426 
STATE HOETICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ing scenery. The majestic basaltic rocks of Eowly Eegis on 
one side, the dark and towering woods of Hagley park, (the 
seat of the famous Lyttletons) on the other, with the Clay 
hills and Malvern the monarch of midland shires in the dis¬ 
tance ; with a hundred sweet and beautiful vallies between. 
What grander picture frame could be desired for a poet’s paint¬ 
ing. And in that painting was to be found everything re¬ 
quisite to the beauty of a garden, regulated almost by scale, 
so strictly in harmony was every feature, both of nature and of 
art. 
How different is this, which was so perfectly natural, and 
therefore may be said to be -true art, from those other far more 
but less justly famed gardens of Chatsworth and Yersailles. 
These are almost purely artificial, independent creations—lo¬ 
cally regarded. You might plant them anywhere, especially 
Yersailles, and they would look almost as well. And in this, 
in my opinion, lies their failure. The gardens proper, of both 
of these world-attracting places are flats, and their chief at¬ 
tractions fine palatial buildings, with fountains wondrous and 
statuary most exquisite, with the one, and a modern flat 
building, with a magnificent conservatory, fountains and a 
waterfall and river, with the other. The same Dutch, stiff 
style of terrace gardening proper^ is followed in both places. 
As works of art, architecturally considered, they are indeed 
well calculated to challenge admiration. But as gardens, 
they neither appeal to the eye, the heart, nor the mind. Shen- 
stone’s garden, as Johnson says, was a poem complete, the cre¬ 
ation of a garden lover, of a sweet, true, cultivated country 
poet, while Yarsailles and Chatsworth, as I have trod them 
over, and see them even now, are as it Were the fruits of a 
palace builder’s dream, a Kubla Khan, if you will, a broken 
dream of art splendor, a poem grand and startling, but un¬ 
finished, unreal. 
Now the same principle that obtains in the Leasowes, or in 
large gardens, applies, though unequally, to our city lots, or 
small gardens. The difference lies in the size of the garden and 
the character of its surroundings. But does it follow because 
