142 WALL AND WATER GARDENS 



treating it in some bold way, either in one grand 

 scheme of colour-harmony, or as an exposition of 

 this principle combined with the display of magni- 

 ficent foliage-masses, or by some other such means 

 as may raise it above the usual dull dead-level. 



And, seeing how many gardens there still are of 

 this type, I scarcely wonder that our great champion 

 of hardy flowers should put himself into an attitude 

 of general condemnation of the system, though I 

 always regret that this should include denunciation 

 of all architectural accessories. For if one has seen 

 some of the old gardens of the Italian Renaissance, 

 and the colossal remains of their forerunners of still 

 greater antiquity, one can hardly fail to be impressed 

 with the unbounded possibilities that they suggest 

 to a mind that is equally in sympathy with beautiful 

 plant-life and with the noble and poetical dignity 

 of the most refined architecture — possibilities that 

 are disregarded in many of these large gardens, with 

 their often steep or mean flights of steps, often badly- 

 designed balustrades, and weary acreages of gravelled 

 paths. 



I always suppose that these great wide dull 

 gardens, sprawling over much too large a space, 

 are merely an outgrowth of plan-drawing. The 

 designer sitting over his sheet of paper has it within 

 such easy view on the small scale, and though he 

 lays out the ground in correct proportion with the 

 block-plan of the house, and is therefore right on 

 paper, yet no human eye can ever see it from that 

 point of view ; and as for its use in promoting any 



