FLOWER GARDEN. * 233 



Turkish, which abounds in shady retreats, boudoirs of roses 

 and aromatic herbs; and the Spanish, which is distinguished 

 by trellis-work and fountains ; but these gardens are not 

 generally adapted to this climate, though, from contem- 

 plating and selecting what is beautiful or suitable in each, 

 a style of decoration for the immediate vicinity of mansions 

 might be composed preferable to anything now in use." It 

 may, however, be remarked, that the flower garden, pro- 

 perly so called, has generally been too much governed by 

 the laws of landscape-gardening, and these often ill under- 

 stood and misapplied. In the days of " clipped hedges 

 and pleached alleys," the parterres and flower-beds were of 

 a description the most grotesque and intricate imaginable. 

 At a subsequent period, when the natural and the pictur- 

 esque became the objects of imitation in the park, there 

 appeared the most extravagant attempts at wildness in the 

 garden. The result has been equally unfortunate. It is 

 not meant that where there are merely a few patches of 

 flowers, by way of foreground to the lawn, they should not 

 be subordinated to the principles which regulate the more 

 distant and bolder scenery ; but wherever there is a flower 

 garden of considerable magnitude and in a separate situa- 

 tion, we think it should be constructed on principles of its 

 own. In such a spot, the great object must be to exhibit 

 to advantage the graceful forms and glorious hues of flow- 

 ering plants and shrubs ; and it is but seldom that mere 

 elegancies in the forms of compartments, and other tricke- 

 ries of human invention, can bear any comparison with 

 these natural beauties. To express the peculiar nature of 

 garden scenery, as distinct from the picturesque in land- 

 scape, Mr. Louden invented the term gardenesque ; and, 

 whatever way be thought of the term itself, it is very de- 

 sirable that the distinction should be preserved, 



