444 Lawn, Shrubbery, and Flower- Garden. 



The section A B shows that the walks are considerably below the level of 

 the compartments containing the beds, and that the edgings to those walks 

 are sloped down ; and, if the section is correct according to the scale, these 

 slopes exceed a foot in perpendicular depth ; a taste not uncommon in France 

 and Germany, but rarely to be met with in England. It gives the walks the 

 character of ditches. 



The running pattern on the circumferential border originated in England, 

 we believe, by the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, about the year 1800, is ca- 

 pable of producing a very brilliant effect, by planting the circular beds (c) with 

 brilliant colours, each alternating with white ; for example, beginning at c, and 

 proceeding to the right, we might have dark red, white, blue, white, yellow, 

 white, scarlet, white, purple, white, and so on. The interlacing beds (d) 

 might be planted exactly on the same principle, but omitting white. Proceed- 

 ing to the right from the bed d^ which may be yellow, the next may be crimson, 

 the next purple, then orange, then blue, and so on. 



If we were asked our opinion of this design, we should say, in one word, 

 that the dug beds in the interior were not in harmony of form with those of 

 the surrounding chain pattern ; they have scarcely a single line in common. 

 This must be obvious at the first glance to every man with the eye of an artist. 

 But we will go a little into detail for the sake of others. 



The beds, with the exception of those of the chain pattern with which the 

 figure is surrounded, are not appropriate to the subject. Beds with so many 

 acute recesses and sharp-pointed prominences can very rarely be covered 

 with plants in such a manner as not to render the form of the dug ground 

 more prominent than the form of the surface covered by the flowers; now the 

 dug ground being merely the means of attaining the end, this can never be 

 in good taste, because it is not consistent with good sense to render the 

 former of more importance than the latter. This would be true, even if these 

 beds were artistically designed ; but they are wholly deficient of merit as works 

 of art. Beds for flowers in a flower-garden may either be composed of geo- 

 metrical lines and forms, as in Elizabethan flower-gardens, or of arabesque 

 shapes, as shown in the French gardens in the Louis XIV. style; but to what 

 style of art can we refer the beds m, n, o, p, which remind us of the leaves of 

 Jh'um Z)racunculus, or some exotic aroi'daceous plant. If they were sufficiently 

 large to occupy twenty or thirty acres each, and to be planted with trees and 

 shrubs, which would effectually prevent more than one or two sides of the 

 figure from being seen at one view, then we should say that, with the excep- 

 tion of the acute points of the lobes, the shapes might pass ; but, for a flower- 

 garden, where the whole of each bed will be seen at once, they are, from want 

 of harmony, and from their unfitness for being covered, totally inadmissible in 

 this design or in any other. A minor argument is, that the shape of such beds 

 cut out in turf, unless they have concealed brick, stone, or wood edges, can 

 never be kept correct; and it is a principle in the arts of design, that every 

 design should be suitable to the purpose for which it is to be used, and to the 

 nature of the materials employed in its execution. Another minor objection 

 is, that the beds ???, n, o, jy, &c., have not sufficient relation to the boundary 

 lawn on which they are placed. A far better effect would have been produced, 

 in our opinion, by simply marking off a grass margin all round each compart- 

 ment, and considering the interior as the bed. The beds would then have 

 been of the exact shape of the compartments, less the width of the surround- 

 ing verge. It is true that this would not have harmonised these beds with the 

 surrounding circular forms, but it would have harmonised each bed with the 

 form of the compartment on which it was placed, and rendered it fit for being 

 covered with flowers. But even the required harmony might have been given 

 in a considerable degree by gently curving the edges of the beds, and by sub- 

 stituting circular beds for i and k. Had the two beds i been circular, and not 

 of their present discordant shape, they would have harmonised beautifully with 

 the surrounding row of circular beds (c); and, had the beds marked k been 



