THE "LANDSCAPE-GARDEN: 



that regularly beautiful tree which we remember to have seen. In 

 different parts of the garden were fine ornamental trees which had 

 attained great size, and the orchard was filled with fruit-trees of the 

 best description. There were seats and trellis-walks, and a ban- 

 queting-house. Even in our time this little scene, intended to present 

 a formal exhibition of vegetable beauty, was going fast to decay. 

 The parterres of flowers were no longer watched by the quiet and 

 simple friends under whose auspices they had been planted, and 

 much of the ornament of the domain had been neglected or destroyed 

 to increase its productive value. We visited it lately, after an absence 

 of many years. Its air of retreat, the seclusion which its alleys 

 afforded was gone ; the huge Platanus had died, like most of its kind, 

 in the beginning of this century ; the hedges were cut down, the trees 

 stubbed up, and the whole character of the place so much destroyed 

 that I was glad when I could leave it." (" Essay on Landscape Gar- 

 dening," Quarterly Review, 1828.*) 



Another garden, of later date than this at Kelso, 

 and somewhat less artistic, is that described by Mr. 

 Henry A. Bright in " The English Flower Garden. "t 



" One of the most beautiful gardens I ever knew depended almost 

 entirely on the arrangement of its lawns and shrubberies. It had 

 certainly been most carefully and adroitly planned, and it had every 

 advantage in the soft climate of the West of England. The various 

 lawns were divided by thick shrubberies, so that you wandered on 

 from one to the other, and always came on something new. In front 

 of these shrubberies was a large margin of flower-border, gay with 

 the most effective plants and annuals. At the corner of the lawn a 

 standard Magnolia grandiflora of great size held up its chaliced 

 blossoms ; at another a tulip-tree was laden with hundreds of yellow 

 flowers. Here a magnificent Salisburia mocked the foliage of the 

 maiden-hair ; and here an old cedar swept the grass with its large 

 pendent branches. But the main breadth of each lawn was never 

 destroyed, and past them you might see the reaches of a river, now 

 in one aspect, now in another. Each view was different, and each was 

 a fresh enjoyment and surprise. 



" A few years ago and I revisited the place; the 'improver' had 

 been at work, and had been good enough to open up the view. Shrub-' 

 beries had disappeared, and lawns had been thrown together. The 

 pretty peeps among the trees were gone, the long vistas had become 

 open spaces, and you saw at a glance all that there was to be seen. 



* " The Praise of Gardens," pp. 185-6. 

 t Ibid., p. 296. 



