Book I. 



GARDENING IN CHINA. 



101 



spies {Nuvib. xiii. 23.) is a proof ; but it has been in a constant state of neglect since it 

 came into the hands of the Turks, " who, of all nations," as Montesquieu observes, "are 

 the most proper to enjoy large tracts of land with insignificance." 



467. Trees and bushes appear to have been held in superstitious veneration in these 

 countries as early as the time of Moses, of which the story of the burning bush may be 

 adduced as a proof. There are many other instances mentioned in the Jewish writings, 

 of attachment to trees, and especially to the oak and plane. Morier, Johnson, and Sir 

 William Ouseley [Embassi/, &c. vol. i.), describe the Persians as often worshipping under 

 old trees in preference to their religious buildings. The chenar, or plane, is greatly pre- 

 ferred. On these trees the devotees sacrifice their old clothes by hanging them to their 

 branches, and the trunks of favorite trees are commonly found studded with rusty nails 

 and tatters. {Sir William Ousley, App. 1819.) Groves of trees are equally revered in 

 India, and are commonly found near the native temples and burial-places of the 

 princes. 



Sect. II. Chinese Gardening. 



468. We know little of the gardening of China, notwithstanding all that has been written 

 and asserted on the subject. It does not appear perfectly clear to us, that the difference 

 between the gardens of Persia and India, and those of China, is so great as has been very 

 generally asserted and believed. It is evident, that the Chinese study irregularity and 

 imitate nature, in attempting to form rocks ; but whether this imitation is carried to 

 that extent in wood, water, and ground, and conducted on principles so refined as 

 those given as Chinese by Sir William Chambers, appears very doubtful. With all this, 

 it must be confessed, there is a distinctive difference between the Chinese style and 

 every other, though to trace the line of demarcation does not appear j)racticable in the 

 present state of our information on the subject. 



469. One of the earliest accounts of Chinese gardens was given by Pere le Comte, who, 

 as well as Du Halde, had resided in the country as a missionary. " The Chinese," 

 observes Le Comte {Lettre vi.), " appear still more to neglect their gardens than their 

 houses. They would consider it as a want of sense to occupy their grounds only in 

 parterres, in cultivating flowers, and in forming alleys and thickets. The Chinese, who 

 value order so little in their gardens, still consider them as sources of pleasure, and 

 bestow some expense in their formation. They form grottoes, raise little hills, procure 

 pieces of rocks, which they join together with the intention of imitating nature. If tl: j 

 can, besides these things, find enough of water to water their cabbages and legumes, 

 they consider, that as to that material they have nothing more to desire, and content 

 themselves with a well or a pond." Olof Toreen, a Swede, who visited China early in 

 the eighteenth century, and has published an account of his travels, states, " that in the 

 Chinese gardens are neither seen trees artificially cultivated, nor alleys, nor figured par- 

 terres of flowers ; but a general confusion of the productions of verdant nature." ( Voyage 

 to Osbek, the East Indies and China, 8vo. 1761.) 



470. The imperial gardens of China are described in the Lettres Edifiantes et Cu7^ieuses, 

 &c. in a letter dated Pekin, 1 743. It was translated by Spence, under the fictitious title 

 of Sir Plarry Beaumont, whom Lord Walpole describes as having " both taste and zeal 

 for the present style ;" and was published in Dodsley's collection in 1761. These gar- 

 dens are described to be of vast extent, containing 200 palaces, besides garden-buildings, 

 mock towns, villages, all painted and varnished, artificial hills, valleys, lakes, and canals ; 

 serpentine bridges, covered by colonnades and resting-places, with a farm and fields, 

 where his imperial majesty is accustomed to patronise rural industry, by putting his hand 

 to the plough, or, as it has been otherwise expressed, " by playing at agriculture once a- 

 year." Views of tliese gardens, taken by native artists for the Chinese missionaries, were 

 sent to Paris about the middle of the eighteenth centur}^, and engravings from them were 

 published by permission of the court in 1788, in a work entitled Recueils des Plans des 

 Jnrdins Chinois. We have examined the plan of the imperial gardens [fig. 36.) with the 

 utmost care, but confess we can see nothing but a mass of buildings generally forming 

 squares or courts, backed by peaked hills, and interspersed with pieces of water, sometimes 

 evidently artificial, and at other times seemingly natural. The first jet-d'ean ever seen 

 in China v/as formed in the imperial gardens by Pere Benoit, who went to Pekin as 

 astronomer. The emperor was transported with it, and instead of astronomer, made the 

 reverend father the fountaineer. 



471. But the national taste of the Chinese in gardening must have had something 

 characteristic in it, even to general observers ; and this character seems to have been 

 obscurely known in Europe from the verbal accounts of Chinese merchants or travellers, 

 in the beginning of the seventeenth century. A proof of this is to be found in Sir 

 William Temple's Essay, written about the middle of the seventeenth century. Hq 

 informs us, tliat though he recommends regularity in gardens, yet, for any thing he 



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