18 THE VILLA GARDENER. 



though the real source of strength should be an unseen iron plate or beam let 

 into the soffit. Every wall should be broadest at its base ; openings, such as 

 windows, should be made above one another; solid parts of a wall above solid 

 parts, rather than above openings ; wide openings should be arched ; lintels 

 should be of one piece of wood or stone ; all the stones forming a wall should 

 have horizontal surfaces on their under and upper sides ; and the largest 

 stones of a wall sliould be nearest the foundation. Much more might be said 

 on the subject of fitness as applied to architecture and building; and the 

 reader will find it treated at length in our EncyclopcBdia of Cottage, Farm, and 

 Villa Architecture, book iv., ch. i. 



25. Li gardening, the principles of fitness, or the adjustment of the means 

 to the end, may be applied to the situation of the garden ; to the fitness of its 

 soil for the articles to be cultivated ; to the fitness of the forms of the com- 

 partments for carrying on the processes of cultivation ; to the fitness of the 

 culture for the particular plants cultivated ; and so on. 



26. The rules which, in gardening, are derived from this principle of 

 Fitness are, that in the latitude of Britain, and in the climate of the neigh- 

 bourhood of London, the best situation for a kitchen-garden or a fruit-garden 

 is on a level plain, open on all sides, and at a distance from hills ; that in 

 hilly districts, in the same latitude, the best aspect is on a declivity to the 

 south-east ; that the best soil for general purposes is a sandy loam ; that the 

 best form of compartments is a square or a parallelogram ; and that the best 

 form of culture is in rows, and so forth. 



27. The priticiples cotmnon to architecture and gardening as fine arts. — 

 In order to render this subject as plain as possible, it may be advisable to 

 commence by endeavouring to point out what a fine art is. A fine art may 

 be said to be a creation, or composition, intended, through the eye or the ear, 

 to please the mind. Its two essential qualities are to create and to please ; 

 the work produced must be a creation of the artist, and must be acknowledged 

 as such, otherwise it would be no work of art ; and it must excite pleasing 

 emotions, otherwise it would be no fine art, no art of imagination, of beauty, 

 or of taste. If this chain of reasoning be correct, and the conclusion is fairly 

 derived from the premises, the fundamental principles of the fine arts would 

 appear to be two ; ajipearance of art and mental excitability. We shall 

 endeavour to develope these principles a little more in detail. 



28. Appearance of art. — Any creation, to be recognised as a work of art, 

 must be such as can never be mistaken for a work of nature. It is true that 

 art may create a work which shall be mistaken for nature ; but in such a case 

 the object created could afford no pleasure as a work of art, because it would 

 be without the first condition, viz. that kind of aspect by which art is at once 

 recognised. Much is very properly said about the imitation of nature, 

 because no work whatever could produce an effect on the human mind but 

 such as was in accordance with those works from which the human mind 

 receives all its impressions, and to which impressions alone it is accommo- 

 dated. A work of art, therefore, that is not composed in imitation of, or, in 

 other words, upon the same principles of composition as the works of nature, 

 can no more give pleasure to the hiunan mind, as at present constituted, than 

 an article not fit to be taken into the stomach as food can give nourishment 

 to the human body. The great object of all human exertion, after satisfying 

 those wants which are essential lo our existence, is to procure the approbation 



