LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 





German 

 gardens. 



Grounds of 



Sclioen- 



brunn. 



A uparten 

 at Vienna. 



Gardens at 

 Dresden. 



Gardens of 

 Prussia. 



Gardens at 

 Potsdaui. 



530 



extreme than the Italians, of whose architectural deco- 

 rations these verdant ornaments supplied the place. 

 The climate of the Low Countries is particularly favour- 

 able to pasturage ; and turf work and parterres may, 

 therefore, be termed the characteristics of the ancient 

 Dutch style of laying out grounds. Of country seats 

 on a grand scale, they necessarily had few ; but in these, 

 there can be little doubt the Italian and French ar- 

 rangement would be imitated. There are two royal 

 palaces at the Hague, joined to which are level gar- 

 dens, bounded by a moat, and passed by draw-bridges! 

 The one is entirely in the ancient style, the other par- 

 takes of a more free manner. In neither are many or- 

 naments, buildings, or statues ; but the utmost atten- 

 tion is paid to neatness and culture. 



According to Professor Hirschfield, little was done 

 in the art of laying out grounds in Germany till about 

 the time of Le Notre, when a, sort of gallomania seized 

 the German nobles, and various avenues and parks were 

 planted in the French style in the different states. No- 

 thing of great consequence, however, was done previ- 

 ously to the middle of the last century, when the gar- 

 dens of Schoenbrunn were greatly enlarged, and mag- 

 nificently laid out, under the Emperor Francis I. by 

 Stockhoven, a Dutch artist. 



The Augarten at Vienna deserves to be mentioned. 

 It was formed from a design of the celebrated German 

 architect Fischer, during the reign of the Emperor 

 Joseph. Its form is square ; the boundary enclosure 

 an elevated terrace walk ; and the space within filled 

 with wood, intersected by right-lined avenues and al- 

 leys, some covered and shorn, and others natural and 

 open. Attached is a public banqueting or coffee-room, 

 free to every citizen. 



The ancient, royal, and principal private gardens at 

 Dresden, exhibit nothing remarkable in the way of art. 

 They were formed chiefly during the electorate of Fre- 

 derick Augustus, king of Poland, and are remarkably 

 confined, and by no means interesting in detail. The 

 situation and environs of Dresden every one feels to be 

 delightful ; but there is perhaps no city of the same 

 rank on the continent, equally deficient both in ancient 

 and modern gardens. 



Almost all the gardens of Prussia were formed du- 

 ring the propitious reign of Frederick the Great. The 

 Thiergarten is a sort of ancient park, on a flat sandy 

 soil adjoining the gates of Berlin. It is intersected by 

 public roads leading to the city ; and contains private 

 alleys and walks, a large place for military exercises, 

 statues, and obelisks, and several public coffee-rooms 

 and sheds for music and rural fetes. 



The royal gardens at Potsdam, laid out during Fre- 

 derick the Great's reign, are in a mixed style, very much 

 in Switzer's manner ; uniting straight with serpentine 

 and naturally winding walks, with every appendage and 

 ornament of the French, Italian, and Dutch taite. Vari- 

 ous artists, but chiefly Manger, a German architect, and 

 Salzmann, a gardener, (each of whom has published a vo- 

 luminous description of his works there,) were employed 

 in their design and execution ; and an ample history and 

 description of the whole, accompanied by plans, eleva- 

 tions, and views, has been published by the late cele- 

 brated literary bookseller, Nicolai of Berlin. The hill of 

 terraces in front of Sans Souci, in which every terrace 

 wall has a glass roof placed against it for ripening fruit ; 

 the superb picture gallery ; the magnificent architec- 

 ture of the new and marble palaces ; the avenues, open 

 promenades, alleys, statues, fountains, and-other artifi- 



HUtory- 



cial decorations in the fore ground ; the architectural 

 riches of Potsdam, the lakers, the river, -and extensive < *^V^* 

 fir woods in the middle distance ; and a- horizon of 

 bleak and barren sands, varied but little With spots of 

 verdure, compose altogether a scene unrivalled in its 

 kind, though less grand or elegant than it is artificial 

 and picturesque. 



Very little was done in Poland previously to the Gardens of 

 time of the unfortunate Stanislaus Augustus. That Poland, 

 monarch built the beautiful palace or villa of Lazenki, 

 or the Bath, in a situation originally a marsh, from the 

 designs of Camsitzer, a German architect. This beau- 

 tiftil piece of Roman architecture consists of a centre 

 and two wings. The centre is placed in the middle of 

 a narrow part of the lake, and the wings are on oppo- 

 site shores, joined to the centre by arches, with oran- 

 geries over. The entrance is through a carriage por- 

 tico in one of the wings, to which you arrive without 

 seeing the water. On entering the orangery, the effect 

 is surprising and delightful. In the lake, at one side 

 near the palace, is an island, which served as the pro- 

 scenium to an open Roman amphitheatre of stone on 

 the shore. The orchestra was placed close to the brink ; . 



and in addition to the common business of a theatre, 

 ships and naval engagements were occasionally exhibi- 

 ted. The theatre was open to every person without 

 exception ; and the effects of the music and the per- 

 formances, are still mentioned in raptures by the more 

 elderly inhabitants of Warsaw. The grounds were not 

 extensive, and, excepting near the palace, not highly 

 ornamented. They contained varicus coffee-rooms, ice 

 cellars, circles of turf, or dancing places, situations for 

 tents and rural fetes, and three pavilions for the king's 

 mistresses, connected by covered alleys with the palace. 

 The principal private garden in the ancient style, was 

 that of Villaneuve, late the property of Count Stanis- 

 laus Potocky, a few miles from the capital, and now 

 modernised. Judging from the excellent views of these 

 gardens, painted by Canaletti, and now in the royal 

 zamosk, or castle, in Warsaw, they were more in the 

 verdant and simple style of the Dutch, than in the 

 enriched Italian or French taste. 



It is questionable whether the ancient style was at Gardens of 

 all introduced into Russia before the time of Peter the Russia. 

 Great. Peterhoff, near Petersburgh, is the creation of p c terho 

 that monarch, through the French artist and author 

 Le Blond, and is worthy of the patron and the de- 

 signer. Its chief merits consist in its water works, 

 which are equal if not superior to those at Versailles. 



The principal private ancient garden in Russia, is Gardens 

 that at Petrowsky Razumowsky, near Moscow. The " Mos- 

 hedges and alleys are chiefly formed of spruce fir, which cow> 

 are shorn, and seem to flourish under the sheers. It 

 contains also a labyrinth, and a turf amphitheatre, on 

 which the Count at one time had operas performed by 

 his domestic slaves. 



Sophiowski, in Padolia, is a magnificent residence of 

 the Countess Potocki, laid out by a Polish architect, M. 

 Metzel, in the manner of Switzer. It has a magnifi- 

 cent terrace or promenade, and extensive avenues, con- 

 servatories, and gardens. 



Little or nothing appears to have been done in the Swedish 

 ancient style in Sweden. Hermand, who published gardens. 

 his Regnum Suecice, in 1671, mentions gardens only 

 once. These belonged to the court, and were used, he 

 says, for delight and recreation. The most beautiful 

 were those between the Palatium and Vivarium. The 

 latter contained some wooden buildings, in which were 







