COUNTRY MANSIONS. 445 



be asked why straight walks, avenues, and formal lines of plantation, are 

 more suitable for places of public resort than the circuitous walks, scattered 

 groups, and single trees of the modern style, the answer is, that such straight 

 walks and broad avenues are better adapted for displaying crowds of 

 people, and long cavalcades of horses and carriages, to advantage ; and that 

 the great object of those public walks is display. Such scenes are not for 

 solitude, says Byron, speaking of the gardens of Versailles ; and the truth of 

 this remark must have been felt by every one who has seen such gardens. 

 We do not say that it is necessary for all the walks of a public garden to be 

 straight, and all the trees in rows, or in formal masses; we merely take these 

 features as characteristic of the style, freely allowing that, when the curves of 

 roads and walks in the modern style are so large as to present large portions 

 of them to the eye at the same time, the effect comes to be nearly the same as 

 in the geometrical style in its utmost rigour. Hence, the somewhat curved 

 roads in the Regent's Park, and in Hyde Park, in London, are nearly as 

 effective in displaying the company assembled in them as the straight roads 

 in the Mall in St. James's Park, in the avenues in the Champs Elysees in 

 Paris, and in the walks of the gardens at Versailles and Schonbrunn. It will 

 be recollected, however, that the walks and roads in all the places mentioned, 

 from their comparative straightness, belong more to the geometrical than to 

 the modern style. To pass from carriage-drives to walks adapted solely for 

 persons on foot, if we take a review of all the public gardens in Europe, we 

 shall find that the most eflective display, on holidays, is always made in broad 

 straight walks : for example, in the broad north and south walk in Kensington 

 Gardens; in the broad avenue through the Regent's Park, opposite Portland 

 Place ; the broad walk opposite the Luxemburg, in Paris ; that opposite the 

 palace of Schonbrunn, near Vienna; and those in the gardens of the summer 

 palace, in St. Petersburg. The truth is, that the modern style is essentially 

 calculated for solitude and retirement, while the geometrical style is especially 

 calculated for publicity and display. The numerous windings of the walks 

 in the modern style, and the various groups into which its woods are thrown, 

 occasion, to a spectator walking along them, a perpetual change in the 

 scenery, ^nd never allow masses or long columns of people to be seen at 

 once. Every thing connected with the ancient style has exactly a contrary 

 effect : there can be no privacy in straight avenues. 



495. Adaptation of the geometrical style to modern residences. — Since then 

 the geometrical stvle is chiefly adapted for an unenclosed or wild country, 

 and for public parks or gardens, on what grounds, it may be asked, is it 

 recommended for suburban residences? Our answer is, to accommodate the 

 taste of particular individuals ; to introduce as a contrast to suburban resi- 

 dences in the modern style; and to suit newly peopled, and thinly inhabited 

 countries, such as the back settlements of America or Australia. Besides 

 these reasons, which refer to what may be called the relative beauty of the 

 style, we contend, that it has some positive beauties, which are peculiarly its 

 own, and on which account alone it deserves occasionally to be introduced. 

 Among these are, the grandeur of its avenues, and the consistency with which 

 this expression is maintained throughout a whole place ; the masses of light 

 and shade which are produced by these avenues ; the succession and imi- 

 formity of the trees which compose them; the idea of distance given by their 

 lengthened vistas ; and the feeling of shelter and protection which intersecting 



