2 



BOOK OF THE GARDEN. 



monious sounds, and aromatic odours ; 

 and the peaceful grove was consecrated 

 to health and joy, to luxury and love." 



Both Lord Bacon and George Mason 

 considered gardening as rather a neglected 

 art in Greece, notwithstanding the pro- 

 gress there made in architecture. The 

 former says, "that when ages grow to 

 civility and elegancy, men come to build 

 stately sooner than to garden finely, as 

 if gardening were the greater perfection." 

 The vale of Tempe, the Academus at 

 Athens, and other public gardens of the 

 time, seem, however, to show that con- 

 siderable progress had been made in the 

 art. 



Pausanias expressly says of the gardens 

 of the Academus, " that they were highly 

 elegant, and decorated with temples, 

 altars, tombs, statues, monuments, and 

 towers." From the nature of the dimate 

 and habits of the people, the early Gre- 

 cian gardens were adapted to the wants 

 and enjoyments of those who took plea- 

 sure in them. Hence shade, coolness, 

 freshness, breezes, fragrance, and repose, 

 were the qualities chiefly sought after — 

 "effects of gardening," as Mr Loudon 

 justly observes, "which are felt and re- 

 lished at an earlier period of human 

 civilisation than picturesque beauty, or 

 other poetical and comparatively arti- 

 ficial associations with external scenery ; 

 for although gardening, as a merely use- 

 ful art, can claim priority to all others, 

 yet as an art of imagination it is one of 

 the last that has been brought to perfec- 

 tion. In fact, its existence as such an 

 art depends on the previous existence of 

 pastoral poetry and mental cultivation ; 

 for what is nature to an uncultivated 

 mind ? " 



As the Greeks copied their gardening 

 from the Persians, so did the Romans theirs 

 from the Greeks. Of the early style of 

 gardening amongst the Romans we know 

 little. Varro and Cicero seem to ridicule 

 the vast edifices projecting into the sea, 

 the immense artificial elevations, the 

 plains formed where mountains stood, 

 and the vast pieces of water dignified 

 with the appellations ofNilus and Euripus, 

 constructed at great labour and expense 

 by Lucullus — compared with which our 

 modern gardens are mere toys. About 

 this period the culture and arrangement 

 of odoriferous trees and plants were 



attended to ; so that the planting of trees 

 adjoining each other, whose odours assi- 

 milated together, was then as much a 

 study with the gardener as the harmoni- 

 ous arrangement of colours is at the 

 present day. Cicero and the elder Pliny 

 say that the quincunx manner of plant- 

 ing was also in general practice \ and 

 from the Epigrams of Martial we learn that 

 clipped trees, an important part of the 

 tonsile style, were invented or introduced 

 by Cnseus Matius; and, according to 

 Propertius, statues and fountains were also 

 about the same time generally adopted. 



The description of Pliny's garden by Dr 

 Falconer and Malthus, and the design in 

 Castell's "Villas of the Ancients," clearly 

 prove that both the French and Dutch 

 styles of laying out gardens were founded 

 upon that example. " The terraces ad- 

 joining the house," as Loudon observes ; 

 "the lawn declining from thence ; the 

 little flower-garden, with the fountain in 

 the centre ; the walks bordered with box, 

 and the trees sheared into whimsical 

 artificial forms ; together with the foun- 

 tains, alcoves, and summer-houses, form 

 a resemblance too striking to bear dis- 

 pute." And as Walpole also observes, 

 "All the ingredients of Pliny's garden 

 correspond exactly with those laid out by 

 London and Wise, on Dutch principles ; 

 so that nothing is wanting but a parterre 

 to make a garden of the reign of Trajan 

 serve for the description of one in the 

 reign of King William." Examples of 

 nearly the same kind of gardens are to be 

 found both in France and Germany ; and 

 such are by no means rare in Italy at the 

 present day. 



The use of glass in the construction of 

 plant-houses must have been early known 

 to the Greeks and Romans, as the " gar- 

 dens of Adonis," mentioned by some of 

 their most eminent authors, were no 

 doubt of this kind. This may be evi- 

 dently inferred from what Plato in his 

 " Phaedon" says in reference to them, that 

 " a grain of seed, or the branch of a tree, 

 placed in or introduced into these gardens, 

 acquires in eight days a development 

 which cannot be obtained in as many 

 months in the open air." Columella, an 

 author on rural affairs of the highest 

 credit, says, " Rome possesses, within the 

 precincts of her walls, fragrant trees — trees 

 of precious perfumes, such as grow in the 



