REVIEW OF « THE FLOWER GARDEN, 1 
139 
the peculiar locality of the ground. Within our limited volume, it would be 
impossible to give directions applicable to every circumstance of extent, aspect, and 
the numerous accessaries of wood, water, and artificial structures ; all of which 
should influence the plans to be adopted in particular intances ; we must, therefore, 
content ourselves with a few general principles with reference to the laying out of 
pleasure grounds, as regards flowers. 
It is a remarkable fact, that professed landscape gardeners have paid little 
attention to what they appear to consider too trifling a branch of their art ; though 
if that art, as it necessarily must, be based upon the principle of exciting interest by 
imparting pleasure, we cannot see why the smaller beauties of the flower-garden 
should not require attention, as well as the larger beauties of the lawn, the vista, 
and the approach. What would be thought of a geographer who should consider 
islands beneath his notice in his admiration of the extent of continents ? or an 
astronomer, who should overlook the minute fixed stars when contemplating the 
boundless expanse of the firmament ? We cannot, therefore, wonder at the glaring 
want of taste so frequently displayed upon the subject, both in gardens, and in the 
directions promulgated in books, pretending to be founded on the principles of 
natural imitation. The admirer of flowers, who dips into such books, and adopts, 
as many are led to adopt, the sentiments which he reads, will become dissatisfied 
with his best disposed borders and his neatest beds, because they do not accord with 
what are maintained to be the grand natural principles, irregularity and curved 
lines. His square tulip beds, and his dahlias, planted at equal distances, must be 
given up for curvature and irregularity ; and his 
" Garden trim, with daisies pied," 
must be made as nearly as possible to resemble a wild wilderness of thickets and 
patches, as unnatural and fantastic as the arabesques of the Mahometans, who are 
strictly forbidden by the Koran to make any representations of natural objects. I 
have not put a hypothetical case of thus yielding to fashion, but one which actually 
occurred to no less celebrated a man than Sir Uvedale Price, one of the best writers 
on this department of taste, who speaks, as he tells us, " feelingly on the subject, 
having done myself what I so condemn in others— destroyed an old-fashioned 
garden. I have long," he adds, " regretted its destruction. I destroyed it, not 
from disliking it : on the contrary, it was a sacrifice I made, against my own sensa- 
tions, to the prevailing opinion. I doomed it, and all its embellishments, with which 
I had formed such an early connection, to sudden and total destruction." 
It is surprising, that the advocates for curvature and irregularity never thought 
of introducing them in the boundary walls of gardens, or in the glass-work of conserva- 
tories, which might, we doubt not, be shaped out into as passable imitations of knolls, 
rocks, or even of trees, as their flower clumps are of anything to be met with in 
nature. But this, they well know, would subject them to the same ridicule as the 
celebrated Kent encountered when he planted dead trees in Kensington Gardens, as 
imitations of natural wood. A garden walk of rock-work, indeed, would not be so 
bad as this ; no, nor even a gravel walk so disposed as to imitate the waterless 
