SUBURBAN GARDENS. 
3 
dimensions, the sole occupant of an extensive lawn standing in 
the centre; a pyramid of some thirty feet in height placed in a 
garden scarcely three times its length ; the main walk of a large 
garden so narrow that two persons can scarcely walk abreast on 
it, besides numberless others, that from their frequency we are 
led to regard as minor offences, and at last to overlook, as in the 
case of small plants in large beds, narrow edgings to wide walks, 
and their opposites. 
The next essential characteristic of a well-arranged garden, is 
“union of expression,” or, as it is familiarly expressed, the 
“ keeping.” In the narrow compass of a suburban garden, there 
is seldom room for more than one design, and that is usually 
comprehended in a single glance ; should there exist a want of 
harmony between it and surrounding objects, the error is im¬ 
mediately detected, and its keeping is defective ; some care is 
therefore necessary that we do not offend in this particular. 
If the general outline is so palpably evident, and the space so 
circumscribed that it cannot be excluded, we should rather en¬ 
deavour to preserve an union of expression between it and 
succeeding objects, than attempt any departure which must result 
in a glaring opposition ; thus, in the paralellogram before men¬ 
tioned, whose outline cannot be obscured, it will exhibit decidedly 
better taste to continue the same form in the adjoining border or 
path, than to break out into sinuosities before the intervention 
of some breadth of lawn has prepared us for the change. There 
are some who assert that, in strict keeping, the style of the garden 
should be of the same character as that of the house, as for 
instance, if the latter be Elizabethan, Gothic, or the more fanciful 
Swiss, so should the garden ; but there are reasonable objections 
to be urged against this, and its adoption would limit the range 
of taste to a mere rule and line affair ; we think the aspect of the 
occupants of a garden deserving of quite as much consideration 
as the style of architecture adopted in the erection of the resi¬ 
dence, and they will be found altogether so much opposed to 
straight lines, that the utmost concession we can make to an 
assimilation with matters of the sort, is the continuance of parallel 
forms till a sufficient distance is secured to introduce the more 
natural, and consequently graceful, curve. Attention to the 
effects of perfect keeping will go far to prevent the incongruous 
