136 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



and agreeable a scene as that which it is now wrought into. 

 To give this particular spot of ground the greater effect, they 

 have made a very pleasing contrast ; for as on one side of 

 the walk you see this hollow basin, with its several little 

 plantations, lying so conveniently under the eye of the be- 

 holder, on the other side of it there appears a seeming mount, 

 made up of trees, rising one higher than another, in pro- 

 portion as they approach the centre. A spectator, who has 

 not heard this account of it, would think this circular mount 

 was not only a real one, but that it actually had been scooped 

 out of that hollow space which I have before mentioned. I 

 never yet met anyone who has walked in this garden, who was 

 not struck with that part of it which I have here mentioned. 

 As for myself, you will find, by the account which I have already 

 given you, that my compositions in gardening are altogether 

 after the Pindaric manner, and run into the beautiful wildness 

 of nature, without affecting the nicer elegancies of art. What 

 I am now going to mention, will, perhaps, deserve your atten- 

 tion more than anything I have yet said. I find, that in the 

 discourse which I spoke of in the beginning of my letter, you 

 are against filling an English garden with evergreens ; and indeed 

 I am so far of your opinion, that I can by no means think the 

 verdure of an evergreen comparable to that which shoots out 

 annually, and clothes our trees in the summer season. But I 

 have often wondered that those who are like myself, and love 

 to live in gardens, have never thought of contriving a winter 

 garden, which should consist of such trees only as never cast 

 their leaves. We have very often little snatches of sunshine 

 and fair weather in the most uncomfortable parts of the year, 

 and have frequently several days in November and January 

 that are as agreeable as any in the finest months. At such 

 times, therefore, I think there could not be a greater pleasure 

 than to walk in such a winter garden as I have proposed. In 

 the summer season, the whole country blooms, and is a kind of 

 garden ; for which reason we are not so sensible of those beauties 

 that at this time may be everywhere met with ; but when Nature 



