400 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



Oar author expresses his approbation of the formal shapes 

 of artificial waters, seeing no reason, where every other ob- 

 ject is formal, why water should be an exception. But 

 wealth, in all these respects, has proved a snare, and played 

 many fantastic tricks before high heaven. While approving 

 Palladian architecture, the vases and balustrades of Vitruvius, 

 the enriched entablatures and superb stairs of the Italian 

 school of gardening, he would not, on this account, be con- 

 strued as vindicating the paltry tricks of the Dutch. This 

 topiarian art came into England with King William, and has 

 left strong and very ungraceful traces behind it. The dis- 

 tinction between the Italian and the Dutch is obvious. A 

 stone, hewn into a graceful ornamental vase, has a value 

 which it did not before possess. A yew hedge clipped into 

 a fortification is only defaced. The one is a production of 

 art, the other a distortion of nature. The rarity of these 

 gardens in the Dutch style, entitles them, in Sir Walter's 

 opinion, to some care as a species of antiques, and they often 

 give character to some snug, quiet and sequestered situa- 

 tions, which would otherwise have no marked feature of 

 any kind. 



The author notices a small place of this kind, standing on 

 the verge of a ridgy bank, that views the junction of the 

 Evan with the Clyde. Nothing can be more romantic than 

 the scene around. The river sweeps over a dark, rugged 

 bed of stone, overhung with trees and bushes. The ruins of 

 the original castle of the noble family of Hamilton frown 

 over the precipice : the oaks that crown the banks beyond 

 these gray towers are relics of the ancient Caledonian forest, 

 and at least a thousand years old. It might be supposed 

 that the house and garden of Baracluth — the name of the 

 above place — with its walks of velvet turf, and its verdant 

 alleys of yew and holly, would seem incongruous, among 

 natural scenes as magnificent as those described. But the 

 effect is the contrary. The place is so small, that its decora- 

 tions, while they form, from their antique appearance, a sin- 

 gular foreground, cannot compete with, far less subdue the 

 solemn grandeur of the view, which one looks down upon. 



