48 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 
schools, or modes, by which it has previously been character- 
ized, is but to be groping about in a dim twilight, without 
the power of knowing, even should we be successful in our 
efforts, the real excellence of our production ; or of judging its 
merif, comparatively, as a work of taste and imagination. 
[Fig. 11.] The Geometric style, from an old print. 
The beauties elicited by the ancient style of gar- 
dening were those of regularity, symmetry, and the display 
of laboured art. These were attained in a merely me- 
chanical manner, and usually involved little or no theory. 
The geometrical form and lines of the buildings, were only 
extended and carried out, in the garden. In the best 
classical models, the art of the sculptor conferred dignity 
and elegance on the garden, by the fine forms of marble 
vases, and statues ; in the more intricate and laboured 
specimens of the Dutch school, prevalent in England in the 
time of William IY., (Fig. 11,) the results evince a fertility of 
