52 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



fFig. 1. A Labyrinth.] 



Since the days when these gardens were in their glory, the 

 taste for Landscape Gardening has undergone a great change. 

 The graceful and the picturesque in nature are the new ele- 

 ments of beauty, which, entering into the composition of our 

 gardens and home landscapes, have, to refined minds, in- 

 creased a hundred fold the enjoyment derived from this spe- 

 cies of rural scenery. Still, there is much to admire in the 

 ancient style. Its lengthy and majestic avenues, the wide- 

 spreading branches interlacing over our heads, and forming 

 long shadowy aisles, are themselves alone, among the noblest 

 and most imposing sylvan objects. Even the formal and cu- 

 riously knotted gardens, are interesting from the pleasing as- 

 sociations which they suggest to the mind, as having been 

 the favourite haunts of Shakspeare, Bacon, Spenser, and 

 Milton. They are so inseparably connected, too, in our im- 

 aginations, with the quaint architecture of that era, that 

 wherever that style of building is adopted, (and we observe 

 two or three examples already among us,) this style of gar- 

 dening may be considered as highly appropriate, and in ex- 

 cellent keeping with such a country house. 



The modern, irregular, or natural style of Landscape 

 Gardening, which we shall endeavour to elucidate in the fol- 



