252 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



with many a flush of flowers. What pinks ! Aye, we know 

 them well the beautiful garden plats on the banks and braes all 

 round about our native town, pretty Paisley and in among the 

 very houses in nooks and corners which the sunshine does not 

 scorn to visit and as the glamour goes by, sweet to our soul 

 is the thought of the Kilbarchan, the loveliest flower in heaven 

 or on earth for 'tis the prize pink of our childhood, given us 

 by our Father's hand, and we see now the spot where the fine- 

 grained glory grew. London on the Education of Gardeners. 

 (Blackwood's Magazine, 1834.) 



THOMAS Friend of Shelley ; for thirty-seven years clerk to the East India Company ; 



LOVE married the f Beauty of Carnarvonshire,' and wrote the poem ' RhododaphneJ 



PEACOCK an j the satyrical novels 'Headlong Hall? ' Nightmare Abbey,' and * Crotchet 

 (1785-1866). 



MILESTONES This, you perceive, is the natural state 

 of one part of the grounds. Here is a wood, never yet 

 touched by the finger of taste; thick, intricate, gloomy. Here 

 is a little stream, dashing from stone to stone, and overshadowed 

 with these untrimmed boughs. 



Miss Tenorina. The sweet romantic spot ! How beautifully 

 the birds must sing there on a summer evening ! 



Miss Graziosa. Dear sister ! How can you endure the horrid 

 thicket ? 



Mr Milestone. You are right. Miss Graziosa ; your taste is 

 correct, perfectly en regie. Now, here is the same place corrected 

 trimmed polished decorated adorned. Here sweeps a 

 plantation, in that beautiful regular curve; there winds a gravel 

 walk; here are parts of the old wood, left in these majestic 

 circular clumps, disposed at equal distances with wonderful 

 symmetry; there are some singular shrubs scattered in elegant 

 profusion; here a Portugal laurel, there a juniper; here a laurus- 

 tinus, there a spruce fir ; here a larch, there a lilac ; here a 



1 Possibly a caricature of ' Capability ' Brown or of Humphry Repton. 



