THEIR GENERAL ARRANGEMENT. 



695 



the gardenesque and architectural, and, in 

 a slight degree, of the geometrical also. 



In the terrace-garden next the house, 

 the geometric style is slightly shown at 

 a, which may be laid out as a simple 

 parterre. The rest, composed of trees, 

 shrubs, and flowers, grouped together in 

 tolerable masses, shows the picturesque 

 style ; statues and vases (b b b) on pe- 

 destals, thinly scattered about, the archi- 

 tectural or sculptural style — showing, 

 in fact, a harmonious combination of 

 the three leading styles. Without some 

 of these innovations the picturesque style 

 would be little better than a well-thinned 

 and moderately well-kept sylvan scene. 



The admission of the architectural style 

 in association with the refined picturesque, 

 especially near the house, is thus excused 

 by the high authority of Price, in " Essays 

 on the Picturesque : " — " A broad dry walk 

 near the house is indispensable to the 

 comfort of every gentleman's habitation. 

 In the old style, such walks were very 

 commonly paved ; in the modern, they 

 are very generally gravelled. But the 

 great difference in their character arises 

 from their immediate boundaries. That 

 of the gravel walk is of paved ground, 

 than which nothing can be more meagre 

 or formal, or have a poorer effect in a 

 foreground." And this meagreness in- 

 creases in proportion to the importance 

 of the mansion. " But the paved terrace, 

 in its least ornamental state, is bounded 

 by a parapet; and the simple circum- 

 stance of hewn stone and a coping, with- 

 out any further addition, has a finished 

 and determined form, together w T ith a cer- 

 tain massiveness which is wanting to the 

 other, on which account, and from the 

 opposition of its colour to the hue of 

 vegetation, such mere walls are some- 

 times introduced as parts of the fore- 

 ground by the greatest painters." A 

 sloping terrace of turf in such a situation 

 never can produce the same effect or 

 association with the surrounding objects : 

 it wants the parapet which, either plain 

 or ornamental, is its chief feature. " When 

 the walk before the door is gravel, and 

 that gravel is succeeded by the mowed 

 grass of the pleasure-ground, and that 

 again by the grass of the lawn, nothing 

 can be more insipid. If broken by trees 

 and shrubs only, however judiciously they 

 may be disposed, still the whole makes a 



comparatively flat and unvaried fore- 

 ground, whether it be viewed in looking 

 at, from, or towards the house. But where 

 architectural ornaments are introduced in 

 the garden immediately about the house — 

 however unnatural raised terraces, foun- 

 tains, flights of steps, parapets, with sta- 

 tues, vases, balustrades, &c, may be 

 called — however our ancestors may have 

 been laughed at" — for, as Walpole, in 

 "Modern Gardening," has it, "walking 

 up and down stairs in the open air " — the 

 effect of all these "objects is very striking; 

 and they are not more unnatural — that 

 is, not more artificial than the house 

 which they are intended to accompany. 



" Nor is their own form and appear- 

 ance singly to be considered ; for their 

 influence extends to other objects. Wher- 

 ever trees are mixed with them, whether 

 pines and cypresses, or the many beautiful 

 varieties with which our gardens abound, 

 they give a value to the tints of vegeta- 

 tion which no opposition between trees 

 of different sorts can give to each other ; 

 and this is a consideration of no small 

 amount. The contrast which arises from 

 the tint of stone, either worked or in its 

 natural state, has the great advantage of 

 detaching objects from each other by a 

 marked difference of form and tint and 

 character, but without the smallest injury 

 to general harmony." 



The superiority of the terrace walk, in 

 its simplest state — that is, with a mere 

 parapet — " over the gravel walk, with its 

 pared edges of grass as an immediate 

 foreground," has been already noticed; 

 " and it is clear that one cause of that 

 superiority is the contrast between the 

 colour of stone and the tints of vegeta- 

 tion. The inferiority of the gravel walk, 

 in such a situation, proceeds likewise 

 from another circumstance ; its boundary 

 is not only meagre as well as formal, but 

 it is incapable of receiving any ornament, 

 or being varied with any effect. The 

 parapet, on the contrary, admits of a 

 great degree of ornament, and also, what 

 is very material, of a mixture of the light 

 and pliant forms of vegetation with the 

 uniform unbending substance of stone, 

 and the enrichment of sculpture. Should 

 the solid wall be thought too heavy, 

 a balustrade, without destroying the 

 breadth, gives a play of light and shadow 

 of the most striking kind, which occurs 



