372 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



for the niche it was to fill, and it filled and fitted its place exactly and 

 appropriately in such a way as nothing else would, and to even see this 

 trait in nature I submit there must be the opened eye. 



Although Eden included within its borders every kind of tree, flower 

 and fruit good for food and pleasant to the eye, there certainly would 

 not be any of that straining after variety — that attempt at a little of 

 everything which is the bane of the so-called landscape garden and so 

 destructive of its restfulness. I have made a full confession about the 

 garden of display, and I do not fear being honest about the majority of 

 the landscape gardens so-called. Ninety-nine out of every hundred I 

 have seen are unrestful, and many are very tame and timorous attempts, 

 and the motley mixtures suggest anything but Eden's quiet breadth 

 expressed in boldness, in freedom and nobility of design ; yet, as always 

 in Nature, its breadth of handling was outwardly unapparent, the very 

 reverse of the towering gardens of Babylon. It could only have appeared, 

 as Milton describes it, to an opened eye. 



In the ideal garden of pleasure, Eden, there was no four-square house 

 nor one with a skewed plan in the modern fashiou to begin with, and no 

 need to cut off its angularities with appropriate climbers, and none of the 

 utilitarian devices with which we dissemble and seek to render picturesque, 

 such as slating and drawing-off rain and smoke by pipes and chimneys, 

 no roads or walks for wet days to haggle about, whether they ought to be 

 straight or curved ; in fact, clothes even were not a necessity to hide the 

 graceful perfections of the human form. 



In order to design gardens with originality combined with that secret 

 indefinable charm which is their true heritage, we must combine 

 cunningly the Ethical, the Historical, and the Practical branches of 

 knowledge with such ease that our garden clients can call upon us to sing 

 them a song, write a poem or perform any other feat proficiently, I mean 

 practically, not in words, and we shall joyfully and skilfully respond 

 without even conveying a suspicion of the old tomes and the smart up-to- 

 date text-books whence it has all been gleaned. 



Speaking practically, a garden in most cases has to adapt itself to the 

 dwelling it accompanies, and the result is judged accordingly ; and when 

 it is remembered that everything there in its disposition is regular, and 

 that the greater part: of the furniture and adornments fall into some 

 geometrical outline, it follows that regularity to some extent must follow 

 without. Again, when we have apportioned off without, several rectangular 

 spaces, as a terrace for instance, in most cases the only solution is 

 to dispose the same with regularity as to plan at least. This I do not 

 wish to pursue further at the moment, for every site must be taken 

 together with the house already designed and fitted there, and has its own 

 solution. 



