ARCHIBALD ALISON 221 



development of a central point. Those irregular gardens, which 

 we call English gardens, require a labyrinth for a dwelling. 

 Thoughts. 



'HpHE Art of Gardening seems to have been governed, and long ARCHIBALD 



* governed, by the same principle. When men first began to 

 consider a garden as a subject capable of Beauty, or of bestowing 

 any distinction upon its possession, it was natural that they should 

 endeavour to render its Form as different as possible from that of 

 the country around it ; and to mark to the Spectator, as strongly 

 as they could, both the design and the labour which they had 

 bestowed upon it. Irregular Forms, however convenient or 

 agreeable, might still be the production of Nature ; but forms 

 perfectly regular, and Divisions completely uniform, immediately 

 excited the belief of Design, and with this belief all the admiration 

 which follows the employment of Skill, or even of Expense. That 

 this Principle would naturally lead the first Artists in Gardening 

 to the production of Uniformity, may easily be conceived, as even 

 at present, when so different a System of Gardening prevails, the 

 common People universally follow the first System ; and even the 

 Men of the best Taste, in the cultivation of waste or neglected 

 lands, still enclose them by uniform Lines and in regular Divisions, 

 as more immediately signifying what they wish should be signified, 

 their Industry or Spirit in their improvement. 



As gardens, however, are both a costly and permanent subject, 

 and are of consequence less liable to the influence of Fashion, 

 this Taste would not easily be altered ; and the principal improve- 

 ments which they would receive, would consist rather in the 

 greater employment of uniformity and expense, than in the intro- 

 duction of any new Design. The whole History of Antiquity, 

 accordingly, contains not, I believe, a single instance where this 

 character was deviated from, in a spot considered solely as a 

 garden ; and till within the last century, and in this country, it 

 seems not any where to have been imagined, that a garden was 



