SECTION I. 



375 



and furnishing them to his customers at the loioest possible price. You 

 may tliink that in this stricture I bear rather liard on our profession ; 

 but since you do me the honour to question me, I must tell you the 

 truth." 



All this, we must own, is extremely deplorable. It places in a strong 

 point of view the benefits that would flow from a society for the im- 

 provement of arboriculture, were it judiciously constituted, and the 

 necessity there is for at length cultivating the art independently and as 

 a separate department. There is now suflicient wealth, and, what is of 

 more importance, sufficient intelligence in the country to accomplish the 

 object, and for once to enable us to lead the way in this instance in the 

 advancement of the arts. 



Note III. Page 6. 



It was not till after the civil wars, that the arts of planting and 

 gardening were greatly cultivated in England. The immortal Bacon, 

 in the preceding age, was certainly the first who seemed to apprehend 

 the true principles of beauty in the garden, and 



" Taught a degenerate reign 

 "WTiat in Eliza's golden day was Taste." * 



See his 46th Essay, in which he directs that a considerable portion of 

 what he terms his " Princely Garden" should be " framed as much as 

 may be to a natural wilderness." 



The genius of Milton, likewise, at a later period, figured for his Eden 

 a garden which could have no prototype but in his own taste and 

 ardent imagination, but which might rather seem to have belonged to 

 the richest garden and park scenery of an after age. The passage is 

 curious, and to some it has appeared not less prophetic than beautiful ; 

 as the only models that were before our great poet's eyes, were the 

 formal and rectilinear gardens which we derived from antiquity, and 

 which still exist in most parts of Europe : — 



Not that sweet grove 

 Of Daphne by Orontes, and th' inspii-ed 

 Castalian spring, might with this Paradise 



Of Eden strive The crisped brooks. 



Rolling on orient pearl, and sands of gold, 

 With mazy error, under pendant shades, 

 Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed 



* Mason's English Garden, B. i. 



