THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE. 



23 



for variety is beyond comparison greater in public or private 

 gardening tban in tbe building art_, or indeed in any other 

 art whatever. 



Without the garden,, Lord Bacon tells us^ "Buildings 

 and pallaces are but grosse handy works : and a man shall 

 ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegancie, men 

 come to build stately sooner than to garden finely : as if 

 gardening were the greater perfection.^'' As yet we are far 

 from perfection as builders, and the garden holds still the 

 relationship to the building art which is described by Bacon. 

 Indeed, it is more backward ; for in a day when building 

 has eloquent champions to put in some such pleas as that 

 quoted, and, moreover, give us practical illustrations of 

 their meaning, we can find no proof that any knowledge of 

 the all-important necessity for variety exists in the minds 

 of those who arrange or manage our gardens, public or 

 private. And yet this unrecognised variety is the life and 

 soul of high gardening. If people generally could see this 

 clearly, it would lead to the greatest improvement our 

 gardening has ever witnessed. Considering the variety of 

 vegetation, soil, climate, and position which we can com- 

 mand, it is impossible to doubt that our power to produce 

 variety is unlimited. 



The necessity for it is great. What is the broadly 

 marked bane of the public as well as private gardening of 

 the present day? The want of variety. What is it that 

 causes us to take little more interest in the ordinary 

 display of '^'^ bedding out,"'^ fostered with so much care, 

 than we do in the bricks that go to make up the face of a 

 house ? Simply the want of that variety of beauty which 

 a walk along a flowery lane or over a wild heath shows us 

 may be afforded by even the indigenous vegetation of one 

 spot in a northern and unfavourable clime. But in our 

 parks we can, if we will, have an endless variety of form, 

 from the fern to the grisly oak and Gothic pine — inex- 

 haustible charms of colour and fragrance, from that of the 

 little Alpine plant near the snows on the great chains of 

 mountains, to the lilies of Japan and Siberia. And yet 

 out of all these riches the fashion for a long time has been 



