Book III. 



CHARACTERISTIC DECORATIONS. 



361 



lence of the workmanship or the material, as in the fragments of Grecian and Roman 

 sculpture and architecture. This class of decorations is very common in Italy, and espe- 

 cially near Rome and Naples. Viewed as parts of landscape, almost every thing depends 

 on their union with the surrounding scenery. 



1841. Rarities and curiosities, like antiquities, possess a sort of absolute value ; but ^ 

 the sentiments to which they give rise are more allied to wonder than veneration. They 

 are occasionally introduced in gardening, such as the jaw-bones of the whale, basaltic 

 columns, lava blocks, pillars of earthy rock-salt. The tufFa, corals, and madrepores 

 brought from Otaheite by Captain Cook, as ballast, now form part of the rock work in 

 the Chelsea garden. Chinese rocks, idols, and other Chinese garden-ornaments, are 

 sometimes admitted, not as imitations of rocks or sculpture, but as curiosities. 



1 842. Monumental objects, as obelisks, columns, pyramids, may occasionally be intro- 

 duced with grand effect, both in a picturesque and historical view, of which Blenheim, 

 Stow, Castle Howard, &c. afford fine examples ; but their introduction is easily car- 

 ried to the extreme, and then it defeats itself, as at Stow. In this department may be 

 truly said, after Buonaparte, " Du sublime au ridicule il rCy a quun pas /" 



1843. Sculptures. Of statues, therms, busts, pedestals, altars, urns, and similar 

 sculptures, nearly the same remarks may be made. Used sparingly, they excite interest, 

 often produce character, and are always individually beautiful, as in the pleasure-grounds 

 of Blenheim, where a few are judiciously introduced j but profusely scattered about, they 

 distract attention. 



1844. Vegetable sculptures {fig- 345.) are very appro- 

 priate in parterres and other scenes in the ancient style. 

 That they may be executed with correctness and without 

 loss of time, the skeleton should be formed of wire, with- 

 in which all the shoots should be confined, and when 

 once the form is filled up with vegetation, the gardener 

 has only to clip the protruding shoots. Groups of 

 figures of different colors may be very curiously executed 

 by using different colored greens. In the garden of the 

 convent of th«^ Madre di Dio, near Savonna, is a group 

 representing the flight of Joseph into Egypt, in yellow 

 box, variegated holly, myrtle, cypress, laurel, and rose- 

 mary. The attending priest told us these plants com- 

 pleted their forms in three years. 



1 845. Inscriptions, as historical records, without comment, may in some cases be ad- 

 missible ; as the date when any work was begun and finished, the height of elevated 

 points above the level of the sea, or relatively to other surrounding elevated and conspi- 

 cuous objects, &c. &c. ; but sentimental and religious inscriptions cannot be approved 

 of by men in general. They are something superadded to what is or ought to be already 

 complete, and place nature in the situation of tlie painter, whose portraits required the 

 aid of graphical description. " This is a black bear." That is " A happy rural seat of 

 various view." 



1846. Eye-traps, painted perspectives, on walls or boards, as terminations, mock hermits, 

 soldiers, banditti, wooden lions (as at Hawkstone), sheep in stucco, or any other figures of 

 men or animals, intended to pass for realities, though still used in Holland and France, may 

 be pronounced as too puerile for the present age. If they are still admired by the city mob 

 in a suburban tea-garden, so much the better ; the mob must be pleased as well as their 

 superiors, and the rich vulgar may join with them ; but the object of all the arts, whether 

 useful or agreeable, is to elevate our tastes and enjoyments ; and therefore as soon as 

 men's minds are prepared for any refinement on former things, the particular art to which 

 these things belong should prepare the way for their removal, by presenting appropriate 

 substitutes. A few reading tents and portable coffee-houses scattered over the public 

 parks round London and Edinburgh, as at Paris and Vienna, in umbrageous and pictu- 

 resque situations, would be fitting resources for one class of pedestrians, as those 

 crowded yards called tea-gardens are for others. 



Chap. IV. 



Of the Improvement of the Mechanical Agents of Gardening. 



1 847. The greater number of the implements and buildings enumerated in the fore- 

 going chapters may no doubt be done without, even in the first-rate gardens. A number 

 more, however, might have been added, which are in use in particular situations and 

 circumstances, but we have omitted them, some as not meriting to become general, and 



