240 



VEKSAILLES. 



not to say hideousness. Versailles is a vast garden, much 

 of its interest being hidden behind these kindly groves of 

 treeSj but we have about here the broadest effects of this 

 far-famed place, and may judge in how far they are worthy 

 of the praise bestowed on them and of our admiration or 

 imitation. 



Versailles is held up by the French and others as the 

 queen of geometrical gardens_, and however this position 

 may be dissented from,, it cannot be denied that it is a vast 

 illustration of the formal school of gardening. 



There are in books many dissertations on the several 

 styles of laying out gardens ; indeed some have taken us 

 to China and Japan, and others gone into Mexico for illus- 

 tration; but when all is read and examined, what is the 

 result to anybody who looks from words to things ? That 

 there are really two styles : one straitlaced, mechanical, 

 fond of walls or bricks, or it may be gravel ; fond also of 

 such geometry as the designer of wall papers excels in, often 

 indeed of a much poorer and less graceful kind than that ; 

 fond too of squirting water in an immoderate degree, with 

 trees in tubs as an accompaniment, and perhaps griffins and 

 endless plaster and stone work. The other, with true 

 humility and right desire, though often awkwardly and blun- 

 deringly, accepting nature as a guide, and endeavouring 

 to multiply, so far as convenience and poor man-power will 

 permit, her most charming features. 



Mr. Ruskin tells us that " we are forced, for the sake of 

 accumulating our power and knowledge, to live in cities : 

 but such advantage as we have in association with each 

 other is in great part counterbalanced by our loss of fellow- 

 ship with nature. We cannot all have our gardens now, 

 nor our pleasant fields to meditate in at eventide. Then 

 the function of our architecture is, as far as may be, to 

 replace these ; to tell us about nature ; to possess us with 

 memories of her quietness ; to be solemn and full of ten- 

 derness, like her, and rich in portraitures of her; full of 

 delicate imagery of the flowers we can no more gather, and 

 of the living creatures now far away from us in their own 

 solitude." 



