606 



GEOMETRICAL FLOWER- GARDENS. 



styles, that which has the greatest claim 

 to be considered a fine art is the geome- 

 tric manner ; but the natural style has 

 also certain claims, which it would be 

 unfair not to notice. The chief of these 

 is the power of selection possessed by the 

 artist, who may imitate scenery of a kind 

 not to be met with in a given locality, 

 and hence, to a certain extent, produce 

 landscapes which could not be confounded 

 with the common landscapes of the coun- 

 try. If he carried this so far as to intro- 

 duce only exotic trees and shrubs, and at 

 • the same time to make every part of the 

 scenes he produced by art in such a man- 

 ner as that, while they resemble nature, 

 they could never be mistaken for fortui- 

 tous productions, he will have gone as 

 far towards rendering landscape-garden- 

 ing a fine art, as the nature of things ren- 

 ders it possible to do." — Loudon. 



Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, in the intro- 

 ductory observations to his edition of 

 "Price on the Picturesque," remarks — 

 " It was natural that, in the infancy of 

 society, when art was first cultivated, and 

 the attention of mankind was first directed 

 to works of design, such forms would be 

 selected for those arts which were intend- 

 ed to please, as were capable of most 

 strongly expressing the design or skill of 

 the artist." Again, Mr Alison says — 

 " When men first began to consider a 

 garden as a subject capable of beauty, or 

 of bestowing any distinction on its pos- 

 sessor, it was natural that they should 

 render its form as different as possible 

 from that of the country around it ; and 

 to mark to the spectator, as strongly as 

 they could, both the design and the la- 

 bour they had bestowed upon it. Irre- 

 gular forms, however convenient or 

 agreeable, might still be the production 

 of nature ; but forms perfectly regular, 

 and divisions completely uniform, imme- 

 diately excited the belief of design, and, 

 with this belief, all the admiration which 

 follows the employment of skill, or even 

 of expense. That this principle would 

 naturally lead the first artists in garden- 

 ing to the production of uniformity, may 

 easily be conceived, as even at present, 

 when so different a system of gardening 

 prevails, the common people universally 

 follow the first system. 



"As gardens, however, are both a 

 costly and permanent subject, and are 



consequently less liable to the influence 

 of fashion, this taste would not easily be 

 altered, and the principal improvements 

 which they would receive would consist 

 rather in the greater employment of uni- 

 formity and expense than in the intro- 

 duction of any new design. The whole 

 history of antiquity, accordingly, contains 

 not, I believe, a single instance where 

 this character was deviated from in a 

 spot considered solely as a garden ; and 

 till within this century, and in this 

 country, it seems not anywhere to have 

 been imagined that a garden was capable 

 of any other beauty than what might 

 arise from utility, and from the display 

 of art and design." 



The same authority says — " A garden is 

 a spot surrounding, or contiguous to, a 

 house, and cultivated for the convenience 

 or pleasure of the family. When men 

 first began to ornament such a spot, it 

 was natural that they should do with it 

 as they did with the house to which it 

 was subordinate — viz., by giving it every 

 possible appearance of uniformity, to 

 show that they had bestowed labour and 

 expense on the improvement of it. In 

 the countries that were most proper for 

 gardening, in those distinguished by a fine 

 climate and beautiful scenery, this labour 

 and expense could, in fact, be expressed 

 in no other way than by the production 

 of such uniformity. To imitate the 

 beauty of nature in the small scale of a 

 garden, would have been ridiculous in a 

 country where this beauty w T as to be 

 found upon the great scale of nature ; and 

 for what purpose should they bestow 

 labour or expense, for which every man 

 expects credit, in creating a scene which, 

 as it could be little superior to the gene- 

 ral scenery around them, could conse- 

 quently but partially communicate to the 

 spectator the belief of this labour or this 

 expense having been bestowed. The 

 beauty of landscape nature has sufficiently 

 provided. The beauty, therefore, that 

 w r as left for man to create, was the beauty 

 of convenience or magnificence, both of 

 them dependent on the employment of 

 art and expense, and both of them best 

 expressed by such forms as immediately 

 signified the employment of such means." 



In forming a general comparison be- 

 tween the ancient or geometrical, and the 

 modern or English gardens, Mr Knight 



