DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 561 



ornamental shrubs and trees ? As regards buildings, the 

 Chinese and Grecian architecture are recommended here, 

 also the simplicity and elegance of the Ionic order. 



The fourth and last situation is that of a dead flat. 

 "The English in such a situation attempt to humour 

 Nature ; the French in such a situation attempt to hide 

 her. The first, from their too great love to her, expose 

 even her weakness ; the last, from their contempt of her, 

 conceal even her beauties. If these two tastes were to 

 make concessions to each other, perhaps the points of 

 perfection might lie between the two." 



The moulding of the flat into the gentle unevenness 

 of Kent, which no one understood better than the late 

 Robert Marnock (and which is exemplified in his con- 

 struction of the gardens of the Royal Botanic Society in 

 the Regent's Park, London), is spoken of approvingly. 

 Art is here courted. But such a situation, as is aptly 

 remarked, is calculated to afford pleasure to the senses 

 rather than to the imagination. Buildings of all species 

 that have dignity in them are admissible here. 



On the last page the author remarks : " Could we 

 suppose a great monarch lavishing his treasures, as it is 

 said the Emperor of China has done, in beautifying the 

 face of Nature, the most fortunate disposition of grounds 

 for an attempt towards perfection in this art would be 

 where there was a considerable flat adjoining to the 

 palace ; where that flat ran into gentle unevennesses ; 

 where these unevennesses lost themselves in a romantic 

 retired situation ; and where that romantic situation again 

 opened and extended itself into a view of awful, magni- 

 ficent, and simple nature." 



This passage recalls to my mind the gardens at 

 Drummond Castle, Perthshire, where the most cultivated 

 scenes are gradually and artistically blended with the 

 grandest and wildest in a manner that would almost lead 

 one to believe that the artist had been influenced by this 

 dictum in landscape gardening. 

 2J 



