18 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



As the modern style owes its origin mainly to the English, 

 so it has also been developed and carried to its greatest per- 

 fection in the British Islands. The law of primogeniture, 

 which has there so long existed, in itself, contributes greatly 

 to the continual improvement and embellishment of those 

 vast landed estates which remain perpetually in the hands 

 of the same family. Magnificent buildings added to by each 

 succeeding generation, who often preserve also the older 

 portions with the most scrupulous care, wide spread parks, 

 clothed with a thick velvet turf, which amid their moist 

 atmosphere preserves during great part of the year an eme- 

 rald greenness — studded with noble oaks and other forest 

 trees which number centuries of growth and maturity — these 

 advantages in the hands of the most intellio-ent and the 

 wealthiest aristocracy in the world, have indeed made, as it 

 were, an entire landscape garden of "merry England." 

 Among a multitude of splendid examples of these noble resi- 

 dences, we will only refer the reader to the celebrated 

 Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, where the 

 lake alone (probably the largest piece of artificial water in 

 the world) covers a surface of two hundred acres : Warwick 

 Castle, a venerable pile, (portions of which have been built 

 a thousand years,) standing on a hill from whence the eye, 

 though ranging over a wide-spread landscape, only beholds 

 the park and wooded demesne of one proprietor : and Woburn 

 Abbey, the grounds of which are full of the choicest speci- 

 mens of trees and plants, and where the park, like that of 

 Ashbridge, Chatsworth, and several other private residences 

 in England, is only embraced within a circumference of 

 from ten to twenty miles. 



On the continent of Europe, though there are a multitude 

 of examples of the modern style of landscape gardening, 



