enriched with flowers and creeping plants. This passage is proposed to be extended to the hot-houses in the forcing garden, which is to form a centre, for a series of different gardens, under the following heads :— The terrace and parterre near the house. The private garden, only used by the family. The rosary, or dressed flower garden, in front of the greenhouse. The American garden, for plants of that country only. The Chinese garden, surrounding a pool in front of the great Chinese pavilion, to be decorated with plants from China. The botanic garden, for scientific classing of plants. The animated garden, or menagerie. And, lastly, the English garden, or shrubbery walk, connecting the whole; sometimes commanding views into each of these distinct objects, and sometimes into the park and distant country. The word Gardening misapplied.—By a strange perversion of terms, what is called modern, or English gardening, seldom includes the useful garden, and has changed the name of the ornamental garden into pleasure ground. But it is not the name only that has been changed; the character of a garden is now lost in that of the surrounding park, and it is only on the map that they can be distinguished; while an invisible fence marks the separation between the cheerful lawn fed by cattle, and the melancholy lawn kept by the roller and the scythe. Although these lawns are actually divided by a barrier as impassable as the ancient garden wall, yet they are apparently united in the same landscape, and, wrapt all o'er in everlasting green, Make one dull, vapid, smooth and tranquil scene." Similitude between House and Gardens.-The gardens, or pleasure-grounds, near a house, may be considered as so many different apartments belonging to its state, its comfort, and its pleasure. The magnificence of a house depends on the number as well as the size of its rooms; and the similitude between the house and the garden may be justly extended to the mode of decoration. A large lawn, like a large room, when unfurnished, displeases more than a small one. If only in part, or meanly furnished, we shall soon leave it with disgust; whether it be a room covered with the finest green baize, or a lawn kept with the most exquisite verdure, we look for carpets in one, and flowers in the other. If, in its unfurnished state, there chance to be a lookingglass without a frame, it can only reflect the bare walls; and thus a pool of water, without surrounding objects, reflects only the nakedness of the scene. This similitude might be extended to all the articles of furniture, for use or ornament, required in an apartment, comparing them with the seats, and buildings, and sculpture appropriate to a garden. Its application. Thus, the pleasure-ground at Woburn requires to be enriched and furnished like its palace, where good taste is everywhere conspicuous. It is not by the breadth or length of the walk, that greatness of character in garden scenery can ever be supported; it is rather by its diversity, and the succession of interesting objects. In this part of a great place we may venture to extract pleasure from variety, from contrast, and even from novelty, without endangering the character of greatness. Changes near the House.-In the middle of the last century, almost every mansion in the kingdom had its kitchen and fruitgardens, surrounded by walls, in the front of the house. To improve the landscape from the windows, Brown was obliged to remove these gardens; and not always being able to place them near the house, they were sometimes removed to a distance. This inconvenient part of his system has been most implicitly copied by his followers; although I observe that at Croome, and some other places where he found it practicable, he attached the kitchen garden to the offices and stables, &c. behind the mansion, surrounding it with a shrubbery; and, indeed, such an arrangement is the most natural and commodious. Kitchen Garden.-The intimate connexion between the kitchen and the garden, for its produce, and between the stables and the garden, for its manure, is so obvious, that every one must see the propriety of bringing them as nearly together as possible, consistent with the views from the house; yet we find in many large parks that the fruit and vegetables are brought from the distance of a mile, or more, with all the care and trouble of packing for much longer carriage; and the park is continually cut up by dung-carts passing from the stables to the distant gardens. Winter Garden.-To these considerations may be added, that the kitchen garden, even without hot-houses, is a different climate. There are many days in winter when a warm, dry, but secluded walk, under the shelter of a south wall, would be preferred to the most beautiful but exposed landscape; and in the spring, when "Reviving Nature seems again to breathe, As loosen'd from the cold embrace of death," on the south border of a walled garden some early flowers and vegetables may cheer the sight, although every plant is elsewhere pinched with the north-east winds peculiar to our climate in the months of March and April, when "Winter, still ling'ring on the verge of spring, Retires reluctant, and, from time to time, Looks back, while at his keen and chilling breath STILLINGFLEET. The Changes in Planting.-Straight Lines.-Quincunx.-Let us now trace the progress of change in the fashions of planting; by which I mean the various systems adopted at different periods for making trees artificial ornaments. first was, doubtless, that of planting them in a single row at equal distances, which prevailed in the garden mentioned by Pliny. The next step was that of doubling these straight rows, to form shady walks, or, adding more rows, to make so many parallel lines. But fashion, not content with the simplicity of such avenues of trees placed opposite to each other, invented the quincunx, by which these straight lines were multiplied in three different directions. As the eagerness for adopting this fashion could not always wait the tedious growth of trees, where old woods existed, they were cut through in straight lines and vistas, and in the forms of stars and pates d'oies which prevailed at the beginning of the last century. Regular Curves.-Fashion, tired of the dull uniformity of straight lines, was then driven to adopt something new; yet, still acting by geometric rules, it was changed to regular forms of circles and curves, in which the trees were always planted at equal distances. This introduced, also, the serpentine avenue for a road. Platoons.-The next bold effort of fashion was that of departing from the equidistant spaces; and trees were planted in patches or clumps (called, in some old maps, platoons): these were either square or round, alternately shewing and hiding the view on each side of the road; and where no view was required, a screen, or double row of trees, entirely shut up one side, while, on the other, the view was occasionally admitted, but still at regular intervals: this prevails in the drives at Woburn. Avenues ceased. I perfectly remember, when I was about ten years old, that my father (a man of such general observation, that no innovation or novelty escaped him) remarked to me the change which was then taking place in ornamental planting; and then, although little supposing how much it would become the future study of my life, I recollect his observing the discovery made by some ingenious planter (perhaps Kent or Brown), that the straight line might be preserved in appearance from the ends of a vista, or avenue, without actually filling up all the sides; and thus alternate openings of views to the country might be obtained, without losing the grandeur of the straight line, which was then deemed indispensable. He also observed, that, perhaps, this would lead to the abolishing of avenues; and I believe few were planted after that date, viz., the middle of the last century. Natural Planting.-About this time a total change in the fashion took place. It was asserted, that nature must be our only model, and that nature abhorred a straight line; it was not, therefore, to be wondered at, that Brown's illiterate followers should have copied the means he used, and not the model he proposed: they saw him prefer curved lines to straight ones; and hence proceeded those meandering, serpentine, and undulating lines in all their works, which were, unfortunately, confirmed by Hogarth's recommendation of his imaginary line of beauty. Thus we see roads sweeping round, to avoid the direct line, to their object, and fences fancifully taking a longer course; and even belts and plantations in useless curves, with a drive meandering in parallel lines, which are full as much out of nature as a straight one. Thus has fashion converted the belt or screen of plantation, introduced by Brown, into a drive quite as monotonous, and more tedious, than an avenue, or vista, because a curved line is always longer than a straight one. Brown's Belt.-Brown's belt consisted of a wood, through which a road might wind to various points of view, or scenery shewn under various circumstances of foreground; but the drive was only made among the trees, and under the shade of their branches. The modern Belt.-The last fashion of belt, which Brown never made, is an open drive, so wide, that it never goes near the trees, and which admits such a current of air, that the front trees are generally the worst in the plantation: add to this, that two narrow slips of planting will neither grow so well, nor be such effectual harbours for game, as deeper masses, especially when the game are liable to be disturbed by a drive betwixt them. The belt may be useful as a screen, but, unless very deep, it should never be used as a drive, at least till after the trees have acquired their growth, when a drive may be cut through the wood to advantage. Variety destroyed by its excess.—It is not only the line of the modern belt and drive that is objectionable, but also the manner in which the plantations are made, by the indiscriminate mixture of every kind of tree. In this system of planting all variety is destroyed by the excess of variety, whether it is adopted in belts or clumps, as they have been technically called; for example, if ten clumps be composed of ten different sorts of trees in each, they become so many things exactly similar; but if each clump consist of the same sort of trees, they become ten different things, of which one may hereafter furnish a group of oaks, another of elms, another of chestnuts, or of thorns, &c. In like manner, in the modern belt, the recurrence and monotony of the same mixture of trees, of all the different kinds, through a long drive, make it the more tedious, in proportion as it is long. |