524 



Design for a Gothic Flower-Garden. 



The greatest service which we can render the author of this 

 design, and our readers, will be to point out what we consider to 

 be its defects. It wants amalgamation in the parts which com- 

 pose it. There is a mixture of forms, but not a union of them. 

 Where forms are united so as to compose one harmonious whole, 

 no one or two of them can be removed, and replaced by others 

 of a different shape, without deranging the whole figure ; but so 

 much cannot be said of this design, because the polygon in the 



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centre might be replaced by a circle, without making the design 

 either better or worse. If it were replaced by a diamond-shaped 

 figure, with curved sides, that shape would fit better to the 

 Gothic curves which surround it, and, indeed, be an improvement. 

 The spaces, also, I'ound the statues of Flora and Diana have a 

 bad effect, and tend, by separating the beds there to a greater 

 width than what generally prevails, to break up the composition 

 into two parts. The forms of some of the beds are so obviously 

 plagiarisms of Gothic windows, and other commonplace Gothic 

 forms as to be displeasing ; and the division of the beds by 

 narrow spaces to be covered by sand, or powdered gypsum, 



