says liuskin, " might perhaps by cultivation be 

 blanched from its wan and corpse-like paleness to purer white 

 and won to more blanclied and lofty development of its ragged 

 leaves. But the ideal of the plant is to be found only in the 

 last, loose stones of the moraine ; alone there, wet with the 

 cold, unkindly drip of the glacier water, and trembling as the 

 loose and steep dust to which it clings yields ever and anon, and 

 shudders and crumbles away from about its root." And herein 

 lies chiefly the superiority of the English landscape over the Ital- 

 ian and Dutch styles — the one is an imitation and the other a 

 distortion of nature. 



Another test of the purity of taste is its universality. 

 " Hence," says the same authority, " false taste may be known 

 by its fastidiousness, by its demands of pomp, splendor and un- 

 usual combination ; by its enjoyment only of particular styles 

 and modes of things, and by its pride also, for it is forever med- 

 dling, mending, accumulating and self-exulting; its eye is always 

 upon itself, and it tests all things around it by the way they fit. 

 But true taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshippi?ig, 

 laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting 

 its shoes from ofi:'its feet because it finds all ground holy, lament- 

 ing over itself, and testing itself by the way that it fits things." 

 Judged by these standards we see the progressive nature of hor- 

 ticulture as a fine art. 



Many of the fine arts among the ancients, like poetry, oratory 

 and sculpture, scarcely saw an infancy, but sprang like Pallas 

 from the head of Jove into full maturity and perfection. No pro- 

 duction of more modern times can surpass the early Hebrew and 

 Grecian poetry — the statues of Phidias are to-day the " Models of 

 all that is noble in expression, elegant in form and chastened in 

 taste," while in oratory Demosthenes will remain alone and unap- 

 proachable till the end of time. 



On tlie other hand, horticulture as an art has passed through 

 not only a struggling infancy but a long adolescence, and who 



