xx'cm. 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



of its regular windows and porticoes amidst spacious lawns 

 interspersed with irregular clumps or masses of wood and 

 sheets of water. He did not know a more melancholy object, 

 for it neither associated nor harmonised with anything. He 

 added that the view from one of these solitary mansions was 

 still more dismal than that towards it. Mr T. James was a 

 writer of much later times, who, in " The Flower Garden," 

 1852, had scathing things to say of the evil days upon which 

 gardening had fallen, 

 and the natural or 

 Hnglish style of which 

 we were proud. He 

 jibed at the unmeaning 

 flower-beds disfiguring 

 the lawn in the shapes 

 of kidneys, and tad- 

 poles, and sausages, 

 and leeches, and com- 

 mas, and he thought, 

 surveying the various 

 styles that had pre- 

 vailed, from the knotted 

 gardens of Elizabeth, 

 the pleach-work and 

 intricate flower borders 

 of James I., the painted 

 Dutch statues and 

 canals of William and 

 Mary, the winding 

 gravel paths and lace- 

 making of Brown, to 

 poor Shenstone's senti- 

 mental farm, and the 

 landscape fashion of his 

 own day, there could 

 be little reason to take 

 pride in any advance in 

 national taste. 



What may be said 

 for the landscape gar- 

 deners is that they 

 opened the way for a 

 greater love for the 

 flower world, and for 

 delight in the natural 

 form and beauty of 

 blossom and tree, mak- 

 ing them a great addi- 

 tion to any barren geo- 

 metry. No doubt the 

 real truth lies in what 

 Cardinal Newman said 

 in his " Idea of a 

 Universe," that every- 

 thing has its own per- 

 fection, be it higher or 



lower in the scale of things ; that the perfection of one is not 

 the perfection of another ; that things animate, inanimate, 

 visible, invisible, are all good in their kind and have a best of 

 themselves, which is an object of pursuit. 



With this thought in our minds, let us now reflect a 

 little upon some of the individual merits of gardens such as 

 are depicted in these pages, and first let us recognise the 

 virtue that lies in the enclosure, the variety of level, the 

 terrace, and the good tall hedges of yew or hornbeam which 

 have been alluded to the good old system, as Mr. James said, 

 of terraces and angled walks, and clipped hedges, against 

 whose dark and rich verdure the bright, old-fashioned flowers 

 glittered in the sun. We may see that in such a manner of 

 garden design there is a proper transition from the architecture 

 of the house to the natural beauties of the paddock and the 

 park. There are fine rectangular gardens of vaiied character 

 at Montacute, Venn House, Ashrid^e, Ham House, Athel- 

 hampton, Newstead, Hoar Cross, Balcarres, and in many 

 other great English and Scottish gardens. Here may be found 

 inspiration by those who would excel in such character of 



A SUNDIAL AT THE VYNE. 



design. The hedge which encloses does not necessarily 

 exclude what is without. Indeed, from the elevated terrace, 

 there is oftentimes a wide outlook over the features beyond. 

 The hedges should certainly be of the best, and they may 

 be seen in excellent taste at such places as Blickling Hall, 

 Brockenhurst Park, Melbourne, Etwall, Drummond Castle, and 

 in a multitude of other great gardens in the hind. 



Topiary features may be introduced according to the 



garden - maker's taste. 

 They may be no more 

 than some pleasant 

 variation of the well- 

 cut hedge, like the 

 "bulwarks" at Sedg- 

 wick Park or the 

 stately composition in 

 ilex and yew at Brocken- 

 hurst. Such hedges 

 may be used to accen- 

 tuate design, as in the 

 fine planned garden at 

 Drummond Castle. It 

 is not necessary, nor 

 always desirable, to 

 introduce exaggerated 

 quaintness, though some 

 love the conventional 

 forms of verdant sculp- 

 ture such as are found 

 at Levens, at Hesling- 

 ton Hall, at Cleeve 

 Prior, at Hampton 

 Court, Leominster, and 

 at other places, includ- 

 ing, as by a kind of 

 recrudescence, the 

 modern gardens of 

 Elvaston, Derbyshire. 

 At Pack wood the 

 shapely yews are 

 grouped in ordered 

 ranks to typify, as by 

 a green allegory, the 

 apostles, the younger 

 brethren, and the mul- 

 titude gathered to hear 

 the discourse of our 

 Lord upon the Garden 

 Mount. Let it not be 

 imagined Levens itself 

 is a demonstration to 

 the c o n t r a r y t hat 

 such quaint feature* 

 are incompatible with 

 a profuse growth of 

 flowers. 



In great planned gardens, such as we find at Wilton, 

 Longford, Belton, Trentham, Castle Ashby, and Stoke Edith 

 Park, the features which are, or may be, enclosed become 

 rich and elaborate. Fancy is exerted to devise plans for 

 such " knotted gardens." There was a time when the flowers 

 themselves were banished from like parterres, and when 

 variously coloured earths were employed to give the colour 

 which in these days is imparted by the radiant things that 

 grow. The love of flowers has banisheJ that species of 

 artificiality. There are examples in this volume of very 

 magnificent planned gardens, which are gems in their 

 setting of wood and lawn. They can rarely be satisfactory, 

 indeed, unless, as in such a fine, reposeful example as that 

 at Newbattle, the elaborate beds compose with fine belts 

 of trees, which bring into the garden composition that element 

 of shade and harmony which is necessary to balance such 

 bright and varied features. 



But, when we reach these elaborate expressions of the 

 gardener's art, we are far away from the quaint old enclosed 

 gardens from which such things sprang. Now, the raised 



