GARDEN WALKS AND ROADS. 



209 



BWaigM, and there are facts and traditions referring 

 to their proceeding in direct lines from Rome to 

 London and most of the other provinces of that vast 

 empire. 



The same principle was exhibited in most of the 

 older carriage-roads — straight lines from the nearest 

 highway to the mansion ; and these, overshadowed 

 by over-arching trees, were the rule. Hence the 

 origin of the avenue, with all its arboreal magnifi- 

 cence and simple gran- 

 deur, some grand relics 

 of which may yet be 

 found. But they were 

 well - nigh universal 

 until Capability Brown 

 laid his heavy and 

 sharp a.xe to their roots 

 during a period of wild 

 and unreasoning re- 

 action from the stiff 

 and formal into mean- 

 dering lines of beauty. 

 Curved lines carried 

 fashion and society so 

 thoroughly with them, 

 that grand avenue* 

 which had stood for 

 centuries were levelled 

 with as little compunc- 

 tion as if they had been 

 the mere upshoots of 

 yesterday. 



But this is not the 

 place to discuss the in- 

 fluence of fashion on 

 the art of road-making. 

 No sooner, however, 

 was the straight — that 

 is, the shortest— route 

 abandoned for the 

 curved, than the dan- 

 gers and difficulties of 

 road-making vastly in- 

 creased. Almost any one could design or choose the 

 best straight line between two objects — the entrance- 

 lodge and house or mansion — ^but once deviate from 

 this, and to many it would immediately seem that 

 some rejected line was as good as the selected, or 

 better ; and no doubt it often is so. 



Iiaying Out. — Taste is capricious, but not des- 

 potic, and were its laws more generally under- 

 stood, possibly it would no longer be felt to deserve 

 its character oven for caprice. Be that as it may, 

 there are certain general principles that apply to the 

 lines of carriage-roads, and the nearer they approach 



Caeeiage Ehteakces. 



to these the more satisfactory and pleasant they will 

 be found. The first of these principles is that the 

 road, at all points of its course, should he obviously a 

 road to the house. There could be no mistake about 

 this when the roads were straight, as they mostly 

 ended in front of the mansion or house, and had the 

 latter for their chief centre and ornament along a 

 great portion of their course ; but with curved lines 

 comes a certain amount of freedom which may easily 

 run into licence, and 

 it needs much art of 

 the highest character to 

 distinguish large, easy, 

 natural, and necessary 

 curves, and small, mean- 

 inglesss, and offensive 

 bends for the sake of 

 winding. Further, the 

 line should never seem 

 to lead away from the 

 house. This is among 

 the most trying and 

 frequent faults of 

 many carriage - roads. 

 Glimpses of the house 

 are seen, and the road 

 seems making straight 

 for it, when suddenly 

 it bends off into a pro- 

 voldng divergence al- 

 most in an opposite 

 direction. So obnoxious 

 and provoking are such 

 lines, that pedestrians 

 mostly quit the road 

 and take a short cut 

 across the grass, to the 

 disfigurement of the 

 latter, and as a natural 

 and emphatic protest 

 against capricious, and 

 consequently false, lines 

 of beauty. 

 Some object to curved lines in toto, because they 

 add to the length of the road; but if properly 

 graduated, the additional length is far less than is 

 generally supposed, as it has been calculated that 

 were a straight road ten miles long so much curved 

 that not more than a quarter of a mile could be seen 

 from any one point, it would not be lengthened in the 

 process more than a quarter of a mile. And every 

 reader will admit that the improvement and addi- 

 tional pleasure to equestrians and pedestrians alike 

 would be well worth this trifling addition to its 

 length. A great mistake is often committed in ihs 

 carrying of approach-roads too near to the boundary 



