FLOWER GARDEN AND PLEASURE GROUND HOUSES, ETC. 371 



FOUNTAINS IN GARDENS. In this moist climate of ours water 

 needs to be used with great discretion. Above all things it must flow 

 and not stagnate. Bacon, who said so many things about gardens well, 

 summed up the case with his usual felicity: "For fountains, they are a 

 great beauty and refreshment ; but pools mar all." No doubt we can 

 all of us recall some pool of great beauty, some moat with little broken 

 reflections that made almost all the charm of the garden wherein it 

 lay, but as a general rule Bacon is right. 



As nothing is drearier than a dry fountain except the exasperat- 

 ing trickle of one that refuses to be drowned out by the continuous 

 drip of the eaves, it is better to place your fountain in a part of the 



garden which you are only likely to 



visit on a fine day, and if possible 

 it should be set where its tossing 

 spray will catch the sunbeams while 

 you repose in the cool shade ; then 

 the supply of water may be as it 

 should unfailing. Fountains on 

 such an extensive scale as those 

 of Versailles or Chatsworth are only 

 to be excused, when, as at Caserta, 

 they run day and night from one 

 year's end to the other. It is only 

 in such great places too that large 

 and monumental fountains, basin 

 above basin, adorned with sculpture 

 and connected by cascades, have any 

 fitness, and even where they are fit 

 they are apt, here in England, to 

 cease very soon to be fine. Lead 

 is the best material for such foun- 

 tain sculpture in our damp-laden atmosphere, as it discolours more 

 becomingly than stone or marble. This tendency to discolour in 

 blotches and afford a foothold for mosses and lichens, though a 

 blemish on statues, is an added charm to the necessary basins and 

 copings which should confine the waters of our fountain. A fountain 

 is a work of art and as such should always be placed in the more 

 formal portions of the grounds. The feathery spray of a jet is always 

 a beautiful thing but can be ill-placed as for instance, in the centre 

 of a large and informal " piece of ornamental water." 



The fountain in the Temple is one of the most charming examples 

 of the single jet, rising from the centre of a circular basin and falling 

 oack with a melodious splash. It has lost some of its charm since 



B B 2 



Entrance to Bishop's Garden (Chichester). 



