JULY. 
215 
garden are naturally and intimately associated, and it is a law of the 
universe that boundaries of each domain in the natural kinadom should 
insensiby mingle and be lost in each other, so it is plain that an 
unvitiated taste would be most gratified when the province of architec¬ 
ture is extended so as to embrace lightly and harmoniously such parts 
of the garden also, in these parts, rises in character to meet the require¬ 
ments of architecture, until either art is so refined and attenuated that 
it would be almost difficult to say what belongs exclusively to each. 
Still there is that about gardening which, in the nature of things, and 
apart from the difference of materials with which it has to deal, consti¬ 
tutes it a distinctive art. And garden architecture has lineaments of 
its own decidedly removed from those of house architecture, and so 
seldom studied, that the ordinary architectural practitioner is at sea the 
moment he enters the region of the garden. It is less a matter of rule 
and measurement. Its effects are more to be judged of by the eye. It 
comprehends a far greater variety of combinations. It requires a man 
to be as much an artist (at least in feeling) as an architect, and to be 
familiar with natural groupings and tones—to take an entire landscape 
in the range of his design, and not merely isolated or detached objects. 
In fact, the garden architect has to make a general picture, and not 
simply to set a work of art, as it were, on a .solitary pedestal. 
The province of garden architecture is, primarily, to supply fitting 
appendages and accompaniments to a house, so that the latter may not 
appear naked, alone, and unsupported. If judiciously applied, it will 
be effective in helping to produce a good outline or group ; to carry 
down the lines of the house to connect it with other buildings, such as 
a conservatory, arbour, &c.; to provide a proper basement for the 
house ; to afford shelter and privacy to a flower-garden; to extend the 
fa 9 ade or frontage of a house ; to shut out back yards, offices, &c.; to 
enrich, vary, and enliven the garden ; to supply conveniences, such as 
shelter, receptacles for birds, plants, sculpture, &c., with museums for 
works of art or specimens of natural history, and supports for climbing 
plants ; to indicate refinement, wealth, and a love of art; and otherwise 
to blend the two by communicating a more artistic tone to the garden. 
But in addition to expatiating upon the political and physical relations 
of gardening in landscape to mankind, it is not unusual for authors or 
editors, in order to excite, on the part of gardeners and the community 
in general, an increased interest in the cause of gardening in landscape, 
as well as to commend their own labours to public favour, to indulge in 
elaborate encomiums on the moral dignity of rural pursuits, and their 
adaptedness to ennoble the lives and characters of those who engage 
in them. Such encomiums are just, and in their proper place useful 
and gratifying. No reflective mind, however, whether that of a gardener 
or a tradesman, needs to be informed of the tendency of constant com¬ 
munication with the works and phenomena of nature to purify the 
thoughts, and thus exert a largely restraining influence upon the dark 
passions of the human soul. No man works more in the immediate 
presence of his Creator than the gardener. He sees Him not only “in 
the cool of the day,” but in every waking moment—in the purity and 
fragrance of the circumambient atmosphere—in the untamed grandeur 
