Practical Considerations 137 



to the Tuileries, it causes the latter to appear more or less 

 buried in a low marshy tract." 



Avenues that are not in a straight line but are curved or 

 otherwise irregular may be convenient or answer some useful 

 purpose, as in the road on the northwest side of St. James's 

 Park, London, but they can never rise to the dignity of art. 

 And when, as is the case with one at Woburn Abbey, they 

 are both curved and pass along the ridge of a hill, where, if 

 seen from the side and from a lower point, they exhibit a 

 flat and monotonous sky line, and also appear thin and 

 meager, they are doubly objectionable. 



Anything in the shape of a single row of trees along the 

 side of a drive, or a double row that is broken at intervals, 

 unless this last be done in the most formal manner, and for 

 the sake of opening out a decided vista, would be quite inad- 

 missible in an artistic point of view. And the rule will hold 

 good with reference to bold and important walks in pleasure 

 grounds, except where a square or oblong plot, that is com- 

 plete in itself, is merely flanked on either side with a row 

 of appropriate plants, the two rows in such case, however 

 distant from each other, actually constituting the avenue. 



There is commonly a great propensity to make the sweeps 

 of gravel at an entrance door for carriages to turn in a good 

 deal too large, for the accommodation of careless coachmen. 

 This disfigures and reduces the apparent size of a place con- 

 siderably, and must be protested against. The smaller the 

 space that can possibly be turned in the better it will look. 

 From thirty to forty feet in breadth will be ample, and the 

 former will suffice where the approach to the front door is 

 by a nearly parallel hne, or on a long and gentle curve. The 

 error of having the immediate front of the house occupied 

 with stretches of gravel drive instead of with green lawn is 

 very common in America. Every arrangement of this sort 



