July 2‘J. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
203 
£3 1 
l_sa 1 
JULY 29 -AUGUST 4, 1852. 
Weather near London in 1851. 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. Rain in In. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
It. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 1 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
29 Th 
Trailing St. John’s Wort flowers. 
29 . 790 — 29.768 
75—49 
s.w. 
03 
21 a. 4 
51 a. 7 
2 8 
12 
6 
8 
211 
30 F 
White Hellebore flowers. 
29.973 — 29.837 
75—55 
N.W. 
52 
23 
50 
3 11 
13 
6 
6 
212 
31 S 
Yellow Loosestrife flowers. 
30.000 — 29 . 8 S 6 
73—62 
S.W. 
01 
24 
43 
rises. 
© 
6 
3 
213 
1 Sun 
8 Sunday after Trinity. 
29.847 — 29.830 
78—62 
N.W. 
02 
26 
46 
8 a 56 
15 
6 
0 
214 
2 M 
Middle Flea-bane flowers. 
30.020 —29.989 
79—60 
S.W. 
— 
27 
45 
9 18 
16 
5 
56 
215 
a Tu 
Gad-Fly lays eggs on horses. 
30.066 — 30.033 
78—54 
S.W. 1 
— 
29 
43 
9 36 
17 
5 
51 
216 
! 4 W 
Musca mystacea seen. 
30.1/0 — 30.102 
81—57 
E. 
— 
30 
41 
9 54 
18 
5 
46 
217 
Meteorology oe tbe Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-five years, the average highest and lowest tempera¬ 
tures of these days are 7-1.8° and 51-7° respectively. The greatest heat, 92°, occurred on the 1st iu 1846 ; and the lowest cold, 42 : , on the 29th 
in 1828. During the period 89 days were fine, and on 86 rain fell. 
There arc some volumes which never weary the peruser, 
and which, whenever taken from the shelf to render profit- 
1 able a vacant hour, never fail to afford something that 
delights by its correctness of observation, its novelty of 
! application, or its mode of expression. Among these 
I volumes, are Essays on the Picturesque , by Sir Uvedale 
Price. This friend of Gilpin and Payne Knight, equals them 
I in his acute perception of all that is gratifying iu natural 
| objects, and surpasses them in the keenness with which he 
I satirizes and Hogs back to better conclusions, those who, 
under the name of “ landscape gardeners,” and “ im¬ 
provers,” flattened ami patched the face of nature. But 
though he wounds keenly, his cuts, like those of a surgeon, 
are given to restore to health. “ I have been told by some 
of my friends, that my play is sharp ; I believe it may be 
so ; but were I to endearouFto alter it, I could not play at 
all. 1 trust, however, that my friends will vouch for me, 
that whatever sharpness tliepe may be in my style, there is 
no rancour in my heart. On reading over what I have 
written, I could not but lament that there should bo any 
controversy between us. Controversy at best is but a rough 
game, and in some points not unlike the ancient tourna¬ 
ments ; where friends and acquaintance, merely for a tiial 
of skill, and love of victory, with all civility and courtesy 
tilted at each others breasts—tried to unhorse each other— 
grew more eager and animated—drew their swords—struck 
where the armour was weakest, and where the steel would 
bite to the quick—and all without animosity. As these 
doughty combatants of the days of yore, after many a hard 
blow given and received, met together in perfect cordiality 
at the famous round tables ; so I hope we often shall meet 
at the tables of our common friends. And as Ibey, for¬ 
getting the smarts of their mutual wounds, gaily discoursed 
of the charms of beauty, of feats of arms, of various stra¬ 
tagems of war, of the disposition of troops, the choice of 
ground, and ambuscades in woods and ravines—so we may 
talk of the many correspondent dispositions and stratagems 
iu your milder art; of its broken picturesque ravines, of the 
intricacies and concealments of woods and thickets, and of 
all its softer, and more generally attractive beauties.” 
The chief offender against good taste in the arrangement 
of extensive grounds against whom Sir Uvedale Price 
directed his shafts, was Mr. Lancelot Brown, and with what 
justice, may be estimated by turning to our memoir of that 
designer, at page 24!) of our fifth volume. So unvarying 
were his plans, that a gentleman once frustrated his 
vandal-like levellings, by drawing by anticipation a sketch 
of what Mr. Brown actually proposed. A smoothing of turf, 
a curving of water, a belt, and a few clumps of trees, were 
the invariable recommendations, and the satire was justly 
apparent, when a gentleman asked Brown, at the time high 
sheriff — “Why 7 do you not clump your scattered javelin 
men ? ” Such universal application of the same plan is 
justly censured by Sir Uvedale Price, and ho well illustrates 
it in this comparison :— 
“ In the art of medicine, after general principles are 
acquired, the judgment lies in the application ; and every 
case (as an eminent physician observed to me) must be 
considered as a special case. This holds precisely in im¬ 
proving, aud in both art the quacks are alike ; they have no 
principles, but only a few nostrums which they apply indis¬ 
criminately to all situations and all constitutions. Clumps 
and belts, pills and drops, are distributed with equal skill; 
the one plants the right, and clears tho left, as the other 
| bleeds the east and purges the west ward. The best improver 
: or physician is he who leaves most to nature, who watches 
and takes advantage of those indications which she points 
| out when left to exert her own powers, but which, when 
| once destroyed or suppressed by an enipyric of either kind, 
j present themselves no more." 
He was equally just in his condemnation of those, and 
Brown was of the number, who, sweeping away the terraces 
; and geometric gardens from the immediate vicinity of the 
; residence, brought the turf of the park into contact with its 
I very walls. This violent contrast is never agreeable, for 
“ where architecture, even of the simplest kind, is employed 
in the dwellings of man, art must be manifest; and all 
artificial objects may certainly admit, and in many instances 
require, the accompaniments of art; for to go at once from 
art, to simple unadorned nature, is too sudden a transition, 
and wants that sort of gradation and congruity, which, 
except in particular cases, is so necessary in all that is to 
please the eye and the mind. Many year's are elapsed since 
I was in Italy, but the impression which the gardens of 
some of the villas near Rome made upon me, is by no 
means effaced; though I could have wished to have renewed 
it, before I entered upon this subject. I remember the rich 
and magnificent effects of balustrades, fountains, marble 
basons, and statues, blocks of ancient ruins, with remains 
of sculpture, the whole mixed with pines and cypresses. 1 
remember also their effect, both as accompaniment to the 
architecture, and as a foreground to the distance.” 
Sir Uvedale Price adds :—“ I may perhaps have spoken 
more feelingly on this subject, from having done myself, 
what I so condemn in others—destroyed an old-fashioned 
garden. It was not indeed in tho high style of those I have 
described, but it had many of the same circumstances, and 
which had their effect. As I have long since perceived the 
advantage which I could have made of them, and how 
much I could have added to that effect; how well I could in 
parts have mixed the modern style, and have altered and 
concealed many of the stiff and glaring formalities, I have 
long regretted its destruction. I destroyed it, not from 
disliking it; on the contrary, it was a sacrifice I made 
against my own sensations, to the prevailing opinion. I 
doomed it and all its embellishments, with which I had 
formed such an early connection, to sudden and total de¬ 
struction ; probably much upon the same idea, as many a 
man of careless, unreflecting, unfeeling goodnature, thought 
it his duty to vote for demolishing towns, provinces, and 
their inhabitants, in America: like me (but how different 
the scale and the interest!) they chose to admit it as a 
principle, that whatever obstructed the prevailing system, 
must be all thrown down—all laid prostrate: no medium, 
no conciliatory methods tried, but that whatever might 
follow, destruction must precede.” 
Having shown that he considered that style of gardening 
close to a residence as the best which secured to it the in¬ 
dispensable comfort of a broad, dry -walk adjoining its walls; 
and that he detested the formal levelling and monotonous 
curving of the more distant grounds, let us lastly enquire 
what he considered should be aimed at hi the disposition of 
the park, and the answer is in one passage of his own— 
“ That great and universal source of pleasure— variety, 
whose power is independent of beauty, and without which 
even beauty itself soon ceases to please; and intricacy, a 
quality which, though distinct from variety, is so connected 
and blended with it, that tho one can hardly exist without 
No. CC., Vol. VIII. 
