THE APPROACH. 



25 



admitting the masses and groups of park 

 s cenerj, the aid of shrubs may be allowed, 

 restricting them, however, to the more sober 

 classes, principally evergreens, leaving the 

 gayer varieties to heighten the beauty and 

 interest of the pleasure ground, properly so 

 called. I would have no flowers, nor any 

 thing that apparently required the gardener's 

 care beyond neatness of keeping; let the 

 evergreens trail upon the lawn, and no mould 

 be seen. To the introduction of exotics in 

 an approach of enlarged scale, I confess my- 

 self most hostile, having witnessed the ap- 

 proach even to a palace-like mansion carried 

 through miles of shrubbery ; and in other 

 places have seen what is scarcely less objec- 

 tionable, the approach through the wild 

 scenery of a natural wood, spotted and dis- 

 figured by patches of shrubs and flowers. I cer- 

 tainly should never so decorate an approach. 

 If I find one so treated, where time has in 

 some degree softened the incongruity by 

 giving freedom and ruggedness to the ma- 

 terials, I deal with it the best I may, judging 

 it, in this, as in most other cases, safer to 

 make the best of what I find, than risk the 

 alternative of a radical reform. Sometimes, 



