LAYING OUT OF GROUNDS. 167 



I question very much if that subtle apprehension of 

 the finer beauties which may be made to appear about 

 a given locality does not express itself more pointedly 

 and winningly in the management of a three or five 

 acre lawn, than upon such reach of meadow and 

 upland as bounds the view. The watchful care for a 

 single hoary boulder that b'fts its seared and lichened 

 hulk out of a sweet level of greensward ; the auda- 

 cious protection of some wild vine flinging its tendrils 

 carelessly over a bit of wall, girt with a savage 

 hedge-growth these are indications of an artist feel- 

 ing thai will be riotous of its wealth upon a bare acre 

 of ground. Nay, I do not know but I have seen 

 about a laborer's cottage of Devonshire such adroit 

 adjustment of a few flowering plants upon a window- 

 shelf, and such tender and judicious care for the little 

 matlet of turf around which the gravel path swept to 

 his door, as showed as keen an artistic sense of the 

 beauties of nature, and of the way in which they may 

 be enchained for human gratification, as could be set 

 forth in a park of a thousand acres. Of course, I do 

 not mean to imply that the man who could fill a 

 peasant's rood of ground with charms of shrub or 

 flower, would, by virtue of so humble attainment, be 

 competent to produce the larger effects of landscape 

 gardening. This would, of course, involve a wider 

 knowledge and a different order of experience ; but 



