io THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



As I use the word " artistic," in a book on the flower-garden, 

 it may be well to say that as it is used it means right and true 

 in relation to all the conditions of the case, and the necessary limita- 

 tions of our art and all other human arts. A lovely Greek coin, a bit 

 of canvas painted by Corot with the morning light on it, a block 

 of stone hewn into the shape of the dying gladiator, the white moun- 

 tain rocks built into a Parthenon these are all examples of human 

 art, every one of which can be only fairly judged in due regard to 

 what is possible in the material of each knowledge which it is part of 

 the artist's essential task to possess. Often a garden may be wrong 

 in various ways, as shown by the conifers spread in front of many a 

 house ugly in form, not in harmony with our native or best garden 

 vegetation ; mountain trees set out on dry plains and not even hardy ; 

 so that the word inartistic may help us to describe many errors. 

 And again, if we are happy enough to find a garden so true and right 

 in its results in many ways as to form a picture that an artist would 

 be charmed to study, we may call it an artistic garden, as a short way 

 of saying that it is about as good as it may be, taking everything into 

 account. 



THE FALLACY AS TO " MATTERS OF TASTE." 



The man behind the counter often tells us that " it is a matter of 

 taste " if we say a word as to the ugliness of some of his wares, and 

 many other people have the same false idea that obscures all issues 

 about artistic things. If it were confined to the ignorant it would do 

 little harm, but we hear it expressed by men of education. To take a 

 recent instance, the author of " Pages from a Private Diary "(1898) 

 protests against 



making a religion of what is purely a matter of taste. Weeds are as natural 

 as flowers. A lawn left to Nature would soon become a meadow. A hedge 

 left to Nature would become monstrous and useless, because pervious. A well- 

 grown Yew tree is undoubtedly a beautiful object, but a Yew clipped intelligently 

 is quite as beautiful ; and if a tree will clip, it is not unnatural to clip it. 



Here we have some common ideas written by a man of wit, but 

 who in this instance has not thought of what he writes about ; and if 

 we find these notions in such men, how are we to blame the many who 

 with fewer advantages have to study the question of garden design or 

 planting ? For this and all artistic questions are only " matters of 

 taste" to those who have not thought of them. The merit of a 

 portrait by Rembrandt and the first Academy daub is not a matter of 

 taste, but of very serious fact. So also we may compare an Elizabethan 

 house with one of the carpenter's Gothic of our century ; the sculp- 

 tures of the Parthenon with the statues in our squares ; a symphony 



