LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
333 
Italian gardens were crowded with objects of this kind ; statues, 
historical vases, commemorative urns and cenotaphs, costly fountains 
with their Naiads, and alcoves, were placed at the end, or at every turn 
of a walk, in every recess of a wood, or at every angle of a parterre. 
These ornaments, if well executed, so as to be admirable as specimens 
of art, were agreeable and suitable accompaniments to the richer kinds 
of evergreens, as orange and myrtle trees, and to the softer forms of 
cypress and cedar. Some of these objects were very appropriate ; but 
before the fashion fell into disrepute, many most ridiculous things were 
executed, and many ludicrous figures or characters represented by the 
statuary or the founder. A drunken beastly figure of Bacchus, or one 
of his votaries, vomiting water into a marble basin, was no very refined 
spectacle to behold; nor were naked figures of some of the deities of 
the heathen mythology fitting objects in countries often covered with 
snow, where the imaginations of the inhabitants were cooled down and 
subdued by a more rigid sense of decorum. 
Notwithstanding Italian gardening, with its molten or sculptured 
ornaments, has been long banished from this country, it is question¬ 
able, perhaps, whether we have not gone too far in this work of 
sweeping extirpation. There is, certainly, a description of sculptured 
or architectural ornaments, like the one we have just passed, which is 
admissible and particularly appropriate in park and garden scenery. A 
place like a garden, confessedly dedicated to pleasure, and for the grati¬ 
fication of the eye, where so many elegant forms and colours are combined, 
is surely receptive of accessories which would enhance the value of every 
vegetable form, of every hue, and of all its various fragrance; even the 
solitary sun-dial in the middle of a grass-plat or gravel-walk, is not 
only an ornament, but a silent monitor. 
This seems to have been the conviction of the able and talented 
designers of Stowe, Paine’s Hill, and some other celebrated places. In 
the former of these places, architectural and sculptured edifices have 
been lavishly bestowed; it is a perfect museum, in which botanical, 
historical, and much biographical information may be acquired, while 
enjoying views of the richest dispositions of land, wood, and water. 
At Stowe, such ornaments are perhaps in excess, though quite in 
consonance with the style and splendour of its princely palace and 
surrounding domain. 
It is but seldom that the style of Stowe can be imitated, but the 
principle is applicable to the smallest garden; and now that the most 
classical composition ornaments can be obtained, at a reasonable rate, it 
is to be expected that pleasure-grounds will once more be decorated 
with these beautiful specimens of art. 
