384 Gardening Visit to Paris, 



opinion, therefore, is, that those who admire scenery of the 

 kind described as existing at Versailles, Surenne, and, more or 

 less, at all French villas of any note near Paris, have had their 

 taste formed on a peculiar model, and one which is deficient in 

 truth and nature. If we continue to insist on this opinion, it is 

 because we wish to have it questioned and discussed by others 

 as well as by ourselves, in order ultimately to arrive at the 

 truth. 



Near the Grand Trianon, a few acres of ground have recently 

 been laid out in the English manner, by M. Masse, the Director- 

 General of the Gardens of the Crown, by the king's orders. On 

 objecting to the round clumps, and stating that, as no fences 

 were required, the same effect might have been much better 

 produced by single trees placed at irregular distances, so as to 

 form connected groups, M. Masse informed us that he said so 

 to the king, but that the latter insisted on having clumps, as 

 being in better taste ! We could not help thinking, at the time, 

 that the king had probably taken his ideas from that passage in 

 one of Sir Walter Scott's reviews, in the Qiiarterli/ Review, 

 where he echoes the sentiments of Sir Henry Steuart, in which 

 the latter says, "If masses must be planted in parks .... what 

 shape can be adopted more generally pleasing than that of the 

 circle, or the oval, or some modification of it ?" With great 

 respect for the memory of Sir Walter Scott, we cannot allow 

 that he set an example of good taste in architecture or garden- 

 ing, either in his works or in his house and grounds. We have 

 no doubt his expressed sentiments in the Qiiarterly Review, got 

 up for effect, as most of his reviews are, have done harm. His 

 assertion, in the Qiiarterly Review for 1827, that the Scotch fir 

 commonly sold in nurseries is an inferior variety brought from 

 Canada, could never have been made by any person who had 

 the least practical knowledge of the pine and fir tribe. Not 

 only is the Scotch pine not a native of any part of America, but 

 there is no American pine whatever sufficiently hardy in this 

 country to produce cones in the immense quantities which the 

 "mean-looking tree" from Canada, which. Sir Walter Scott 

 says, " is called par excellence the Scotch fir," is said to do. 

 The just celebrity of Sir Walter Scott as a novelist and poet, 

 however, led the public to place implicit confidence in his state- 

 ments respecting landscape-gardening and planting, of the prin- 

 ciples of which he may be said to have known nothing. 



The grounds of the Trianon bear, perhaps, as close a resem- 

 blance to those of the retired parts of an English villa as any in 

 the neighbourhood of Paris ; but they are spoiled by too many 

 walks being seen at the same time, which detracts from the idea 

 of seclusion which ought every where to prevail in such a scene. 

 For this reason, in all imitations of the natural, or English, style, 



