Gardening as an Art of Design and Taste. 161 



utmost boundaries of the grounds, than will be presented in 

 another garden, where the cluster of highly adorned and shel- 

 tered apartments that form the mansion, in the first instance, 

 shoot out, as it were, into certain more or less extended rami- 

 fications of arcades, porticoes, terraces, parterres, treillages, 

 avenues, and other such still splendid embellishments of art, 

 calculated by their architectural and measured forms at once to 

 offer a striking and varied contrast with, and a dignified and 

 comfortable transition to, the more undulating and rural features 

 of the more extended, more distant, and more exposed boun- 

 daries ; before, in the second instance, through a still further 

 link, a still further continuance of this same gradation of hues 

 and forms, these limits of the private domain are again made in 

 their turn, by means of their less artificial and more desultory 

 appearance, to blend equally harmoniously, on the other side, 

 with the still ruder outlines of the property of the public at 

 large. 



No doubt, that, among the very wildest scenes of unappro- 

 priated nature, there are some so grand, so magnificent, that no 

 art can vie with or can enhance their effect. Of this description 

 are the towering rock, the tremendous precipice, the roaring 

 cataract, even the dark, gloomy, impenetrable forest. Of such, 

 if we be fortunate enough to possess any specimens in the more 

 distant parts of our domain, let us take great care not to destroy 

 or to diminish the grandeur by paltry conceits or contrivances of 

 art. But even these are such features as, from certain conditions 

 unavoidably attendant on them, we would not wish to have per- 

 manently under our eyes and windows, or, even if we wished it, 

 could not transport within the narrow precincts which imme- 

 diately surround the mansion. A gentleman's country residence, 

 situated in the way it ought to be, for health, for convenience, 

 and for cheerfulness, can only have room in its vicinity for the 

 more concentrated beauties of art. In this narrow circle, if we 

 wish for variety, for contrast, and for brokenness of levels, we 

 can only seek it in arcades and in terraces, in steps, balustrades, 

 regular slopes, parapets, and such like; we cannot find space 

 for the rock and the precipice. Here, if we admire the fleeting 

 motion, the brilliant transparency, the soothing murmur, the 

 delightful coolness of the crystal stream, we must force it up 

 in an erect jet-d'eau, or hurl it down in an abrupt cascade ; we 

 cannot admit so near us the winding torrent, dashed at wide 

 intervals from rock to rock. Here, if we desire to collect the 

 elegant forms, vivid colours, and varied fragrance of the choicest 

 shrubs and plants, whether exotics or only mere natives, oranges, 

 magnolias, and rhododendrons, or mere roses, and lilies, mul 

 hyacinths, we still must confine them in, the boxes, the pots, or 

 the beds of some sort of parterre ; we cannot give them the 

 1S41. — III. 3cl Ser. m 



