142 
REVIEW OP « THE FLOWER GARDEN."' 
from their seats upon the stage to snatch the dagger from his hand ; and the same 
would be the case if a painter were to represent the scene on canvass, so as to de- 
ceive the on-lookers. Yet we never heard of a tragedy so interrupted, nor of any- 
body ever dreaming of rescuing Laocoon in the celebrated statue from the 
" — — ■ enormous asp, 
Enforcing pang on pang, and stifling gasp on gasp." 
And nobody ever mistook one of the bright summer landscapes of Claude Lorraine, 
the golden autumnal scenes of Cuyp, the embowering woods of Hobbima, or the 
rock-margined brooks of Ruysdael, for windows looking out into a natural prospect. 
Were it so, indeed, the representations of a real landscape in a camera obscura, or 
even in a common looking-glass, would be preferred to the finest paintings ; and a 
corner of Coombe Wood, or of Wimbledon Common, with its 
" Blossomed furze unprofitably gay," 
and its blue speedwell, wild thyme, and buttercups, would be preferred to the adja- 
cent royal gardens at Kew, with all their artificial accompaniments of exotics. 
There is an old rule bearing, that " it is art to conceal art," (ars est celare 
artem,) which has led to much fruitless effort in practice, and many idle remarks of 
critics in all the fine arts, and in none more than in laying out gardens. Mr. R. T. 
Knight thus applies it to the subject in question : 
" More cautiously will taste its stores reveal, — 
Its greatest art is aptly to conceal ; 
To lead with secret guile the prying sight 
To where component parts may best unite, 
And form one beauteous well-connected whole, 
To charm the eye, and captivate the soul." 
THE LANDSCAPE. 
Neill, as it appears to me, is much more correct in his ingenious interpretation of 
this much-abused rule. In ornamental gardening, he says, " our art lies in endea- 
vouring to adapt the productions of nature to human taste and perceptions ; and if 
much art be used, do not attempt to hide it. A human production cannot be made 
perfectly natural; and, if held out as such, it becomes an imposition. It is the arti- 
fice, not the design ; the labour, and not the art, which ought to be concealed." 
(Encyd. JBritan., art. " Gardening.") In other words, the labour should be com- 
pleted and finished ; for it is only half-done and untidy labour which appears offen- 
sively, and gives the idea of want of skill, or want of exertion — in a word, stiffness 
— which is always bad. 
It is gratifying to find these broad, and I think incontrovertible, principles ad- 
vocated by some of the highest authorities. " The grand natural scene," says the 
Rev. W. Gilpin, " will always appear so superior to the embellished artificial one, 
that the picturesque eye, in contemplating the former, will be too apt to look con- 
temptuously on the latter. This is just as arrogant as to despise a propriety be- 
cause it cannot be classed with a cardinal virtue. Each mode of scenery has its 
station. A wild forest scene, contiguous to a noble mansion, would be just as ab- 
surd as an embellished one in the midst of a forest. 
