12 



THE PAEKS AND GARDENS OF PAEIS. 



[Chap. I. 



spoil some of the prettiest spots. Let us hope that some winter 

 day, when the great beds are empty, they may he neatly covered 

 with green turf. It would be a great gain to horticulture if ten 

 out of every twelve " flower-beds " in Europe were blotted out 

 with fresh green grass. 



The illustrations in .this chapter show some of the beauty of 



the Bois, in the part 

 that is most essentially 

 a garden. . They show 

 the rocks in the lower 

 lake with their drapery 

 of Ivy and shrubs; 

 the " grand " cascade 

 from its best point of 

 view — it was origin- 

 ally ill-formed and 



False curves to hanlts, Jtard formal 7nargin^ atid parallel ivalk TlTlhaDnV aS rCffards 

 Kgly and needless. Compare luitk two margins to natural ^ ifrJ ^ o 



water on page 13. its surroundings, but 



nature has thrown a graceful mantle over it in parts — the island 

 view, which is pretty ; the St. Cloud view, from a point near the 

 training-ground, one of the most charming views in Paris, 

 but which is more the result of accident than design; the 

 bridge with its fringe of creepers and shrubs; and the river 

 view, which tells of the wisdom of developing the natural advan- 

 tages of a beautiful stream, instead of wasting efforts in creating 

 an artificial lake. 



The main defect of the most frequented part of the Bois de 

 Boulogne is that the banks which fall to the water are in some 

 parts too suggestive of a railway embankment, and display but 

 little of that indefiniteness of gradation and outline which we find 

 in the true examples of the " English style " of laying out grounds. 

 This fault is common to almost every example of the "picturesque" 

 garden to be seen about Paris ; in most of the walks, mounds, and 

 turnings of the streams may be detected a family likeness and 

 a style of curvature which is certainly never exhibited by Nature, 

 and would never be drawn by an artist who had studied her. 

 The natural style of laying out ground cannot be fairly judged 

 of till we are accustomed to obey in our gardens the same laws by 

 which artists are governed in their work. An avowedly geometrical 



