KEW GARDENS. 



In one respect there is little difference of opinion about a gar- 

 den — that it is a good thing to have and a pleasant thing to use 

 and enjoy, even temporarily and briefly. But if we go a step 

 further and look at the various modes of use and enjoyment — 

 the forms, purposes, projects, reflections, and speculations of which 

 gardens have been made the subject — \te find a wondrous amount 

 of diversity. Gardens, in the first place, ought to furnish only 

 pure delights. ' God Almighty' (says Lord Bacon) ' first planted 

 a garden : and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures ; it is 

 the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man ; without which 

 buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works.' And yet gar- 

 dens of old were systematically made scenes of voluptuousness 

 and indecency under the sanction of religious rites. Their tute- 

 lary deity was in outward form the most disgusting of the heath- 

 en Pantheon. The emblems then used to typify the reproductive 

 powers of nature were indeed gross and sensual. We may not 

 uncharitably believe their alleged hidden meaning to have been 

 the shallowest of excuses for the raising of vile ideas. Gardens, 

 again, should be gay — and Watteau has appropriately pictured 

 them as saloons and ball-rooms — thus carrying out the idea of a 

 full-dress promenade, in which the French of the old regime de- 

 lighted. But Hervey's ' Reflections on a Flower Garden,' though 

 well meant, are so dull and doleful that the reader suspects he 

 has taken up the ' Meditations among the Tombs.' What would 

 become of the earth — he asks, as a cheering topic — if the sun 

 were gone ? ' Were that radiant orb extinguished, a tremendous 



* Popular Guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew. By Sir W. J 

 Hooker, K.H., Director. 1851. 



Royal Gardens, Kew. Report of the Director for 1850, etc., etc. 

 1 



