HIS TO RICA L AND COM PAR A TIVE. 65 



transcribe Nature imaginatively yet realisably ; each 

 composition shall have a pastoral air, and be rustic 

 after its fashion. But how different the platform, 

 how different the mental complexion, the technique 

 of the artists ! How different the detail and the 

 atmosphere of the garden. The rusticity of the 

 foreign garden is dished up in a more delectable 

 form than is the case in the English, but there is 

 not the same open-air feeling about this as about 

 that ; it does not convey the same sense of unex- 

 hausted possibilities not the same tokens of living 

 enjoyment of Nature, of heart-to-heart fellowship 

 with her. The foreign garden is over-wrought, too 

 full : it is a passionless thing like the gaudy birds 

 of India, finely plumed but songless ; like the prize 

 rose, without sweetness. 



Of the garden of Italy, who shall dare to speak 

 critically. Child of tradition : heir by unbroken de- 

 scent, inheritor of the garden-craft of the whole 

 civilised world. It stands on a pinnacle high above 

 the others, peerless and alone : fit for the loveliest of 

 lands 



" Woman-country, wooed not wed, 



Loved all the more by Earth's male-lands, 



Laid to their hearts instead " 



and it may yet be seen upon its splendid scale, 

 splendidly adorned, with straight terraces, marble 

 statues, clipped ilex and box, walks bordered with 

 azalea and camellia, surrounded with groves of pines 

 and cypresses so frankly artistic, yet so subtly 

 blending itself into the natural surroundings into 



