THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 29. 
264 
the other. According to the idea I have formed of it, 
intricacy in landscape might be defined, that disposition of 
objects which, by a partial and uncertain concealment, 
excites and nourishes curiosity. Variety can hardly require 
a definition, though, from the practice of many layers-out of 
ground, one might suppose it did. Upon the whole, it 
appears to me, that as intricacy in the disposition, and 
variety in the forms, the tints, and the lights and shadows 
of objects, are the great characteristics of picturesque 
scenery ; so monotony and baldness are the greatest defects 
of improved places.” 
One of the principal modes of teaching the improvers of 
grounds justly to appreciate picturesque combinations, Sir 
Uvedale Price insisted was studying the pictures of the best 
landscape painters, and he did not overrate his success, 
when in the preface to the work of his old age, he re¬ 
marked :—“ In my Essays on the picturesque, I endeavoured 
to show that our English system of laying-out grounds is at 
variance with all the principles of landscape painting, and 
with the practice of all the most eminent masters. I rather 
flatter myself, that since the publication of the Essays, 
fewer distinct clumps have been planted, and fewer clumps 
of trees made as clump-like as their originally varied 
character would allow of.”* 
Sir Uvedahr Price was descended from the Ap Rhys clan 
of Wales, and was bom at the family mansion, “that far- 
famed seat of dignified and benevolent retirement,” Eoxley, 
in Herefordshire. The date of his birth was 1747, and it 
was gracefully said of him, when he died at the age of four¬ 
score and two, in the September of 1829—“ His learning, 
his sagacity, his exquisite taste, his indefatigable ardour 
would have raised to eminence a man much less con¬ 
spicuous by his station in life, by his correspondence with 
the principal litterati of Europe, and by the attraction and 
polish of his conversation and manners. Possessing his 
admirable faculties to so venerable an age, we must deplore 
that a gentleman who conferred such honour on our 
country is removed from that learned retirement in which 
he delighted, and from that enchanting scene which, in 
every sense, he so greatly adorned.” 
In these pages we must not dwell upon his translation of 
Pausanias, and other works, but we will add, that no man 
more deserved the Baronetage conferred upon him, in 1829, 
and that no one was a better qualified member of the com¬ 
mittee for inspecting models for our public monuments. 
Among those public monuments, we think he must have in¬ 
cluded our villages, at all events, we are sure they deserve 
to be such evidences of our national blessings, and they 
would be beautiful ones, if this, his suggestion, was 
adopted •— 
“ Village-houses generally afford many warm aspects and 
sheltered situations, where the less hardy climbers will 
flourish, and of course a still greater number of more ex¬ 
posed walls and projections, against which those that are 
perfectly hardy may be placed : and from the irregular 
shape of many of the houses, there are various divisions and 
compartments of various sizes and heights, by means of 
which a collector of climbing plants might arrange them, 
according to their different degrees of hardiness and luxu- 
riancy; so that while he was indulging his favourite passion, 
* Essay on the Modern Pronunciation of the Greek and Latin Lan¬ 
guages. 1827. 
he would be adding the most engaging ornaments, to the 
most pleasing of all rural scenes. In all climbing plants, 
there is so much beauty arising either from their flowers, 
their foliage, or from their loose and flexible manner of 
growing, that no arrangement could well prevent them from 
giving pleasure to the lover of painting, as well as to every 
spectator : for the detail would be in a high degree interest¬ 
ing, whether the plants were considered in a botanical light, 
as detached flourishing specimens; or in a picturesque light, 
as exhibiting a variety of new combinations of form and 
colour: the different vegetable tints being sometimes 
blended with the rich mellow hues of old stone or wood¬ 
work ; sometimes with the neatness of the fresh colours of 
new work. Sometimes, too, the more light and delicate 
leaves and brilliant flowers would appear alone ; at other 
times mixed and twined with large broad leaves : either 
jagged and deeply indented, such as the Vine; or entire as 
those of the Aristolochia. 
“ Though I have particularly dwelt upon the beauty of 
climbing plants, I do not mean that no others ought to be 
made use of in such situations as I have described. "Where 
there are brick houses in villages, we sometimes see fruit- 
trees against them, while honeysuckles or jasmines are 
trained over the porch or the trellis before the door. This 
mixture of utility with ornament, of that which is nailed 
close to the wall, with what hangs loosely over a projection, 
forms a pleasing variety; indeed, fruit-trees, which in every 
situation give the chearfullest ideas, are peculiarly adapted 
to villages ; for as they exhibit both in spring and autumn 
a striking image of fertility, they are the properest, and, 
indeed, the most usual accompaniments to habitation. Con¬ 
sidered, likewise, in another point of view, they are seldom 
seen to such advantage in other situations: the effect of 
blossoms, however gay and cheerful, is often, in painters’ 
language, spotty and glaring; but I have frequently observed, 
that when they were seen near stone buildings or houses of 
a light colour, the whole (to use the same language) was 
upon the same scale of colouring, and produced a highly 
brilliant, but harmonious picture. Should the taste of im¬ 
provers be toned towards the embellishment of villages, a 
variety of such standard fruit-trees might be introduced, as 
are remarkable in their different kinds, not only for their 
goodness, but for the beauty of their blossoms and fruit. 
“ It might not perhaps be expected that a lover of paint¬ 
ing and of picturesque circumstances, should speak of trees 
nailed close to a wall, and still less of clipped hedges, as 
objects that are pleasing to the eye : it is certain, however, 
that both of them do give pleasure, though upon a totally 
different principle from a tree in its untouched luxuriant 
state, bending with the weight of its fruit; or from a neg¬ 
lected hedge with trees and bushes of various heights, and 
overgrown with ivy and woodbine. The fact is, that neatness 
and regularity are so connected with the habitation of man, 
that they almost always please on a small scale, and where 
that connection is immediate : especially when they are con¬ 
trasted with what is wild and luxuriant, without being 
slovenly. A hedge that has been so carefully and regularly 
trained and sheared as to be of equal thickness from top to 
bottom, gives pleasure also, from its answering so perfectly 
the end for which it was designed: on the other hand, where 
there is a wall, climbing plants may be allowed to spread 
over it in all their luxuriancy; for they adorn, without 
injuring it as a fence." 
On a former occasion we expressed as our conviction 
that the establishment of the Crystal Palace at Syden¬ 
ham, surrounded by its own gardens and park, and 
conducted, as it is proposed, so as to render it accessible 
at all times and to all people, is one of the most 
important steps taken during the present century for 
the improvement of our national horticulture. Since 
we so expressed ourselves we have had an opportunity 
to examine more into the details of this magnificent 
design, and we have risen from the examination still 
more deeply impressed by its true grandeur. We are 
too apt to lavish praise upon the useless beautiful, but 
whilst we admit that all that is beauteous deserves our 
admiration, yet always do we feel that it is only where 
utility is combined with the pleasing that we are justi¬ 
fied in sounding the trumpet to summon general and 
special approval. That combination, in the fullest and 
most entire relationship, is to be found in the Crystal 
Palace, as now designed to be established; and we feel 
that we must fail in impressing upon our readers, by 
