for, while I should condemn a long straight line of water in an open park, where everything else is natural, I should equally object to a meandering canal or walk, by the side of a long straight wall, where everything else is artificial.

A flower-garden should be an object detached and distinct from the general scenery of the place; and, whether large or small, whether varied or formal, it ought to be protected from hares and smaller animals by an inner fence: within this enclosure rare plants of every description should be encouraged, and a provision made of soil and aspect for every different class. Beds of bog-earth should be prepared for the American plants: the aquatic plants, some of which are peculiarly beautiful, should grow on the surface or near the edges of water. The numerous class of rock-plants should have beds of rugged stone provided for their reception, without the affectation of such stones being the natural production of the soil; but, above all, there should be poles or hoops for those kind of creeping plants which spontaneously form themselves into graceful festoons, when encouraged and supported by art.

Yet, with all these circumstances, the flower-garden, except where it is annexed to the house, should not be visible from the roads or general walks about the place. It may therefore be of a character totally different from the rest of the scenery, and its decorations should be as much those of art as of nature.

The flower-garden at NUNEHAM,* without being formal, is highly enriched, but not too much crowded with seats, temples, statues, vases, or other ornaments, which, being works of art, beautifully harmonize with that profusion of flowers and curious plants which distinguish the flower-garden from natural landscape, although the walks are not in straight lines.

But at VALLEY FIELD, where the flower-garden is in front

from the house, an approach has been made, which, for variety, interest, and picturesque scenery, may vie with anything of the kind in England; while it remains a specimen of the powers of landscape gardening, in that part of Scotland where the art had been introduced only by those imitators of Mr. Brown's manner, who had travelled into the north. His own improvements were confined to England."

• Earl Harcourt, although possessing great good taste, gives the whole merit of this garden to Mason the poet, as he does of his pleasure-grounds to Brown. Thus, superior to that narrow jealousy which would deny the just tribute of praise to the professor, his lordship is satisfied with having been the liberal friend and patron of merit.

of a long wall, the attempt to make the scene natural would be affected; and, therefore, as two great sources of interest in a place are variety and contrast, the only means by which these can be introduced are in this flower-garden, which, as a separate object, becomes a sort of episode to the general and magnificent scenery.

The river being everywhere else a lively stream, rattling and foaming over a shallow bed of rock or gravel, a greater contrast will arise from a smooth expanse of water in the flower-garden: to produce this must be a work of art, and, therefore, instead of leading an open channel from the river to supply it, or making it appear a natural branch of that river, I recommend that the water should pass underground, with regulating sluices or shuttles to keep it always at the same height. Thus the canal will be totally detached from the river, and become a distinct object, forming the leading feature of the scene to which it belongs; a scene purely artificial, where a serpentine canal would be as incongruous as a serpentine garden wall, or a serpentine bridge; and, strange as it may appear, I have seen such absurdities introduced, to avoid nature's supposed abhorrence of a straight line.

The banks of this canal, or fish-pond, may be enriched with borders of curious flowers, and a light fence of green laths will serve to train such as require support, while it gives to the whole an air of neatness and careful attention.

But, as the ends of this water should also be marked by some building, or covered seat, I have supposed the entrance to the flower-garden to be under a covered passage of hoops, on which may be trained various sorts of creeping plants; and the farther end may be decorated by an architectural building, which I suppose to consist of a covered seat between two aviaries.

It will perhaps be objected, that a long straight walk can have little variety; but the greatest source of variety in a flower-garden is derived from the selection and diversity of its shrubs and flowers.

There is no ornament of a flower-garden more appropriate than a conservatory, or a green-house, where the flower-garden

is not too far from the house; but, amongst the refinements of modern luxury may be reckoned that of attaching a greenhouse to some room in the mansion, a fashion with which I have so often been required to comply, that it may not be improper, in this work, to make ample mention of the various methods by which it has been effected in different places.

At Bowood, at WIMPOLE, at BULSTRODE, at ATTINGHAM, at DYRHAM PARK, at CAENWOOD, at THORESBY, and some other large houses of the last century, green-houses were added, to conceal offices behind them, and they either became a wing of the house, or were in the same style of architecture: but these were all built at a period when only orange-trees and myrtles, or a very few other green-house plants were introduced, and no light was required in the roof of such buildings. In many of them, indeed, the piers between each window are as large as the windows.

Since that period, the numerous tribe of geraniums, ericas, and other exotic plants, requiring more light, have caused a very material alteration in the construction of the greenhouse; and, perhaps, the more it resembles the shape of a nurseryman's stove, the better it will be adapted to the purposes of a modern green-house.

Yet such an appendage, however it may increase its interior comfort, will never add to the external ornament of a house of regular architecture: it is therefore generally more advisable to make the green-house in the flower-garden, as near as possible to, without forming a part of, the mansion; and in these situations great advantage may be taken of treillage ornaments to admit light, whilst it disguises the ugly shape of a slanting roof of glass.

There is one very material objection to a green-house immediately attached to a room constantly inhabited, viz. that the smell and damp from a large body of earth in the beds, or pots, is often more powerful than the fragrance of the plants; therefore the conservatory should always be separated from the house, by a lobby, or small anti-room. But the greatest objection arises from its want of conformity to the neighbouring mansion, since it is difficult to make the glass roof of a conservatory architectural, whether Grecian or Gothic.

An arcade is ill adapted to the purpose, because, by the

form of an arch, the light is excluded at the top, where it is most essential in a green-house; for this reason, the flat Gothic arch of Henry the Eighth is less objectionable, yet in such buildings we must suppose the roof to have been taken away to make room for glass; of this kind is the conservatory in front of RENDLESHAM HOUSE.

In the adaptation of ancient forms to modern uses and inventions, we are often under the necessity of deviating from the rules of true Gothic. Under such circumstances it is perhaps better to apply old expedients to new uses, than to invent a new and absurd style of Gothic or Grecian architecture. At PLAS-NEWYD, where the house partakes of a Gothic character, I suggested the addition of a green-house, terminating a magnificent enfilade through a long line of principal apartments. The hint for this model is taken from the chapter-rooms to some of our cathedrals, where an octagon roof is supported by a slender pillar in the middle, and if this were made of cast-iron, supporting the ribs of a roof of the same material, there would be no great impropriety in filling the interstices with glass, while the side window-frames might be

removed entirely in summer, making a beautiful pavilion at that season, when, the plants being removed, a green-house is

generally a deserted and unsightly object. The effect of this building by moonlight is shewn in the foregoing sketch [fig. 79]; and there are many summer evenings when such a pavilion would add new interest to the magnificent scenery of water and mountains with which PLAS-NEWYD everywhere abounds.

In a conversation I had the satisfaction to enjoy with the late Earl of Orford, at Strawberry Hill, he shewed me the gradual progress of his knowledge in Gothic architecture, by various specimens in that house, in which he had copied the forms of mouldings without always attending to the scale or comparative proportion; and his lordship's candour pointed out to me the errors he had at first committed. This error, in the imitators of Gothic, often arises from their not considering the difference of the materials with which they work: if, in the mullions of a window, or the ribs of a ceiling, they copy, in wood or plaster, ornaments originally of stone, they must preserve the same massive proportions that were necessary in that material, or they must paint it like wood, and not like stone: but if the architects of former times had known the use we now make of cast-iron, we should have seen many beautiful effects of lightness in their works; and surely in ours, we may be allowed to introduce this new material for buildings, in the same manner that we may fairly suppose they would have done, had the invention been known in their time: but wherever cast-iron is used in the construction, it ought to be acknowledged as a support, either by gilding, or bronze, or any expedient that may shew it to be metal, and not wood or stone, otherwise it will appear unequal to its office.