50 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
nature, perhaps some gently undulating plain covered with 
emerald turf, partially or entirely encompassed by rich, roll- 
ing outlines of forest canopy, — its widest expanse here broken 
occasionally by noble groups of round-headed trees, or there 
interspersed with single specimens whose trunks support 
heads of foliage flowing in outline, or drooping in masses to 
the very turf beneath them. In such a scene we often be- 
hold the azure of heaven, and its silvery clouds, as well as 
the deep verdure of the luxuriant and shadowy branches, re- 
flected in the placid bosom of a sylvan lake ; the shores of 
the latter swelling out, and receding, in gently curved 
lines ; the banks, sometimes covered with soft turf sprinkled 
with flowers, and in other portions clothed with luxuriant 
masses of verdant shrubs. Here are all the elements of what 
is termed natural beauty, — or a landscape characterized by 
simple, easy, and flowing lines. 
For an example of the opposite character, let us take a stroll 
to the nearest woody glen in your neighbourhood — perhaps 
a romantic valley, half shut in on two or more sides by steep 
rocky banks, partially concealed and overhung by clustering 
vines, and tangled thickets of deep foliage. Against the sky 
outline breaks the wild and irregular form of some old, half 
decayed tree near by, or the horizontal and unique branches 
of the larch or the pine, with their strongly marked forms. 
Rough and irregular stems and trunks, rocks half covered 
with mosses and flowering plants, open glades of bright ver- 
dure opposed to dark masses of bold shadowy foliage, form 
prominent objects in the foreground. If water enlivens the 
scene, we shall hear the murmur of the noisy brook, or the 
cool dashing of the cascade, as it leaps over the rocky barrier. 
Let the stream turn the ancient and well worn wheel of the 
old mill in the middle ground, and we shall have an illus- 
