224 



FLORA AND SYLVA, 



to the best advantage without destroy- 

 ing the effect of garden or park. There 

 are people who think of the garden not 

 as a living picture of beautiful natural 

 forms, but as a place to show off one of 

 the least worthy phases of human art. In 

 a northern country like ours a statue of 

 any high merit as awork of art deserves 

 to be protected by a building of some 

 kind, as the effect of frost and rain is 

 very destructive to statuary. The scat- I 

 tering of numerous statues of a low or- 

 der, such as are often seen in Italian 

 gardens, gives a bad effect, and the dot- 

 ting of statues about the public gardens 

 of Paris and London is destructive of all 

 repose. If a place be used for the exhi- 

 bition of sculpture, well and good ; but 

 let us not in that case call it a garden. 

 In Britain, statues are often made of 

 plaster, and those who use a garden as 

 a place to dot about such "works of art " 

 do not think of the garden as the first 

 of places to show the works of Nature 

 in their natural forms. 



As to the artistic value of much of 

 our sculpture, Lord Rosebery, in his 

 speech at Edinburgh in 1896, said : — 

 " If those restless spirits that possessed 

 the Gadarene swine were to enter into 

 the statues of Edinburgh, and if the 

 whole stony and brazen troop were to 

 hurry and hustle and huddle headlong 

 down the steepest place near Edinburgh 

 into the deepest part of the Firth of 

 Forth, art would have sustained no 

 serious loss." Yet this is the sort of rub- 

 bish that some wish us to expose in the 

 garden, where there is rarely the means 

 to be found to do even as good work 

 as we see in cities. 



In its higher expression nothing is 

 more precious in art than sculpture ; in 

 its debased forms it is less so than almost 

 any form of art. The lovely Greek sculp- 

 ture in the Vatican or British Museum 

 is the work of great artists, and those 

 who study it will not be led astray by 

 the statues in our squares. If wewish to 

 see the results of sculpture in the archi- 

 tect's own work we have but to look 

 at thepublic buildings in London where 

 it is used, mostly to spoil any architec- 

 tural grace such buildings should pos- 

 sesses in the National Portrait Gallery, 

 the Natural History Museum, and the 

 Home Office Buildings. Real artists in 

 sculptureare not concerned with garden 

 design, and sculpture is notthe business 

 of the builder or landscape gardener. A 

 statue or two of any artistic value may 

 be placed in a garden with good effect, 

 never, however, forgetting that a gar- 

 den is a place for life not death. 



SONGS OF THE WOODS AND 

 FLOWERS: Spring has Come. 



At first the snowdrop's bells are seen, 

 Then close against the sheltering wall 



The tulip's horn of dusky green, 

 The pseony's dark unfolding ball. 



The golden-chaliced crocus burns ; 



The long narcissus-blades appear ; 

 The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, 



And lights her blue-flamed chandelier. 



The willow's whistling lashes, wrung 

 By the wild winds of gusty March, 



With sallow leaflets lightly strung, 

 Are swaying by the tufted larch. 



The elms have robed their slender spray 



With full-blown flower and embryo leaf ; 

 Wide o'er the clasping arch of day 



Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. 

 See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, 



That flames in glory for an hour — 

 Behold it withering — then look up — 



How meek the forest-monarch's flower ! 



When wake the violets, Winter dies ; 



When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near ; 

 When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, 



" Bud, little roses ! Spring is here ! " 



— -Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



