274 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



of untrimmed trees, sinuous alleys, green lawns, sheets of water 

 crossed by rustic bridges, sham grottoes, artificial ruins, cottages 

 containing automata performing country labours. By admiring 

 such things, one showed that one had a soul of sensibility^ 

 a great pretension of the period, and the thought arose of re- 

 modelling the garden in the modern style . . . this transformation 

 was effected by the plans of Hubert Robert, the designer in 

 fashion, the painter of ruins, the ' Romantique ' of the day, an 

 artist endowed with a decorative and picturesque feeling still 

 appreciated in our day, whose pictures and sketches full of 

 intelligence are still collected by amateurs. Tableaux de Siege 

 (Le Versailles de Louis XIV.). 1 



ALEXANDER \ A7ILD as the nighest woodland of a deserted home in 

 KINGLAKE England, but without its sweet sadness, is the sumptu- 



(1811-1891). ous Garden of Damascus. Forest trees tall and stately enough, 

 if you could see their lofty crests, yet lead a bustling life of it 

 below, with their branches struggling against strong numbers of 

 bushes and wilful shrubs. The shade upon the earth is black as 

 night. High, high above your head, and on every side all down 

 to the ground, the thicket is hemmed in and choked up by the 

 interlacing boughs that droop with the weight of roses, and load 

 the slow air with their damask breath. The rose-trees which I 

 saw were all of the kind we call damask they grow to an 

 immense height and size. There are no other flowers. Here 

 and there are patches of ground made clear from the cover, 

 and these are either carelessly planted with some common and 

 useful vegetable, or else are left free to the wayward ways of 

 nature, and bear rank weeds, moist-looking and cool to your eyes, 

 and freshening the sense with their earthy and bitter fragrance. 

 There is a lane opened through the thicket, so broad in some 

 places that you can pass along side by side in some so narrow 

 (the shrubs are for ever encroaching) that you ought, if you can, 

 1 See Account of Versailles in Appendix. 



