196 THE PARKS AND GAEDENS OF PAEIS. [Chap. XIV. 



base use — Versailles. But Versailles is a relic of past ages, and 

 was the expression of such knowledge as men possessed of the 

 gardening art at the date of its creation. Backward as we are 

 now, our means for garden-embellishment have increased a 

 hundredfold since Versailles was designed. Therefore this modern 

 illustration of a barbarous style has none of the excuses which 

 might be urged for Versailles. Instead of a desire to express all 

 that we at present know of pure garden-design, and of the wealth 

 of beauty now within our reach, the major idea was to out- 

 Versailles Versailles. There being many mouldering water-basins 

 there, it was thought well to make some vastly bigger. Versailles 

 having^ numerous tall water-spouts, the best way to glorify our- 

 selves at Sydenham was to make some unmistakably taller ! Instead 

 of confining the purely geometrical gardening to the upper 

 terrace, by far the greater portion of the ground was devoted to 

 the. more antiquated and baser features of a changeless and stony 

 style of garden-design, and nearly in the centre were placed those 

 vast fountain-basins, with their unclean water and appalling 

 display of pipes. Surely these water-basins are more hideous as 

 garden^sights than the crater of a volcano. The extensive con- 

 trivances to enable the water to go downstairs (prettier than the 

 spouting upwards, it must be admitted), the temples impudently 

 prominent, the statues, the dead walls, all help to add to the dis- 

 tracting elements of the central region. The special gardens, too, 

 such as the Eose-garden, so much better if veiled from the great 

 open central scene, are made as prominent as possible. 



Eedeeming features were here and there charming bits of 

 good gardening and good planting, but the vast geometrical 

 system overshadows the whole, and only towards the outer 

 margin could one feel free from this incubus. Here was one of 

 the finest marginal plantations ever made. Those who knew it, 

 and enjoyed the many fine shrubs and trees it contained, must 

 regret its recent destruction to provide sites for a number of villas 

 which now stare point-blank into the remains of what a few years 

 ago was the most beautiful scene in the grounds. The one thing 

 for which those with feeling for the beautiful in landscape-garden- 

 ing always felt grateful to Paxton, was the belt of beautiful 

 l^lantation that so gracefully cut off the grounds from the 

 chimney-pots around. This plantation was formed at a cost of 



