1 6 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



words about "styles," but when all is read, what is the result to 

 anybody who looks from words to things ? That there are two 

 styles : the one strait-laced, mechanical, with much wall and stone, 

 with water-squirts, plaster-work, and absurd sculpture ; the other 

 natural in most cases, once free of the house accepting the ground 

 lines of the earth herself as the best, and getting plant beauty from 

 its natural source the flowers and trees arranged in picturesque 

 ways. 



There are positions where stonework is necessary; but the beauti- 

 ful terrace gardens are those that are built where the nature of the 

 ground required them ; and there is nothing more melancholy than the 

 walls, fountain basins, clipped trees, and long canals of places like the 

 Crystal Palace, not only because they fail to satisfy the desire for 

 beauty, but because they tell of wasted effort, riches worse than lost. 

 There are, from Versailles to Caserta, a great many ugly gardens in 

 Europe, but at Sydenham we have the greatest modern example of 

 the waste of enormous means in making hideous a fine piece of ground. 

 This has been called a work of genius, but it is the fruit of a poor 

 ambition to outdo another ugly extravagance Versailles. But 

 Versailles is a relic of the past, and was the expression of such know- 

 ledge of the gardening art as men then possessed. As Versailles 

 has numerous tall water-squirts, the best way of glorifying ourselves 

 was to make some taller ones at Sydenham ! Instead of confining 

 the terrace gardening to the upper terrace, by far the greater portion 

 of the ground was devoted to a stony extravagance of design, and 

 nearly in the centre were placed the vast and ugly fountain basins. 

 The contrivances to enable the water to go down-stairs, the temples, 

 statues, dead walls, all costly rubbish, praised by the papers as the 

 marvellous work of a genius. When a private individual indulges 

 in such fancies, he may not injure many but himself; but in this 

 public garden set up as an example of all that is admirable we 

 have, in addition to wasteful outlay, what is hurtful to the public 

 taste. 



Many whose lawns were, or might readily have been made, the 

 most beautiful of gardens have spoiled them for sham terraced 

 gardens, and there is a modern castle in Scotland where the embank- 

 ments are piled one above another, till the whole looks as if Uncle 

 Toby with an army of corporals had been carrying out his grandest 

 scheme in fortification. The rude stone wall of the hill husbandman, 

 supporting a narrow slip of soil for olive-trees or vines, became in the 

 garden of the wealthy Roman a well-built one; but it must be 

 remembered that, even where the wall is necessary, the beauty of the 

 true Italian garden depends on the life of trees and flowers more 

 than on the plan of the garden, as in the Guisti garden at Verona 



