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Garden and Forest. 



[Number 179. 



Four Pictures of Gardens. 



AS the art of gardening has varied in different lands 

 and successive ages, literature has recorded its 

 work, usually painting with sympathetic touch the current 

 fashions of the time, but in our day often going back 

 with a sympathy as great to explain the charms of now 

 neglected kinds of beauty. Some of the pictures thus 

 built up in delightful phrases are famous and familiar, like 

 Pliny's and Evelyn's and Bacon's. But others, though 

 perhaps written by well-known authors, are less frequently 

 quoted when the art of gardening is discussed ; and four 

 of these, sharply contrasting with each other, will per- 

 haps make an interesting little gallery if hung here side 

 by side. We have not been at pains to pick them out of 

 the books where they first saw the light. With many 

 others almost as detailed, and with a few that are much 

 more elaborate, they may be found in Mr. Sieveking's de- 

 lightful volume called "The Praise of Gardens. " 



The first is a portrait, painted by Sir William Temple, 

 who lived between 1628 and 1700, of the garden at Moor 

 Park, in Hertfordshire, which "was made by the Countess 

 of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest Wits of her Time 

 . . . and with very great Care, excellent Contrivance, and 

 much Cost." " Because," explains further Sir William, "I 

 take the Garden I have named to have been in all Kinds 

 the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the Figure and 

 Disposition, that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a 

 model to those that meet with such a Situation and are not 

 above the Regards of common Expence." 



It lies on the Side of a Hill (upon which the House stands), 

 but not very steep. The Length of the House, where the best 

 Rooms and of most Use or Pleasure are, lies upon the Breadth 

 of the Garden ; the Great Parlour opens into the Middle of a 

 Terras Gravel-Walk that lies even with it, and which may be, 

 as I remember, about three hundred Paces long and broad in 

 Proportion, the Border set with Standard Laurels, and at large 

 Distances, which have the Beauty of Orange-Trees, out of 

 Flower and Fruit ; from this Walk are Three Descents by 

 many Stone Steps, in the Middle and at each End, into a very 

 large Parterre. This is divided into Quarters by Gravel-Walks, 

 and adorned with Two Fountains and Eight Statues in the sev- 

 eral Quarters ; at the End of the Terras-Walk are Two Sum- 

 mer-Houses, and the Sides of the Parterre are ranged with two 

 large Cloisters, open to the Garden upon Arches of Stone, and 

 ending with two other Summer-Houses even with the Clois- 

 ters, which are paved with Stone and designed for Walks of 

 Shade, there being none other in the whole Parterre. Over 

 these two Cloisters are two Terasses covered with Lead and 

 fenced with Balusters ; and the Passage into these airy Walks 

 is out of the two Summer-Houses, at the End of the first 

 Terras-Walk. The Cloister facing the South is covered with 

 Vines. . . . From the middle of this Parterre is a Descent by 

 many Steps flying on each Side of a Grotto, that lies between 

 them (covered with Lead and flat) into the lower Garden, 

 which is all Fruit-Trees, ranged about the several Quarters of 

 a Wilderness which is very Shady ; the Walks here are all 

 Green, the Grotto embellish'd with Figures of Shell-Rock- work, 

 Fountains and Water-works. If the Hill had not ended with 

 the lower Garden, and the Wall were not bounded by a com- 

 mon Way that goes through the Park, they might have added 

 a Third Quarter of all Greens ; but this want is supplied by a 

 Garden on the other Side of the House, which is all of that 

 Sort, very Wild, Shady, and adorned with rough Rock-work 

 and Fountains. 



Next to this portrait of one of these old English gardens 

 which, alas, have almost wholly disappeared under the 

 hand of iconoclastic fashion, may come a picture, drawn, 

 in 1780, by William Beckford, the builder of Fonthill, and 

 representing the celebrated Boboli garden at Florence, 

 which still keeps much the same look it wore a hundred 

 years ago. 



This garden lies behind the Grand Duke's palace, stretched 

 out on the side of a mountain. I ascended terrace after 

 terrace, robed by a thick underwood of Bay and Myrtle, above 

 which rise several nodding towers, and a long sweep of vener- 

 able wall, almost concealed by Ivy. You would have been 

 enraptured witli the broad masses of shade and dusky alleys 

 that opened as I advanced, with white statues of fauns and 

 nymphs and sylvans glimmering amongst them ; some of 



which pour water into sarcophagi of the purest marble, cov- 

 ered with antique rilieves. The capitals of columns and 

 ancient friezes are scattered about as seats. On these I re- 

 posed myself and looked up at the Cypress groves which 

 spring above the thickets ; then, plunging into, their retire- 

 ments, I followed a winding path which led me by a series of 

 steep ascents to a green platform overlooking the whole ex- 

 tent of wood, with Florence deep beneath, and the tops of the 

 hills which encircle it jagged with Pines ; here and there a 

 convent, or villa, whitening in the sun. This scene extends as 

 far as the eye can reach. 



Still ascending, I attained the brow of the eminence, and 

 had nothing but the fortress of Belvedere and two or three 

 open porticoes above me. On this elevated situation I found 

 several walks of trellis-work, clothed with luxuriant vines. A 

 colossal statue of Ceres, her hands extended in the act of 

 scattering fertility over the country, crowns the summit. 

 Descending alley after alley, and bank after bank, I came to 

 the orangery in front of the palace, disposed in a grand amphi- 

 theatre, with marble niches relieved by dark foliage, out of 

 which spring Cedars and tall aerial Cypresses. This spot 

 brought the scenery of an antique Roman garden so vividly 

 into my mind that ... I expected every instant to be 

 called to the table of Lucullus, hard by in one of the por- 

 ticoes, and to stretch myself on his purple triclinias. 



How different from this is the scene Miss Mitford paints 

 in "Our Village," describing a typical English cottage- 

 garden. 



The pride of my heart and the delight of my eyes is my 

 garden. Our house, which is in dimensions very much like 

 a bird-cage, and might with almost equal convenience be laid 

 on a shelf or hung up in a tree, would be utterly unbearable 

 in hot weather were it not that we have a retreat out-of-doors 

 — and a very pleasant retreat it is. To make my readers com- 

 prehend it I must describe our whole territories. Fancy a 

 small plot of ground with a pretty, low, irregular cottage at 

 one end ; a large granary divided from the dwelling by a little 

 court running along one side ; and a long thatched shed, open 

 towards the garden, and supported by wooden pillars, on the 

 other. The bottom is bounded half by an old wall and half 

 by an old paling, over which we see a pretty distance of woody 

 hills. The house, granary -wall and paling are covered with 

 vines, Cherry-trees, Roses, Honeysuckle and Jessamine, with 

 great clusters of tall Hollyhocks running up between them ; a 

 large Elder overhanging a little gate, and a magnificent Bay- 

 tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts, 

 breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of 

 the buildings. This is my garden ; and the long pillared shed, 

 the sort of rustic arcade, which runs along one side, parted 

 from the flower-beds by a row of rich Geraniums, is our out- 

 of-door drawing-room. I know nothing so pleasant as to sit 

 there on a summer afternoon, with the western sun flickering 

 through the great Elder-tree and lighting up our gay parterres, 

 where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as thick as grass 

 in a field, a wilderness of blossoms, interwoven, intertwined, 

 wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where we 

 may guess that there is such a thing as mould but never see 

 it. . . . Nothing so pretty to look at as my garden ! It is quite 

 ■a picture, only unluckily it resembles a picture in more quali- 

 ties than one — it is fit for nothing but to be looked at. One 

 might as well think of walking in a bit of framed canvas. 

 There are walks, to be sure — tiny paths of smooth gravel, by cour- 

 tesy called such — but they are so overhung by Roses, and Lilies, 

 and such gay encroachers — so overrun by Convolvulus and 

 Heart's-ease and Mignonette, and other sweet stragglers, that, 

 except to edge through them occasionally for the purpose of 

 planting, or weeding, or watering, there might as well be no 

 paths at all. 



Very different again, in subject and treatment, is this pic- 

 ture of an Oriental garden, painted in " Eothen," by Alex- 

 ander Kinglake : 



Wild as the nighest woodland of a deserted home in Eng- 

 land, but without its sweet sadness, is the sumptuous Garden 

 of Damascus. Forest-trees, tall and stately enough, if you 

 could see their lofty crests, yet lead a bustling life below, with 

 their branches struggling against strong numbers of bushes 

 and willful 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 by the interlac- 

 ing 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 im- 

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



