124 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



in the park when plantations, clumps, or groups, are 

 set down in complete isolation, or without any percep- 

 tible relation to surrounding objects. Trees are seen 

 occupying the broad spaces or narrower openings be- 

 tween the woods, without a greater affinity to one 

 mass than to another. This effect, exhibited on the 

 side of a green hill, where it is peculiarly infelicitous, 

 has been well compared to a pattern of sprigged mus- 

 lin. Into pleasure-grounds and gardens the dotting 

 system has also intruded : in these, figures containing 

 shrubs and flowers, as well as single shrubs and trees, 

 are often sprinkled with the most un deviating regu- 

 larity. The main object would seem to be to leave 

 unoccupied no piece of grass or plat of ground above 

 a certain and very moderate size. On the lawns of 

 many gardens this paltry and tasteless system has been 

 carried out to the greatest perfection. A better taste, 

 indeed, is now being diffused ; we have, however, ob- 

 served a finished specimen of this style in a garden of 

 great pretension and celebrity, and which is supposed 

 to exhibit the very perfection of British gardening. 

 A pinetum is dotted over an extensive lawn, without 

 respect to the natural physiognomy of the trees, and, 

 what is more surprising, without any regard, so far as 

 we could discover, to their botanical affinities as spe- 

 cies. A few formal clumps of rhododendrons lend 

 their aid to complete the general insipidity. It must 

 be admitted, at the same time, that it is seldom that 

 lawns are dotted with such hardy tenants. They are 

 frequently filled with half-hardy objects, undergoing 

 the miseries of acclimatizing experiments;* and the 



*AU efforts in the way of accommodating the plants of warmer regions to oui 

 somewhat ungenia] clime, ought to be encouraged and promoted, as every additiona. 



