ARTISTICAL DECORATIONS. 



53 



or with groups of flower-beds^ in the more irregular 

 styles of designing. The employment of statuary in 

 flower-gardens and dressed grounds is a much more difii- 

 cult subject. It must be owned that^ in this country, it 

 has seldom a very satisfactory effect, partly from the 

 severity of our climate, and partly from the want of 

 those associations with antiquities and architecture which 

 make Italy as it were the native home of statues. To 

 our taste, scarcely anything seems more uncomfortably 

 out of place than black or white painted figm^es peeping 

 forth fi-om a group or mass of shrubs. Indeed, the 

 less that is seen of them in such circumstances the 

 better ; and they would be often well away altogether. 

 Statues should always be in connection with architecture ; 

 on terraces they may be appropriately introduced, along 

 with fountains, as the centres of primary or secondary 

 groups of flower-beds. We should hesitate to distri- 

 bute them singly throughout the grounds, unless the 

 whole place has a more architectural complexion than is 

 common in this country. 



Rockivorks are pleasing objects when well executed, 

 but they should hardly be introduced except in places 

 where their position indicates that something of the Idnd 

 is not unnatural, that the rock projects inartificially 

 through the ground, or that it may have been laid bare 

 by some needful excavation. The materials of rock- 

 works should not be altogether foreign to the geology of 

 the district ,* or if they are so, their natural stratification 

 should be imitated as well as possible, as, indeed, it ought 

 to be in all cases, for this, if skilfully done, will take off 

 much fr'om their artificial appearance. It is a common, 

 but a very great, error to construct them of all the 

 curious, rugged, weather-eaten or water-w^orn stones that 



