CHINESE PARKS AND GARDENS. 103 



The feeling for nature manifested by the early cultivated 

 East Asiatic nations, in the choice and the careful attention 

 of sacred objects chosen from the vegetable kingdom, was most 

 strongly and variously exhibited in their cultivation of parks. 

 In the remotest parts of the Old Continent the Chinese gar- 

 dens appear to have approached most nearly to what we are 

 now accustomed to regard as English parks. Under the vic- 

 torious dynasty of Han, gardens were so frequently extended 

 over a circuit of many miles that agriculture was injured by 

 them, and the people excited to revolt.* *' What is it that 

 we seek in the possession of a pleasure garden ?" asks an an- 

 cient Chinese writer, Lieu-tscheu. It has been universally 

 admitted, throughout all ages, that plantations should com- 

 pensate to man for the loss of those charms of which he is de- 

 prived by his removal from a free communion with nature, 

 his proper and most delightful place of abode. " The art of 

 laying out gardens consists in an endeavor to combine cheer- 

 fulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, and 

 repose, in such a manner that the senses may be deluded by 

 an imitation of rural nature. Diversity, which is the main 

 advantage of free landscape, must therefore be sought in a 

 judicious choice of soil, an alternation of chains of hills 

 and valleys, gorges, brooks, and lakes covered with aquatic 

 plants. Symmetry is wearying, and ennui and disgust will 

 soon be excited in a garden where every part betrays con- 

 straint and art."t The description given by Sir George 

 Staunton of the great imperial garden of Zhe-hol,j: north of 

 the Chinese wall, corresponds with these precepts of Lieu- 

 tscheu — precepts to which our ingenious cotemporary, who 

 formed the charming park of Muskau,^ will not refuse his ap- 

 proval. 



In the great descriptive poem written in the middle of the 

 last century by the Emperor Kien-long, in praise of the former 

 Mantchou capital, Mukden, and of the graves of his ances- 

 tors, the most ardent admiration is expressed for free nature, 

 when but little embeUished by art. The poetic prince shows 

 a happy power in fusing the cheerful images of the luxuriant 



* Notice Historique sur les Jardins des Chinois, in the Mimoires con» 

 cernant Ics Chinois, t. viii., p. 309. 



t See the work last quoted, p. 318-320. 



t Sir George Staunton, Account of the Errihassy of the Earl of M% 

 tartney to China, vol. ii., p. 245. 



^ Prince PUckler-Muskau, Andeutungen icber Landschaftsgdrtnerei, 

 1834. Compare, also, his Picturesque Descriptions of the Old and New 

 English Parks, as well as that of the Egyptian Gardens of Schubra. 



