HISTORICAL NOTICES. 
27 
As the modem style owes its origin mainly to the English, 
so it has also been developed and carried to its greatest per- 
fection in the British Islands. The law of primogeniture, 
which has there so long existed, in itself, contributes greatly 
to the continual improvement and embellishment of those 
vast landed estates, that remain perpetually in the hands 
of the same family. Magnificent buildings, added to by each 
succeeding generation, who often preserve also the older 
portions with the most scrupulous care ; wide spread parks, 
clothed with a thick velvet turf, which amid their moist 
atmosphere, preserves during great part of the year an eme- 
rald greenness — studded with noble oaks and other forest 
trees which number centuries of growth and maturity ; these 
advantages, in the hands of the most intelligent and the 
wealthiest aristocracy in the world, have indeed made, 
almost, an entire landscape garden of u merry England.” 
Among a multitude of splendid examples of these noble resi- 
dences, we will only refer the reader to the celebrated 
Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, where the 
lake alone (probably the largest piece of artificial water in 
the world) covers a surface of two hundred acres : Warwick 
Castle, a venerable pile, portions of which have been built 
a thousand years, standing on a hill from whence the eye, 
though ranging over a wide-spread landscape, only beholds 
the park and wooded demesne of one proprietor : and Woburn 
Abbey, the grounds of which are full of the choicest speci- 
mens of trees and plants, and where the park, like that of 
Ashbridge, Chatsworth, and several other private residences 
in England, is only embraced within a circumference of 
from ten, to twenty miles. 
»On the continent of Europe, though there are a multitude 
of examples of the modern style of landscape gardening, 
