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402 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



If the reader, says our author, in his defence of the old 

 styles of building and laying out grounds, will imagine a 

 house in the irregular form of architecture, which was intro- 

 duced in Elizabeth's time, its varied front, graced with pro- 

 jecting oriels, and its angles ornamented with turrets ; its 

 columnar chimneys, so much adorned as to make that a 

 beauty which is generally a deformity; its fair halls, ban- 

 queting rooms, galleries and lodgings for interior accommoda- 

 tion — it will afford no uncomfortable notion of the days of 

 good Q,ueen Bess. In immediate and close connection with 

 the mansion, lie its gardens, with their terraces, urns, statues, 

 stair cases, screens, alcoves and summer-houses ; its dry- 

 paved or turfed walks, leading through a succession of in- 

 teresting objects, the whole line of architecture, correspond- 

 ing with that of the house, with its Gothic labels and entab- 

 lature, but assuming gradually a plainer and more massive 

 character, as the grounds extended and seemed to connect 

 themselves with the open country. The inhabitants also 

 possessed the means of escaping from those artificial dis- 

 plays, to the sequestered paths of a lonely chase, dark and 

 extensive enough to convey the idea of a natural forest, 

 where, as in strong contrast with the scene we have quitted, 

 the cooing of the wood-pigeon alone is heard, where the 

 streams find their way unconfined, and the trees spread their 

 arms untutored by art ; where all is solemn and grand, and 

 seems the work of unassisted nature. He would ask the 

 reader, when he has arranged in his ideas such a dwelling, 

 with its accompaniments of a natural or ornamental character, 

 not Avhether the style might be corrected, by improving the 

 internal arrangement of the apartments ; by diminishing the 

 superfluous ornaments of the plaisa?ice ; by giving better, yet 

 not formal access to the natural beauties of the park, extend- 

 ing its glades in some places and deepening its thickets in 

 others — for all this is admitted — but whether the people of 

 that generation did not possess all that good taste could de- 

 mand, as the materials of the most delightful habitations ? 



Sir Walter next alludes to the revolution in public taste 

 produced by the works of Kent, who is considered the father 



