120 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



garden to unadorned Nature more inspiring. Nay, 

 what is one to make of even the logic of such argu- 

 ment as this ? " If the products of Nature rise in 

 value according as they more or less resemble those 

 of Art, we may be sure that artificial works receive a 

 greater advantage from their resemblance of such as 

 are natural." (Spectator.) But who does apply the 

 Art-standard to Nature, or value her products as 

 they resemble those of Art ? And has not Sir 

 Walter well said: "Nothing is more the child of 

 Art than a garden " ? And Loudon : "All art, to be 

 acknowledged, as art must be avowed." 



One prefers to this cold Pindaric garden-homage 

 the unaffected, direct delight in the sweets of a 

 garden of an earlier day ; to realise with old Moun- 

 taine how your garden shall produce "a jucunditie 

 of minde ; " to think with Bishop Hall, as he gazes 

 at his tulips, " These Flowers are the true Clients of 

 the Sunne ; " to be brought to old Lawson's state of 

 simple ravishment, "What more delightsome than 

 an infinite varietie of sweet-smelling flowers ? deck- 

 ing with sundry colours the green mantle of the Earth, 

 colouring not onely the earth, but decking the ayre, 

 and sweetning every breath and spirit ; " to taste the 

 joys of living as, taking Robert Burton's hand, you 

 " walk amongst orchards, gardens, bowers, mounts 

 and arbours, artificial wildernesses, green thickets, 

 groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such like 

 pleasant places, between wood and water, in a fair 

 meadow, by a river side, to disport in some pleasant 

 plain or park, must needs be a delectable recreation ; " 



