SEPTEMBER. 399 



The garden, more lately, began to assume the character of 

 a pleasure ground, when the increase of civilization caused 

 the feudal baron to permit his high dame to come down from 

 her seat on the castle walls, so regularly assigned to her by 

 ancient minstrels, and tread the precincts which art had gar- 

 nished for her reception. These gardens were defended with 

 walls, as well for safety as for shelter : they were often sur- 

 rounded with fosses, had the command of water, and gave 

 the disposer of the ground the chance to display his taste by 

 canals, basins and fountains. As art enlarged its range, new 

 ornaments were successively introduced, banqueting houses 

 were built, terraces were extended, connected by staircases 

 and balustrades of the richest forms. Connected as these 

 ornamental gardens were with splendid mansions, in the 

 same character there was a symmetry and harmony between 

 the baronial palace itself, and these its natural appendages, 

 that recommended them to the judgment as well as the eye. 



Scott thinks that Milton did not mean to express his ideas 

 of what a garden ought to be, in his description of Eden, 

 which was only a charming scene in nature. Milton, while 

 speaking of it as a garden, evidently has no intention of 

 recommending it as a model to be imitated by art. A true 

 garden was bat an extension of the residence into a cer- 

 tain limited portion of the domain, and was often used as a 

 sort of ^' chapel of ease''' to the apartments within doors. It 

 was also often made a scene of festivity and merry meeting. 

 Such were the uses of the old-fashioned style of garden, and 

 its beauty consists, as Mr. Price remarks, in its connection 

 with the house. Nothing, says Scott, is more completely the 

 child of art than the garden. Its artificial productions are 

 necessarily surrounded by walls, marking its space as some- 

 thing totally distinct from the rest of the domain. The 

 greenhouses and conservatories necessary to complete a gar- 

 den on a large scale, are subjects susceptible of much orna- 

 ment. It seems right and congruous that these objects, be- 

 ing the offspring of art, should have all the grace of outward 

 form and interior splendor, which their parent art can give 

 them. 



