ON BEAUTY OF LINES IN GARDENING. 
277 
angle) in a walk, or a bed, or a clump, as an unpardonable sin against good taste. This 
is fully as unreasonable as if an architect, considering straight lines to be the basis of all 
architecture, and the necessarily prevailing characteristic of its forms, were to abjure 
and denounce all manner of curves ; though it is well known that crescents, circular 
temples, domes, semicircular porches, arches, and other curved figures, are universally 
esteemed some of the most beautiful features of the art. 
Much having been said in former papers respecting the arrangement of trees and 
shrubs with regard to their outlines, attention will mainly be directed, at the present time, 
to those ground lines by which walks, roads, flower-beds, &c., are defined, and such as 
mark the surface of the earth in gardens or home estates. An attempt will therefore be 
made to point out the principal situations in which the formal, or the serpentine, or the 
picturesque line may be most fitly used. 
Every one will acknowledge that if straight lines are admissible anywhere, they are so 
in connection with a house, or some other great architectural feature. In the neighbour- 
hood of some styles of houses, indeed, especially if they are large, and still more so if they 
merit the title of palaces, straight walks, and regular figures in the flower-beds, are almost 
indispensable. Such are the Grecian, the Homan, and the Italian styles of architecture, 
with their modifications. Other kinds of houses, too, in which any one of several forms of 
Gothic architecture is employed, and which are accompanied with a terrace or terraces, 
necessarily demand straight walks. In fact, all houses which have a principal walk in 
their front, and parallel with them, or passing off from their centre at right angles, or from 
which the garden walks are made a very prominent feature, require those walks to be 
straight, or such as are parallel with the house may follow the lines of the house. 
But straight walks cannot be carried over an uneven or undulated surface, and con- 
sequently, wherever they are introduced, if the ground is not flat in itself, or has not a 
regular slope, it must be artificially brought into one or other of such states. Right lines 
in walks are incompatible with any but smooth and flat surface lines. Nor are slopes or 
inclinations at all allowable where straight walks are employed, unless they rise or descend 
from the house at right angles with it. All cross slopes, or such as are parallel with the 
house, are decidedly objectionable in relation to straight walks. And where the level in 
this style of gardening has to be materially changed, it should be done by means of a 
terrace bank and flight of steps, which should be precisely parallel with one or the other 
of the sides of the house. 
Where the system of straight lines is chosen as the style of a place, or any part of it, 
the walks ought all to pass off from each other at right angles, or so nearly at right 
angles that the difference will not be perceived. Sometimes, in the very ancient style of 
gardening, a walk traversing a large square plot diagonally may be permitted, when 
another walk entirely surrounds it ; but such walks very rarely have a good appearance, 
and cannot be adopted in relation to modern buildings. Indeed, any straight walk passing 
off obliquely from another straight walk (except in the instance just named) destroys the 
congruity of the plan, and is as objectionable as an oblique line would be on one of the 
principal sides of a building. The union of curved lines with straight ones in walks is 
not to be decried, if the preceding rule be observed. 
A straight avenue, as an approach to a house, is often a magnificent object, when the 
style of the building and the shape of the ground are suitable. The latter consideration 
is, perhaps, the more important of the two. If the house be on higher ground than the 
entrance gate, and the intermediate space be not undulated, an avenue will always be 
effective. But to pass down an avenue to the house, or over any swells or undulations, 
could not well be tolerated. The house or other object to which an avenue leads should 
always be seen throughout its entire length. An avenue, which is not terminated by 
something which indicates its intention, is justly liable to the ridicule which has generally 
been thrown on “ walks that lead to nothing.” The same remark applies likewise to all 
straight walks, which should be ended by some vase, or statue, or summer-house, where 
practicable, or by a plant or group of plants. In point of convenience, the straight avenue 
must be judged entirely by the nature of the locality in which it is applied. 
