444 RocJcwo7-7{ in Garden Scenery. 



will materially assist both the painter and gardener. The 

 geologist knows that particular species of rocks are found 

 disposed in particular layers, and display certain characters, 

 both of horizontal and vertical lines, which distinguish them. 

 Where no prevailing disposition or tendency of the lines 

 exists, there will certainly be no great beauty of character. 

 A number of large fragments of rock thrown indiscriminately 

 or even distributed carefully over a surface, whether that sur- 

 face be even or irregular, will not give the idea of a rock. For 

 this purpose, there must be a continuation of solid mass ; and 

 that the mass may be grand, it must be considerable, and the 

 prevailing lines straight, and in general oblique to the horizon. 



A few hours' study in a rocky country, or along the rocky 

 banks of a river, by a person who has been accustomed to 

 sketch from nature, will do more towards giving him correct 

 ideas on the formation of rockwork than a volume of words. 

 Without this study of nature it is scarcely possible for a gar- 

 dener to have a just feeling of the effect of lines ; and this is 

 the grand reason why, in garden rockworks, a combination 

 of fragments, so as to form masses in imitation of the strata 

 of nature, is seldom or never attempted. It is no uncommon 

 thing to see a goodly assemblage of large stones, and perhaps 

 old roots and trunks of trees, lying loosely together on a 

 mound of earth, as if it were quite sufficient to have removed 

 the former from the quarry, and collected the latter from the 

 woods ; but very few gardeners have thought of imitating the 

 strata of the quarry, or those rocky precipices frequently seen 

 in hilly countries and on the banks of rivers. Even the 

 grouping of fragments has not been sufficiently attended to. 

 If the gardener, who is about to form a rockwork, will fix in 

 his own mind on the style of some abrupt bank or precipice, 

 which he recollects to have seen and admired in nature, and 

 keep that steadily in his mind's eye, he can hardly fail of pro- 

 ducing something which will strike and please : but, if he 

 does not feel sufficient confidence in himself, we would recom- 

 mend him to take the advice of a landscape-painter who has 

 been accustomed to rocky countries. Of all men that we 

 know, the fittest for this purpose is, or was some twenty years 

 ago, Mr. Nasmyth of Edinburgh. 



London, Feb. 7. 1829. S. T. P. 



The hillocks of flints and fused bricks, usual in gardens, 

 correspond so ill to the terms " rock," " rockwoi'k," and 

 " rockery," that a new term would not be amiss for them. 

 Mr. Maund remarked to this effect some time since, in his 

 Botanic Garden, and then and there suggested the term 



