606 Improvements at Windso?- Castle. 



we have to the whole is, a general meagreness of effect both in the number 

 and forms of the beds, and in the disposition of the trees and plants. There 

 is a slope of turf from the inner edge of the terrace (jftg. 130. k k) to the 

 level arena of the garden, which is without beds or plants, and without even 

 an architectural margin at the upper angle. The beds in the arena are 

 altogether too simple, or rather poor in their outlines for the architecture 

 of the castle ; some of them are raised panels in imitation of the raised beds 

 at the Tuileries and the Luxembourg ; but the effect of those at Windsor 

 is insipid from their not being sufficiently raised and relieved from the 

 general surface. The justice of this criticism may be deduced from the 

 principle which ought to guide the architect or gardener in the choice of 

 forms for a geometrical flower-garden near a house or other building. All 

 writers, including Sir Uvedale Price, Mr. Hope {Essay on Gardens in the 

 Artist), Mr. Meason, and our correspondent An Amateur (Vol. IV. p. 85.), 

 agree that these forms ought to be taken from the building ; and therefore 

 it may be asked, whether any one looking at the east front of W^indsor 

 Castle, and especially at that part of it containing the 400 rooms used as 

 the king's private apartments (these alone, as we were informed, being 

 finished externally), and then, looking down to the flower-garden, could dis- 

 cover any connection of the latter with the former? The answer to this 

 question will determine the beauty of the garden on this principle. But, 

 perhaps, it will be said that the architectural principle was not adopted. 

 In that case it is to be criticised by a comparison with other gardens in 

 the geometrical style ; and whoever has seen either the remains of parterres 

 still existing in France, or the plans of them in Le Blond or Switzer, or 

 the plan of Marshal Tollard's garden at Nottingham, which they will find 

 in our succeeding Number, will allow that they are not less deficient when 

 tried by this test. Whoever laid them out, and we could not learn 

 whether it was Sir Jeffery Wyatville or Mr. Alton, must furnish us with 

 some other principle by which to try the work : we know of no other; 

 and when the works of an artist have failed in carrying off our applause, it 

 is but justice to him to enquire into his intentions, in order to discover 

 whether the fault may not lie with ourselves. 



The planting of the beds we pronounce with confidence to be as far behind 

 the present state of science in this branch of gardening, as the plan is 

 deficient in those of design and taste. The artist can take no shelter 

 under historical associations, because he has introduced American shrubs, 

 and Mexican and Peruvian flowers, and therefore it may fairly be presumed, 

 that if he did not mean to give all the beauty he could in the forms of the 

 beds, he intended to produce every practicable beauty in planting them. 

 If he did so, his ignorance, or his indifference, is not a little remarkable. 

 The beds are filled with an indiscriminate mixture of rhododendrons, 

 azaleas, kalmias, and other evergreen American shrubs, with lilacs and 

 some of the commoner deciduous sorts, but with some few beds planted 

 with standard roses and flowers. With the exception of the distinct features 

 of the standard roses and the flowers, there is not the slightest indication of 

 design. Such a garden properly planted would have had a very different 

 appearance, and so far from presenting a general aspect of mixture and con- 

 fusion, every part of it, and all the kinds of trees and shrubs, would have 

 appeared so exactly fitted to their place, that it could not be removed 

 without presenting a deficiency, or occasioning a derangement. Considering 

 the modern catalogue of choice shrubs, their disposition in this way is not 

 to be undertaken without a good deal of previous cai-e and labour in 

 arranging the sorts on a plan j but the labour taken, and the plan executed, 

 the effect will amply repay. But it is not in a royal garden, which is only 

 one of half a dozen under the same gardener's direction, that this de- 

 scription of planting is to be expected. We could not observe a single 

 shrub in flower, though a few days afterwards we saw at least a dozen 



