172 
GARDENING IN CONNECTION WITH ARCHITECTURE. 
[Nature and Art, November 1, 18G6. 
Notre, is a fine example of its kind, but we need 
hardly say is now properly out of vogue. Among 
the more useful applications of water, the system 
practised in the gardens of the Generalife at 
Granada, is very good and pleasing. In that torrid 
climate of Andalusia, the plant and flower-beds are 
interwoven with small swift-running streams of 
water, in pebbled channels, which here and there 
are enlarged to form fountains. The effect of sound 
and sight as you look out from the lovely Moorish 
arcade of the palace is exquisite. Resembling in 
this respect the garden of Alcinous as given in 
Homer’s “Odyssey,” thus rendered in the Guardian, 
No. 173 
“ Two plenteous fountains the whole prospect crown’d ; 
This, through the gardens leads its streams around, 
Visits each plant, and waters all the ground : 
While that in pipes beneath the palace flows, 
And thence its current on the town bestows.” 
Floating islets of flowers may also well be placed 
in water, as we have seen in the river at Taunton, 
Somersetshire, where the effect is exceedingly 
pretty : — 
“ A little lawny islet 
With anemone and violet, 
Like mosaic paven.” 
As Shelley sings ; — or, better still are mounds of 
beautiful colour and sweet fragrance studding the 
calm surface of the water. Statues, vases, water', 
and flowers, form an exquisite combination; and, 
as regards water-plants, these also are not without 
their charm, but they require great care, and are 
often too dependent on a muddy bottom to be 
altogether desirable. As regards statues in a garden, 
we may learn from the experiments at South 
Kensington that bright gilding and dark bronze are 
equally unsuitable to our atmosphere — the first 
looks staring, the last looks dull. Marble, stone, 
and terra-cotta, are still the best ; whilst rustic 
figures and groups may well be cast in lead or com- 
mon metal, as seen in the gardens of the Pitti 
Palace at Florence, where they have always appeared 
to us to harmonize admirably with the foliage 
which ought to serve as a background or setting to 
them. Then, it is a great mistake to isolate large 
statues, as is commonly the practice of our modern 
garden-planners. If they are poor in point of 
art — and we do not expect the best in a garden — 
they are exposed over-much to notice, and if good, 
they seem to deserve some covering or protection 
from our rough climate. Statues in groups are pre- 
ferable also to single figures, and the best back- 
ground they can have is a well-clipped evergreen 
hedge, or palisade as it is technically called. As 
regards colossal statues, we do not care to see them : 
they may serve in a city, but in a garden they are 
out of place. The most extraordinary example of 
this kind is the “ Genius of the Apennines,” built 
up of brick and mortar, and cemented over, — with 
a staircase up his inside and a room in his head ; 
this figure, about GO ft. high, is monstrous strange, 
and should be a “ caution” as Americans say. No 
garden, we hold, is complete without a sun-dial, 
which may form quite a picturesque feature on the 
terrace, with steps, seats, and appropriate statuettes. 
Modern landscajxe gardeners approve of what they 
call “prospect towers” — such as are the Chinese 
pagodas at Kew and Alton Towers ; but we do not 
hold with them — they look too isolated and unmean- 
ing. A prospect tower, or belvedere, is better 
planned in combination with the main building, to 
which it forms an additional feature capable of very 
effective treatment. 
Out of vogue as it now is, we venture to say a 
few words in favour of the topiary art. We do 
not wish to see the evergreen pipes and punch- 
bowls already spoken of, nor those figures which 
worthy Gervase Markham describes in his “Way 
to get Wealth” as “being in the shape of men 
armed in the field and ready to give battle, and 
swift-running hounds to chase the deer or hunt the 
hare though it be true, as he observes, “that 
this kind of hunting shall not waste your corn, nor 
much your coyn.” Nor “ Adam and Eve in yew — ■ 
Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of 
knowledge in the great storm ; but Eve and the 
Serpent very flourishing,” as described in No. 173 
of the Guardian, to which the reader is referred 
for a very humorous satire on the ars tojriaria. 
But, as Bacon says, we “ do not like images cut 
out in juniper or other garden stuff’ ; they be for 
children. Little low hedges, round like welts, 
with some pretty pyramids, we like well.” Neatly- 
trimmed thickset hedges, the monotonous lines 
of which are, happily, relieved by a few such con- 
ventional figures in yew, cypress, etc., we look 
on with much pleasure ; there is an air also of 
orderliness and care about them which is not dis- 
pleasing : they should be sparingly used, we think, 
yet not altogether condemned. As regards flower- 
beds, it is still too much the custom to form them 
into patterns, and, although we have given up the 
“ embroidery parterres ” of our forefathers, we still 
err in making intricate designs with our flower-beds 
which are only ornamental on plan, and keep the 
flowers, in which we delight, away from sight and 
scent. Serpentine walks are also bad : far prefer- 
able, to our mind, are even the straightest of our 
old allees. Common sense should be studied in 
these matters ; and, where the nature of the ground 
requires or permits it, these winding paths are 
admirable ; but on a flat surface they seem made 
merely to make your way, from one point to another, 
as long and devious as possible. Moreover, in a 
small plot of ground, such meandering curves are 
positively painful to the eye, which finds no repose 
and is distracted by pathways which seem to lead 
one nowhere — in search of nothing. 
As to seats, which should be placed in all points 
where a good view is to be obtained, or restful 
retreat, — they should always be provided with 
backs. The seat itself may be of a hard, close wood, 
or of metal laths, but the ornamental portions are 
best in stone. Around them may be vases taste- 
fully disposed ; and thus with flowers sweet of scent 
and bright of hue, and the rippling sound of a 
stream hard by, each sense be gratified and the 
spirits soothed into blissful peace. 
