Ofi Garden Architecture. 



103 



ON GARDEN ARCHITECTURE. — No. 2. 



Of all the works included under the head of " Garden Architecture," 

 terraces, with their accompaniments, occupy the first place. They date 

 fi'om the earliest antiquity, and have obtained the most universal recogni- 

 tion as a means of architectural effect. The celebrated " hanging gardens " 

 of Babylon were nothing more than a series of terraces, covered with 

 plants and flowers, rising one above the other. The great palace-temples 

 of Babylon, Nineveh, Persepolis, &c., were built upon immense terraces. 

 The Asiatic Greeks placed most of their great temples upon them, rising 

 from platform to platform by immense flights of steps superbly decorated. 

 The Tagh-Mihal, or Mausoleum, built by Shah Jehan to his queen, like 

 many other of the great works of those superb builders, the Mahometans 

 of India, is elevated on a high terrace. With the middle-age Italians, 

 terraces were revived with the renaissance of classic architecture : and the 

 magnificent villas of the princes and nobles of the great art-period of Italy 

 present splendid examples of their use; as at the Villa d'Este, Villas 

 Albani, Borghesi, Pamfili, and many others in the neighborhood of Rome. 

 From Italy they passed to France, where the Grand Monargiee, Louis 

 XIV., made most profuse use of them in decorating and dignifying the 

 gardens of Versailles and other palaces; and at about the same period 

 they were introduced into general use in England, where, at the present 

 time, they have become an indispensable feature of garden architecture, 

 never absent, but varied in an infinitude of forms and magnitudes to 

 harmonize with the size and style of the gardens in which they are built. 



The earth-slope, or primitive terrace, presents but few opportunities for 



