2RfiL*&v5 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Landscape Architecture Library GIFT OF Frederick Law Olmsted the Younger Knickerbocker Iftuggets SET" A diminutive mass of precious metal 32 VOLS. NOW READY For full list see end of this volume THE GARDEN CONSIDERED IN LITER A TURE BY CERTAIN POLITE WRITERS WITH A CRITICAL ESS A Y BY WALTER HOWE NEW YORK AND LONDON G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Ube Tknfcfeerbocfeer press COPYRIGHT, 1890 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS c GIFT ){ : Ube Tknfcfcerbocfcer press, Ifcew J^orfe Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by G. P. Putnam's Sons CONTENTS INTRODUCTION LANDSCAPE ARCH, t LIBRARY PAGE I THE THE PLEASURES OF THE GARDEN PUNY THE: YOUNGER. VILLA IVAURENTINA . VILLA IN TUSCULUM . 39 48 I^ORD BACON. OF GARDENS 61 SIR WILLIAM UPON THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS ; OR, OP GARDENING IN THE YEAR 1685 . . 71 THE SPECTATOR. JOSEPH ADDISON POPE OR DR. PARNELL JOSEPH ADDISON 133 139 . 148 THE GUARDIAN. ALEXANDER POPE 155 M852187 Contents JvADY MARY WORTI^Y MONTAGUE. BETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF BUTE . . .163 THOMAS WHATEXY. OBSERVATIONS ON MODERN GARDENING . .175 OUVEJR GOLDSMITH. DESCRIPTION OF A CHINESE GARDEN . . .216 THE HISTORY OF A POET'S GARDEN . .221 HORACE WAI,POI,E. BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF WILLIAM KENT . 228 THE HISTORY OF THE MODERN TASTE IN GAR- DENING ......... 236 JOHN OF FENCES AND QUICKSETS ..... 282 INTRODUCTION. TO all who are fond of gardens and garden- ing, and who take a certain pleasure in enjoying nature, when treated by man as a work of art, the following essays and selections from some of the masters of ancient and mod- ern letters are offered in a form where they may be conveniently read and enjoyed. Some are old friends, others are less familiar, and one or two may be quite unknown to most readers of this generation. Some passages have been introduced partly for that gratification which elegant writing in prose or verse always excites, although they may not add greatly to the store of garden lore. Certain worthy and instructive produc- tions, devoted strictly to this theme, have been Ifntrofcuctton excluded for an obvious dulness, from which the undoubted scholarship of their authors could not redeem them. No contemporary writings have been inserted, nor indeed any written within this century, though most of the masters of English prose during this period have sung the praises of the garden. Wordsworth, Scott, Rogers, Mitford, Shelley, Ruskin might all be cited. Bvery one must re- call Leigh Hunt's delightful plea for window gardening, now so common in England, possibly as a result of that appeal ; and Charles Lamb's account of the "Temple " gardens in his essay on the " Old Benchers" ; while no reader of Disraeli can forget the sumptuous descriptions of the parks and gardens provided for his heroes and heroines in " Contarini Fleming," "Henrietta Temple," "Lothair," and the rest of those dreamy romances. Although many such passages seemed to have a claim to admission to this little collec- tion, it was thought best to keep to the earlier writers, whose pages at all events may claim that esteem which may be due to their anti- Untrofcuctfon quity, as the " Gentle Isaak " so naively says of his milkmaid's songs : " They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good. I think much better than that now in fashion in this critical age." When our contemporaries shall be ancient enough to have acquired this classical flavor,, the collector of garden literature will find a rich store in this generation, and among his choicest selections he will doubtless preserve that delightful little book of the late Mrs. Ewing, "Mary's Meadow, and Letters from a Little Garden." But whatever may be said of what is not contained herein, it is hoped that what is may be found to be " choicely good." Here we may tread the stately alleys and classic shades of the " Villa Lauren tina " with the younger Pliny, or enjoy the more splendid though less costly creation of Lord Bacon's im- agination, with its squares on squares, parterres, and mysterious labyrinths, glowing with flowers, and rich with the luscious fruits which he so bountifully provides for every month in the year. Ifntrofcuction The Essays of Walpole and Sir William Temple have been placed side and side, partly by reason of their charm and intrinsic value, and partly because they may be regarded as representative arguments for the natural and the artificial schools of treatment respectively. From the well rounded paragraphs of Sir Wil- liam, the reader can turn directly to Walpole' s withering review of their doctrines in a paper upon which, for grace and brilliancy, his repu- tation might be rested. The other selections need no special refer- ence, but all are interesting as a mark of the claim that the art of gardening has asserted over minds of such various types. The paper of Walpole " On Modern Garden- ing," and the creations of Kent, to which it refers, may be said to mark an era in the his- tory of landscape art, and the influence of this scholarly essay is yet seen, impressed upon the features of many an English park and garden. The revival of classical architecture under the Stuarts and the advent of William and Mary with their train of Dutch courtiers had con- fntrofcuctkm tinued and developed that artificial school of planting which, first introduced in England as early as the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury, reached its highest expression in the Dutch garden, or, as it is now more commonly termed, the " Italian garden." This style of treatment was not unsuited to the straight lines and formal fafades of Inigo Jones, Sir John Vanbrugh, and Sir Christopher Wren, and within proper limits may even now be justified, under strict canons of artistic propriety, in serving, as it does, to break and gradually to soften the outlines of the mansion, and to form a connection with the irregular and unstudied forms of meadow and forest beyond. In France as well, the dominance of the courts of Louis Fourteenth and lyouis Fifteenth, with their life of fashion and frivolity, had im- pressed their tone upon the domestic life of the nobility and gentry. The feudal castle had given place to the classic villa and tem- ple, and Mansard and L,e Notre had erected palaces and established parks, which were later to be the model and the despair of every IFntrofcuctton German prince and baron, and are still admired for their noble proportions and refined details. The owners of these stately chateaus, how- ever, found their love of nature easily gratified in an afternoon promenade on a broad stone terrace, over whose carved balustrade they could lazily survey the artifices of these mas- ters or their less skilful imitators. Under the influence of this classicism, men and women of fashion enjoyed such surround- ings rather because they set themselves off to advantage, as they and their guests posed be- fore each other like the beauties and gallants of Watteau. They carried the silks and satins of the salon into the bowers and alleys of the garden, and it was fitting that they should pro- vide themselves with a background to har- monize with their gowns and habits, while their newly built temples and villas were dis- played to full advantage. A somewhat differ- ent explanation by H. A. Tame of the motive shown in these gardens is so interesting in itself, that the reader will pardon its quotation at length in this place. Ifntrofcuction "Nothing has interested me more in these Roman villas than their former masters. As naturalists are aware, one obtains a pretty good idea of an animal from his shell. " The place where I began to comprehend him is the Villa Albani, erected in the eighteenth century for Cardinal Alexander Albani, and ac- cording to his own plans. What you at once detect here is the grand seigneur courtier after the fashion of our nobles of the seventeenth cen- tury. There are differences, but the two tastes are kindred. What they prize above all things is art and artistic order ; nothing is left to na- ture ; all is artificial. Water flows only in jets and in sprays, and has no other bed but basins and urns. Grass-plots are enclosed within enormous box-hedges higher than a man's head and thick as walls, and are shaped in geo- metric triangles, the points of which terminate in a centre. In front stretches a dense palisade lined with small cypresses. You ascend from one garden to another by broad stone steps similar to those at Versailles. Flower beds are enclosed in little frames of box and form de- 8 irntroDuctton signs resembling well-bordered carpets, regu- larly variegated with shades of color. "This villa is a fragment, the fossil skeleton of an organism that lived two hundred years, its chief pleasure being conversation, fine dis- play, and the manners of the salon and the ante-chamber. Man was not then interested in animate objects ; he did not recognize in them a spirit and beauty of their own ; he regarded them simply as an appendix to his own exist- ence ; they served as a background to the pic- ture, and a vague one, of less than accessory importance. "His attention was wholly absorbed by the picture itself that is to say, by its human drama and intrigue. In order to divert some portion of attention to trees, water, and landscape, it was necessary to humanize them, to deprive them of their natural forms and tendencies, of their savage aspect, of a disorderly desert air, and to endow them as much as possible with the air of a salon or a colonnade gallery, or a grand palatial court. The landscapes of Poussin and Claude L,orraine all bear this imprint. ffntrofcucttott They are architectural constructions the scenery is painted for courtiers who wished to re-instate the court in their own domain. "It is curious in this aspect to compare the island of Calypso in Homer with that of Pension. In Homer we have a veritable island, wild and rocky, where sea-birds build their nests and screech ; in Fene*lon, a sort of Marly, ' arranged to please the eye.' Thus do the English gardens as now imported by us indicate the advent of another race, the reign of another taste and literature, the ascendency of another mind, more comprehensive, more solitary, more easily fatigued, and more devoted to the world with- in."* The Petit Trianon was a slight protest against the sumptuous splendor of the Oran- gerie, "The Grand Canal," the basins of I^a- tona and of Neptune, and the superb Tapis Vert, with its bordering groves of tortured trees and shrubs. That its unhappy mistress should have called this secluded retreat her * H. A. Taine, "Italy, Rome, and Naples." Transla- tion of Durand. to Ifntrofcuction "English garden" is a singular indication of the rapid spread of the ideas of Kent ; and, al- though Jussieu, who as early as 1745 had set out many of the trees, and Antoine Richard, the queen's gardener, may not have read the enthu- siastic pages of Walpole, they were clearly in- fluenced by what they well understood to be the English taste in gardening and landscape art. The time was then hardly ripe for a general reaction against the excesses of the artificialists, but the little dairy and farm-yard, the wild growths and simple farm-yard of Marie An- toinette's retreat, mark the real beginning, on the Continent at least, of that freer and broader treatment of nature which is now regarded as the underlying principle of the art. The alternation between the artificial and the natural schools represented by the " Italian garden " dn one hand, and the " English gar- den," or, as it is sometimes called in many a charming English park, the " American gar- den," is based upon fundamental and ever- existing differences in taste which are recur- ring in other domains of art, as in the varying fnttofcuctfon fashions concerning painting, music, and the drama. One generation admires strength and breadth ; the next loves delicate finish and nice execution. At one time nothing can be too realistic for the critics of the day ; and again some master-mind will make a nation of idealists. It would be in- teresting, if this introduction were the proper place, in following out this comparison, to see how far these corresponding tastes in the several arts agreed or differed at designated periods, that is, whether a change in taste as to painting was coincident with a similar change or reaction in music and the drama. That there is some interdependence in this aspect among the sev- eral arts is doubtless true ; it certainly is true as between the closely allied arts of architecture and landscape art. Mr. Hamerton has recently stated, with his usual precision, in a paper on " JE^sthetics, " from which the following extract is made, a philosophic reason for these changes which may well be applied to a review of the art now under discussion. He says : 12 1Tntrot>ucttcm " An element which enters for very much into our aesthetic appreciation of persons and things is the simple liking or disliking for the marks of human interference. "Many minds are so constituted that it is a positive pleasure to them to see that human ef- fort has been expended upon any thing, and a sort of negative pain to perceive that there has been no such human operation. This is quite independent of any conception of beauty ; and yet it is constantly confounded with ideas of beauty, because few people take the trouble to analyze the causes of their feelings. 11 Since the rebellion against the artificialism of the eighteenth century, the rebellion headed by Rousseau and a host of writers and painters down to our own times, there have been two distinct parties, which may be called the natural- ists and the artificialists, and even in the quiet intercourse of private life, where there is not any very eager partisanship on either side, we may still distinguish the people who in a more active state of controversy would have belonged to one party or the other." Untrofcuctton 13 The application of this general observation to landscape art, or to that branch of it which has recently been well styled " landscape horti- culture," is quite obvious, and with this analy- sis of the causes of such differences in taste it is easy to see how the natural system, after having received such an impetus under Kent and Wai- pole, should have almost entirely given place to its rival for very many years, and almost to this very day. The mistake should not be made, however, by the adherents of one school of art of utterly con- demning the other. However commonplace this caution may appear as to music, or, as Mr. Hamerton applies it, to painting, it is really most true and necessary when applied to the treatment of nature herself. There are elements of truth in the ideas of both schools which in- telligent amateurs and professional men should cherish and utilize whenever and wherever cir- cumstances will permit. It is true that the refinements and frivolities of the Dutch and Italian gardeners led to the inevitable reaction to simpler methods, to a 14 UntroDuctfon more sincere and conscientious pursuit of nature and her ways ; but no one who has en- joyed the charm of the villas about Rome and Florence when at their best can deny that a certain formality, an obvious artifice, lends a grace to the gardens appurtenant to these noble palaces. The straight terraces of the Villa Pamfili Doria, the delightful walks bordered with azalea and camellia, the surrounding groves of pines, firs, and sombre cypresses form an artis- tic whole, which should relieve Le Notre from the oblivion to which Walpole consigned him for his miserable failure with St. James' Park. Bel Respirio the Romans call this lovely spot where the refinement of the artificial foreground gives the highest artistic value to the distant Campagna, with its fringe of purple hills. The Florentine villas retain their ancient gardens embellished with statues and the tri- umphs of topiarian skill, and are not out of harmony with the scene, but the modern Florentine has sought fresh fields, green pas- tures, and wild woods by the banks of the Arno, ffntrofcuctfon 15 and finds in the shady walks and drives of the Casein e that relief from the noise and dust of the town which a park constructed according to the ideas of our day can bring even within the bounds of a city. A hundred years since, the Giardino Jiusti captivated Lady Mary Montague, and any traveller to Verona who will now take the pains to climb its steep paths will find the same charm in the aged cypresses, ihe oddly clipped ilexes and boxes, the stiff terraces and narrow and now overgrown beds. They are the same old cypresses, shading the same old broken-nosed Roman busts and statues that Lady Mary saw ; but now more mouldy and weedy and ancient with an added century of neglect. Yet an old-time flavor of art and of gentility asserts itself, and from under their sombre shadows the splendid pano- rama of the Alps, the valleys of the Adige and the Mincio, the bloody Quadrilateral with its towns of Verona, Peschiera, and Mantua, lay spread out before the eye, too beautiful for de- scription. In such a scene this Italian garden 16 fntro&uction was rightly set, and justifies the old proverb, " All is fine that is fit." Yet while Lady Mary could frankly enjoy the art displayed in this ancient retreat, she could sing : " Give me, Great God, said I, a little farm, In summer shady, and in winter warm, Where a clear spring gives birth to murmuring brooks By nature gliding down the mossy rocks, Not artfully, by leaden pipes conveyed, Or greatly falling in a forced cascade Pure and unsullied, winding through the shade. All bounteous Heaven has added to my prayer A softer climate and a purer air." Modern gardening our contemporary art, not that of Kent, does not indeed disdain the use of all materials suitable to produce an artistic effect, though the present drift is un- doubtedly with the ' ' naturalists. " It is at the present time that this school has asserted itself in its greatest vigor and fulness, and as now practised it is indeed an art, demanding not merely refined taste, sound judgment, and a real love of nature, but thorough training ancj cultivation. ffntrofcuction 17 Though greatly indebted to Kent in its begin- nings, many others have contributed to the de- velopment of landscape gardening, and while he must always receive consideration for origi- nality and for positive accomplishment, it would be a mistake to attach too much importance to his influence upon the art. In the century or more that has elapsed since Walpole's essay was written public taste has changed, and changed again. Indeed, the very year before that paper was prepared and nearly fifteen years before it was first published at Strawberry Hill, there appeared anonymously an important work on the subject ; particularly important, since it was almost the very first treatise professedly on landscape art. This was Thomas Whately's " Observations on Modern Gardening," which was published in 1770, and though now but little read, is rec- ognized as an authority. For the reason that it forms one of the landmarks in the literature of the subject, the selections for the present volume have been made at some length ; but they might easily have been expanded, as i8 ITntrofcuction every page of the little book is readable and instructive. William Shenstone, who died in 1763, also wrote on the subject, and somewhat from the standpoint of Kent, his "Unconnected Thoughts on the Garden," published in 1764, being fre- quently mentioned. Reference may also be made to "An Kssay on Design in Gardening," by G. Mason, published in 1795, and to various other tracts and papers of about the same time, pertaining to what is termed the school of Kent. The parks and enclosures treated under this style were marked by simplicity, and the ab- sence of pagodas, temples, columns, and other architectural tricks and devices. "The house rose abruptly from the lawn and the general sur- face of the ground was characterized by smooth- ness and bareness," as London describes it. This manner was followed by the romantic or "picturesque" style, to which the Gothic re- vival of the time contributed not a little, as the radical change in architecture required a differ- ent treatment of surroundings. The French Revolution destroyed the temple and grotto, Untro&uctfon 19 and they gave way to mediaeval castle and chapel, and to their broken fronts, mullioned windows, pinnacles, and turrets, pines, spruces, and cedars of Lebanon readily lent themselves in producing a rugged effect. Doubtless the romances of Scott had much to do with the growth of this taste, though the general tenden- cy of art and literature at the beginning of the century was strongly romantic and sentimental. But, whatever the causes, and they were many and complex, a reaction began about this time against the simple treatment of Kent and Whately, and among the writers who led the discussions were the Reverend William Gilpin and Sir Uvedale Price. The delightful work of the former "On Picturesque Beauty," though in part published in 1782, was many years before the public, going through several editions. This work, in eight volumes, consisted mainly in an account of the author's tours in every part of Great Britain, with a running commentary on the nat- ural scenery and the most important country- seats on the way, with constant analysis of their 20 IfntroDuction beauties or defects. As stated in the volume on the River Wye : " The following work pro- poses a new object of pursuit, that of examin- ing the face of a country by the rules of pic- turesque beauty" A fair illustration of his method of criticism may be found in the following extract written about Chepstow: "It is a pity the ingenious embellisher of these scenes could not have been satisfied with the beauties of nature which he commanded. The shrubberies he has intro- duced in this part of his improvements, I fear, will rather be esteemed paltry. As the embel- lishments of a house, or as the ornament of little scenes, which have nothing better to recom- mend them, a few flowering shrubs artfully composed may have their elegance and beauty, but in scenes like this they are only splendid patches which injure the grandeur and sim- plicity of the whole. ' Fortasse cupressum. Scis simulare : quod hoc ? . . . Sit quidvis simplex duntaxat et unum. ' It is not the shrub which offends, it is the ffntro&uction 21 formal introduction of it. Wild undergrowth may be an appendage of the grandest scene. It is a beautiful appendage. A bed of violets or lilies may enamel the ground, with propriety, at the root of an oak ; but if you introduce them artificially in a border, you introduce a trifling formality, and disgrace the noble object you wish to adorn." Gilpin's extensive journey ings had made him so familiar with broad landscape effects, and par- ticularly with the rough beauties of Scotland and the north of England, that he naturally applied his canons of criticism, as deduced from the elements of their beauty to the improvement of many spots not at all adapted to such treatment. Perhaps, too, the very contrast of these wild mountainous scenes to the gentle slopes and open groves of the New Forest, where he lived many years as the Vicar of Boldre, may have warped his opinion. At all events he and Uve- dale Price were for the time the champions of that freer treatment of a landscape which had for its object the production of a natural and picturesque effect. 22 Ifntrofcuctton About the same time there was another whose writings had even greater influence, as they were of a more strictly professional character, and consequently reached directly the men whose business it was to direct the improve- ment of estates. This was Humphrey Rep ton, who in 1794 addressed a communication to Uve- dale Price entitled "An Inquiry into the Change of Taste in Landscape Gardening, ' ' being a dis- cussion of the general principles involved, to- gether with some practical observations. The following year a more important work was pub- lished by him entitled " Sketches and Hints in Landscape Gardening." These and other writings of Repton had much to do with the change of popular taste from the extremes of the picturesque school, modifying that style to what I/oudon calls " Repton's " or the " Gardenesque " school, "the characteris- tic feature of which is the display of the beauty of trees and other plants INDIVIDUALLY." It would be interesting to follow the varying fashions in gardening down to to-day, and to give some account of the progress of the art in (introduction 23 this country, where we have had not a few men of taste and attainments who have left their mark on our parks and country-seats, one of whom, Mr. A. J. Downing, has been recently worthily and happily honored by the city of Newburgh in naming her principal park after him. But this introduction is not the place for more than a glance at the progress of the art. It is enough here to say that the landscape gardener of to-day, while to an extent the re- sultant of all these antecedent conditions, is nevertheless far beyond his predecessors in attainments and also in opportunities. He and his art have profited by the strides of science far more than the artistic productions of his predecessors have suffered. Railways, factories, smoke and poisonous gases have blighted many a fair landscape carefully set and adorned ; but agricultural chemistry, structural and biologi- cal botany, better knowledge of forestry and climatology, enable the gardener of to-day to overcome difficulties which were anciently at- tributed to malign or providential interventions. The old books are filled with the accounts 24 Ifntro&uctton of such mysteries. Even Evelyn, who wrote so intelligently, abounds in fairy stories, like that of the well in Hungary, which " transmutes the leaves of the oak into brass, and iron into cop- per," or, as he naively says in another place : 1 'But what is still more strange, I read in one Paulus, a physician of Denmark, that a handful or two of small oak buttons, mingled with oats, and given to horses which are black, alter their color to a fine dapple gray, and this he attrib- utes to the vitriol abounding in this tree." The ends of the earth now contribute a wealth of plant life adapted to useful and orna- mental tree and shrub culture and to decorative horticulture. Their habits and relative value in a landscape effect, or in a garden, must be familiarly known and felt by an artist who may be called upon to make studies for a lodge in Scotland, a villa at Cannes, or a park in Aus- tralia ; who may be required to bring back the primitive verdure to the banks of Niagara, to preserve the natural beauties of the Rockies, or to plant the Plains with the forests they can and should be made to support. The rich flora of ffntrofcuctton 25 China and Japan have now been acclimated in Europe, and even more successfully in Amer- ica, and the enormous number and variety of trees, shrubs, herbaceous and other plants now added to the resources of gardening call for correspondingly greater learning and training than has ever before been given to the subject, so that an accomplished landscape-artist of to-day is as far beyond the Kents and Le Notres of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as they were beyond the topiarius who tortured the trees and shrubs of Pliny and the Caesars. Two qualities which usually distinguish pro- fessional from amateur productions in art, namely, simplicity and breadth of treatment, are especially important when applied to the face of nature itself. True, nature will in course of time protect herself from the mis- guided assaults of well meaning amateurs, by covering up or wholly destroying their abortive creations. A trained artist, on the other hand, knows how to assist nature, without resorting too bluntly to the easy device of servile imita- tion. In such work, particularly as now taught 26 ITntrofcuctfort and practised, there is produced an impression of repose and of well balanced composition that is suggestive of natural effect, and yet satis- factory as a work of art. But the gardens most enjoyed, and most com- monly praised by writers past and present who have avowed their fondness for gardens, are not these elaborate works of art, nor are they of great extent ; but rather have they been the village door-yard, tastefully planted, or the parsonage garden, showing the marks of judicious selection and tender care, giving a homely and cheerful aspect to such spots, in contrast with the dreary and bare surroundings of their neighbors. It is precisely to such little plots that modern gardening is best adapted. Varying with soil, exposure, and climate, the greatest freedom of choice is possible as to the effect to be pro- duced, and abundance of flowers can be had almost the year through if conditions are intel- ligently considered. Village door-yards and city windows are rich fields for the display of good gardening unfortunately but too little improved in this country. Indeed its neglect llntroDuctton 27 here is remarkable as compared with the number and beauty of such small gardens in England, Holland, Germany, and other parts of Europe, very frequently the result of labor at odd times of poor people whose days are spent in the factory or the shop. For those who own land the great pity is it, that they will not merely refrain from growing flowers, but they will plant no trees. If they care not for flowers, perhaps it may not be worth while to argue with them, but as to trees the case is different. Most land-owners, with the honorable exception of some of our prairie farmers, are wholly in- different to the duty which they owe to their neighborhood and to their children. For them must Old Gerard have written his sturdy invoca- tion, as quoted by Evelyn with much approval : " But forward in the name of God : graff, set, plant, and nourish up trees in every corner of your ground ; the labor is small, the cost is noth- ing, the commodity is great; yourselves shall have plenty, the poor shall have somewhat in time of want to relieve their necessity, and God shall reward your good merits and diligence." THE GARDEN THE GARDEN. PLINY THE BLDBR. THE PLEASURES OF THE GARDEN. IT now remains for us to return to the cultiva- tion of the garden, a subject recommended by its own intrinsic merits to our notice : for we find that in remote antiquity, even, there was nothing looked upon with a greater degree of admiration than the gardens of the Hesperi- des, those of the Kings Adonis and Alcinous, and the Hanging Gardens, whether they were the work of Semiramis, or whether of Cyrus, King of Assyria, a subject of which we shall have to speak in another work. The kings of Rome cultivated their gardens with their own 32 ftbe <3ar>en hands ; indeed, it was from his garden that Tar- quinius Superbus sent to his son that cruel and sanguinary message of his. In our laws of the Twelve Tables, we find the word "villa," or "farm," nowhere mentioned; it is the word "hortus " that is always used with that signifi- cation, while the term "heredium" we find employed for " garden." There are certain religious impressions, too, that have been attached to this species of prop- erty, and we find that it is in the garden and the Forum only that statues of satyrs are conse- crated, as a protection against the evil effects of spells and sorcery ; although in Plautus, we find the gardens spoken of as being under the tute- lage of Venus. At the present day, under the general name of gardens, we have pleasure- grounds situate in the very heart of the city, as well as extensive fields and villas. Epicurus, that connoisseur in the enjoyments of a life of ease, was the first to lay out a garden at Athens ; up to his time it had never been thought of, to dwell in the country in the middle of the town. At Rome, on the other hand, the garden constituted of itself the poor man's field, and it was from the garden that the lower classes procured their daily food an ali- ment how guiltlessly obtained ! But still, it is a great deal better, no doubt, to dive into the tbe )l&er 33 abysses of the deep, and to seek each kind of oyster at the risk and peril of shipwreck ; to go searching for birds beyond the river Phasis even, which, protected as they are by the ter- rors invented by fable, are only rendered all the more precious thereby ; to go searching for others, again, in Numidia, and the very sepul- chres of Ethiopia, or else to be battling with wild beasts, and to get eaten one's self while trying to take a prey which another person is to eat ! And yet, by Hercules ! how little do the productions of the garden cost us in comparison with these ! How more than sufficient for every wish and for every want ! were it not, indeed, that here, as in every thing else, turn which way we will, we find the same grounds for our wrath and indignation. We really might be content to allow of fruits being grown of the most excellent quality, remarkable, some of them for their flavor, some for their size, some, again, for the monstrosities of their growth morsels all of them forbidden to the poor ! We might allow of wines being kept till they are mellowed with age, or enfeebled by being passed through cloth strainers ; of men, too, however prolonged their lives, never drink- ing any but a wine that is still older than them- selves ! We might allow of luxury devising how best to extract the very aroma, as it were, and 34 Gbe <3ar&en marrow only from grain ; of people, too, living upon nothing but the choicest productions of the confectioner, and upon pastes fashioned in fantastic shapes : of one kind of bread being prepared for the rich, and another for the mul- titude ; of the yearly produce of the field being classified in a descending scale, till it reaches the humble means of the very lowest classes, but do we not find that these refined distinctions have been extended to the very herbs even, and that riches have contrived to establish points of dissimilarity in articles of food which ordinarily sell for a single copper coin? In this department, even, humble as it is, we are still destined to find certain productions that are denied to the community at large, and the very cabbages pampered to such an enormous extent that the poor man's table is not large enough to hold them. Asparagus, by Nature, was intended to grow wild, so that each might gather it where he pleased but, lo and behold ! we find it in the highest state of cultivation, and Ravenna produces heads that weigh as much as three pounds even ! Alas for the monstrous excess of gluttony ! It would be surprising in- deed, for the beasts of the field to be forbidden the thistle for food, and yet it is a thing forbid- den to the lower classes of the community ! These refined distinctions, too, are extended to tbe BR>er 35 the very water even, and, thanks to the mighty influence of money, there are lines of demarka- tion drawn in the very elements themselves. Some persons are for drinking ice, others for quaffing snow, and thus is the curse of the mountain steep turned into an appetizing stim- ulus for the palate ! Cold is carefully treasured up for the summer heats, and man's invention is now racked how best to keep snow freezing in months that are not its own. Some again there are who first boil the water, and then bring it down to the temperature of winter ; indeed, there is nothing that pleases man in the fashion in which Nature originally made it. And is it the fact, then, that any herb of the garden is reared only for the rich man's table ? It is so but still let no one of the angered populace think of a fresh secession to Mount Sacer or Mount Aventine ; for to a certainty, in the long run, all-powerful money will bring them back to just the same position as they were when it wrought the severance. For, by Hercules! there was not an impost levied at Rome more grievous than the market-dues, an impost that aroused the indignation of the populace, who repeatedly appealed with loud clamors to all the chief men of the state to be relieved from it. At last they were relieved from this heavy tax upon their wares ; and then 36 tTbe <3arfcen it was found that there was no tax more lucra- tive, more readily collected, or less obnoxious to the caprices of chance, than the impost that was levied in exchange for it, in the shape of a property-tax, extended to the poorest classes ; for now the very soil itself is their surety that paid the tax will be, their means are patent to the light of day, and the superficial extent of their possessions, whatever the weather may chance to be, always remains the same. Cato, we find, speaks in highest praise of gar- den cabbages ; indeed, it was according to their respective methods of garden cultivation that the agriculturists of early times were ap- preciated, and it was immediately concluded that it was a sign of a woman being a bad and careless manager of her family, when the kitchen-garden for this was looked upon as the woman's department more particularly was negligently cultivated ; as in such case her only resource was, of course, the shambles or the herb-market. But cabbages were not held in such high esteem in those days as now ; in- deed, all dishes were held in disrepute which required something else to help them down, the great object being to economize oil as much as possible ; and as to the flesh-market, so much as a wish even to taste its wares was visited with censure and reproach. The chief thing tbe J&lbet 37 that made them so fond of the garden was the fact that its produce needs no fire and ensures econ- omy in fuel, and that it offers resources which are always ready at hand. These articles of food, which from their peculiar nature we call "vinegar-diets," were found to be easy of di- gestion, by no means apt to blunt and overload the senses, and to create but little craving for bread as an accompaniment. A portion of them which is still used by us for seasonings, attests that our forefathers used only to look at home for their resources, and that no Indian peppers were in request with them, or any of those other condiments which we are in the habit of seeking beyond the seas. In former times the lower classes of Rome, with their mimic gardens in their windows, day after day presented the reflex of the country to the eye, when as yet the multitudes of atrocious burglaries, almost innu- merable, had not compelled us to shut out all such sights with bars to the passers-by. Let the garden, then, have its due meed of honor, and let not things, because they are common, enjoy for that the less share of our consideration and the more so, as we find that from it men of the very highest rank have been content to borrow their surnames even ; thus in the Valerian family, for instance, the Lactucini have not thought themselves disgraced by tak- ttbe (Sarfcetl ing their name from the lettuce. Perhaps, too, our labors and research may contribute some slight recommendation to this our subject ; al- though, with Virgil, we are ready to admit how difficult it is, by language however elevated, to ennoble a subject that is so humble in itself. PLINY THE YOUNGER. I^AUREN^INA. YOU are surprised that I am so fond of my Laurentine, or (if you prefer the name) my L,aurens ; but you will cease to wonder when I acquaint you with the beauty of the villa, the advantages of its situation, and the extensive view of the sea-coast. It is only seventeen miles from Rome ; so that when I have finished my business in town, I can pass my evenings here after a good satisfactory day's work. There are two different roads to it ; if you go by that of Laurentum, you must turn off at the fourteenth mile-stone ; if by Ostia, at the eleventh. Both of them are sandy in places, which makes it a little heavier and longer by carriage, but short and easy on horseback. The landscape affords plenty of variety, the view in some places being closed in by woods, in others 40 OTbe (Barren extending over broad meadows, where numer- ous flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, which the severity of the winter has driven from the mountains, fatten in the spring warmth, and on the rich pasturage. My villa is of a conven- ient size without being expensive to keep up. The courtyard in front is plain, but not mean, through which you enter porticos shaped into the form of the letter D, enclosing a small but cheerful area between. These make a capital retreat for bad weather, not only as they are shut in with windows, but particularly as they are sheltered by a projection of the roof. From the middle of these porticos you pass into a bright pleasant inner court, and out of that into a handsome hall running out towards the sea- shore ; so that when there is a southwest breeze, it is gently washed with the waves, which spend themselves at its base. On every side of this hall there are either folding-doors or windows equally large, by which means you have a view from the front and the two sides of three differ- ent seas, as it were : from the back you see the middle court, the portico, and the area ; and from another point you look through the porti- co into the courtyard, and out upon the woods and distant mountains beyond. On the left hand of this hall, a little farther from the sea, lies a large drawing-room, and beyond that, a second tbe H>oun0er 41 of a smaller size, which has one window to the rising and another to the setting sun : this as well has a view of the sea, but more distant and agreeable. The angle formed by the projection of the dining-room with this drawing-room re- tains and intensifies the warmth of the sun, and this forms our winter quarters 'and family gym- nasium, which is sheltered from all the winds except those which bring on clouds, but the clear sky conies out again before the warmth has gone out of the place. Adjoining this angle is a room forming the segment of a circle, the windows of which are so arranged as to get the sun all through the day : in the walls are contrived a sort of cases, containing a collec- tion of authors who can never be read too often. Next to this is a bedroom, connected with it by a raised passage furnished with pipes, which supply, at a wholesome temperature, and distribute to all parts of this room, the heat they receive. The rest of this side of the house is appropriated to the use of my slaves and freedmen ; but most of the rooms in it are respectable enough to put my guests into. In the opposite wing is a most elegant, tastefully fitted up bedroom ; next to which lies another, which you may call either a large bedroom or a modified dining-room ; it is very warm and light, not only from the direct rays of the sun 42 ttbe (Barfcett but by their reflection from the sea. Beyond this is a bedroom -with an ante-room, the height of which renders it cool in summer, its thick walls warm in winter, for it is sheltered, every way, from the winds. To this apartment an- other ante-room is joined by one common wall. From thence you enter into the wide and spacious cooling-room belonging to the bath, from the opposite walls of which two curved basins are thrown out, so to speak ; which are more than large enough if you consider that the sea is close at hand. Adjacent to this is the anointing-room, then the sweating-room, and beyond that the bath-heating room ; adjoin- ing are two other little bath-rooms, elegantly rather than sumptuously fitted up ; annexed to them is a warm bath of wonderful construc- tion, in which one can swim and take a view of the sea at the same time. Not far from this stands the tennis-court, which lies open to the warmth of the afternoon sun. From thence you go up a sort of turret which has two rooms below, with the same number above, besides a dining- room commanding a very extensive lookout on to the sea, the coast, and the beautiful villas scattered along the shore line. At the other end is a second turret, containing a room that gets the rising and setting sun. Behind this is a large store-room and granary, and underneath, tbe H?oun0t 43 a spacious dining-room, where only the murmur and break of the sea can be heard even in a storm ; it looks out upon the garden, and the gestatio running round the garden. The gestatio is bordered round with box, and, where that is decayed, with rosemary ; for the box, wherever sheltered by the buildings, grows plentifully, but where it lies open and exposed to the weather and spray from the sea, though at some distance from this latter, it quite withers up. Next the gestatio, and running along inside it, is a shady vine-plantation, the path of which is so soft and easy to the tread that you may walk barefoot upon it. The garden is chiefly planted with fig and mulberry trees, to which this soil is as favorable as it is averse from all others. Here is a dining-room, which, though it stands away from the sea, enjoys the garden view, which is just as pleasant ; two apartments run around the back part of it, the windows of which look out upon the entrance of the villa, and into a fine kitchen-garden. From here extends an enclosed portico, which, from its great length, you might take for a public one. It has a range of windows on either side, but more on the side facing the sea, and fewer on the garden side, and these single win- dows alternate with the opposite rows. In calm, clear weather these are all thrown open ; 44 but if it blows, those on the weather-side are closed, whilst those away from the wind can remain open without any inconvenience. Before this enclosed portico lies a terrace fra- grant with the scent of violets, and warmed by the reflection of the sun from the portico, which, while it retains the rays, keeps away the northeast wind ; and it is as warm on this side as it is cool on the side opposite ; in the same way it is a protection against the wind from the southwest ; and thus, in short, by means of its several sides, breaks the force of the winds from whatever quarter they may blow. These are some of its winter advantages : they are still more appreciable in the summer time ; for at that season it throws a shade upon the terrace during the whole of the forenoon, and upon the adjoining portion of the gestatio and garden in the afternoon, casting a greater or less shade on this side or on that as the day increases or decreases. But the portico itself is coolest just at the time when the sun is at its hottest that is, when the rays fall directly upon the roof. Also, by opening the windows you let in the western breezes in a free current, which prevents the place getting oppressive with close and stagnant air. At the upper end of the terrace and portico stands a detached garden building, which I call my favorite ; tbe ItJounger 45 my favorite indeed, as I put it up myself. It contains a very warm winter-room, one side of which looks down upon the terrace, while the other has a view of the sea, and both lie exposed to the sun. The bedroom opens on to the covered portico by means of folding-doors, while its window looks out upon the sea. On that side next the sea, and facing the middle wall, is formed a very elegant little recess, which, by means of transparent windows and a curtain drawn to or aside, can be made part of the adjoining room, or separated from it. It contains a couch and two chairs ; as you lie upon this couch, from where your feet are you get a peep of the sea ; looking behind you see the neighboring villas, and from the head you have a view of the woods. These three views may be seen either separately, from so many different windows, or blended together in one. Adjoining this is a bedroom, which neither the servants' voices, the murmuring of the sea, the glare of lightning, nor daylight itself, can pene- trate, unless you open the windows. This pro- found tranquillity and seclusion are occasioned by a passage separating the wall of this room from that of the garden, and thus, by means of this intervening space, every noise is drowned. Annexed to this is a tiny stove-room, which, by opening or shutting a little aperture, lets out 46 Gbe (Sarfcen or retains the heat from underneath, according as you require. Beyond this lie a bedroom and ante-room, which enjoy the sun, though obliquely indeed, from the time it rises till the afternoon. When I retire to this garden sum- mer-house, I fancy myself a hundred miles away from my villa, and take especial pleasure in it at the feast of the Saturnalia, when, by the license of that festive season, every other part of my house resounds with my servants' mirth ; thus I neither interrupt their amusement nor they my studies. Amongst the pleasures and conveniences of this situation there is one drawback, and that is, the want of running water ; but then there are wells about the place, or rather springs, for they lie close to the sur- face. And, altogether, the quality of this coast is remarkable ; for dig where you may, you meet, upon the first turning up of the ground, with a spring of water, quite pure, not in the least salt, although so near the sea. The neighboring woods supply us with all the fuel we require, the other necessaries Ostia furnishes. Indeed, to a moderate man, even the village (between which and my house there is only one villa) would supply all ordinary requirements. It has three public baths, which are a great convenience if it happen that friends come in unexpectedly, or make too short a stay to allow tbe younger 47 time for preparing tny own. The whole coast is very pleasantly sprinkled with villas either in rows or detached, which, whether looking at them from the sea or the shore, present the ap- pearance of so many different cities. The strand is, sometimes, after a long calm, perfectly smooth, though, in general, through the storms driving the waves upon it, it is rough and uneven. I cannot boast that our sea is plenti- ful in choice fish ; however, it supplies us with capital soles and prawns ; but as to other kinds of provisions, my villa aspires to excel even in- land countries, particularly in milk ; for the cattle come up there from the meadows in large numbers in pursuit of water and shade. Tell me, now, have I not good reason for living in, staying in, loving, such a retreat, which, if you feel no appetite for, you must be morbidly at- tached to town ? And I only wish you would feel inclined to come down to it, that to so many charms with which my little villa abounds, it might have the very considerable addition of your company to recommend it. Farewell! To GAU,US. PLINY THE YOUNGER. VHJ,A IN TUSCUUJM. THE kind concern you expressed on hearing of my design to pass the summer at my villa in Tuscany, and your obliging endeavors to dissuade me from going to a place which you think unhealthy, are extremely pleasing to me. It is quite true indeed that the air of that part of Tuscany which lies towards the coast is thick and unwholesome : but my house stands at a good distance from the sea, under one of the Apennines, which are singularly healthy. But, to relieve you from all anxiety on my account, I will give you a description of the temperature of the climate, the situation of the country, and the beauty of my villa, which, I am persuaded, you will hear with as much pleasure as I shall take in giving it. The air in winter is sharp and frosty, so that myrtles, (Ming tbe ^oun^er 49 olives, and trees of that kind which delight in constant warmth, will not flourish here, but the laurel thrives, and is remarkably beautiful, though now and then the cold kills it though not oftener than it does in the neighborhood of Rome. The summers are extraordinarily mild, and there is always a refreshing breeze, seldom high winds. This accounts for the number of old men we have about ; you would see grand- fathers and great-grandfathers of those now grown up to be young men, hear old stories and the dialect of our ancestors, and fancy yourself born in some former age were you to come here. The character of the country is exceedingly beautiful. Picture to yourself an immense amphitheatre, such as nature only could create. Before you lies a broad, extended plain, bounded by a range of mountains, whose summits are covered with tall and ancient woods, which are stocked with all kinds of game. The descending slopes of the mountains are planted with underwood, among which are a number of little risings with a rich soil, on which hardly a stone is to be found. In fruit- fulness they are quite equal to a valley, and though their harvest is rather later, their crops are just as good. At the foot of these, on the mountain-side, the eye, wherever it turns, runs along one unbroken stretch of vineyards termi- 50 tlbc Garden nated by a belt of shrubs. Next you have meadows and the open plain. The arable land is so stiff that it is necessary to go over it nine times with the biggest oxen and the strongest ploughs. The meadows are bright with flowers, and produce trefoil and other kinds of herbage as fine and tender as if it were but just sprung up, for all the soil is refreshed by never failing streams. But though there is plenty of water, there are no marshes ; for the ground being on a slope, whatever water it receives without absorbing runs off into the Tiber. This river, which winds through the middle of the mead- ows, is navigable only in the winter and spring, at which seasons it transports the produce of the land to Rome : but in summer it sinks below its banks, leaving the name of a great river to an almost empty channel ; towards the autumn, however, it begins again to renew its claim to that title. You would be charmed by taking a view of this country from the top of one of our neighboring mountains, and would fancy that not a real, but some imaginary land- scape, painted by the most exquisite pencil, lay before you, such an harmonious variety of beautiful objects meets the eye, whichever way it turns. My house, although at the foot of a hill, commands as good a view as if it stood on its brow, yet you approach by so gentle and tbe lounger 51 gradual a rise that you find yourself on high ground without perceiving you have been making an ascent. Behind, but at a great dis- tance, is the Apennine range. In the calmest days we get cool breezes from that quarter, not sharp and cutting at all, being spent and broken by the long distance they have travelled. The greater part of the house has a southern aspect, and seems to invite the afternoon sun in sum- mer (but rather earlier in the winter) into a broad and proportionately long portico, consist- ing of several rooms, particularly a court of antique fashion. In front of the portico is a sort of terrace, edged with box and shrubs cut into different shapes. You descend from the terrace by an easy slope, adorned with the figures of animals in box, facing each other, to a lawn overspread with the soft, I had almost said the liquid, Acanthus ; this is surrounded by a walk enclosed with evergreens, shaped into a variety of forms. Beyond it is the gesta- tio, laid out in the form of a circus running round the multiform box-hedge and the dwarf- trees, which are cut quite close. The whole is fenced in with a wall completely covered by box cut into steps all the way up to the top. On the outside of the wall lies a meadow that owes as many beauties to nature as all I have been describing within does to art ; at the end 52 Gbe (Barfcen of which are open plain and numerous other meadows and copses. From the extremity of the portico a large dining-room runs out, open- ing upon one end of the terrace ; while from the windows there is a very extensive view over the meadows up into the country, and from these you also see the terrace and the project- ing wing of the house together with the woods enclosing the adjacent hippodrome. Almost opposite the centre of the portico, and rather to the back, stands a summer-house, enclosing a small area shaded by four plane-trees, in the midst of which rises a marble fountain which gently plays upon the roots of the plane-trees and upon the grass-plots underneath them. This summer-house has a bedroom in it free from every sort of noise, and which the light itself cannot penetrate, together with a common dining-room I use when I have none but inti- mate friends with me. A second portico looks upon this little area, and has the same view as the other I have just been describing. There is, besides, another room, which, being situate close to the nearest plane-tree, enjoys a con- stant shade and green. Its sides are encrusted with carved marble up to the ceiling, while above the marble a foliage is painted with birds among the branches, which has an effect alto- gether as agreeable as that of the carving, at tbe ^ounaet 53 the foot of which a little fountain, playing through several small pipes into a vase it encloses, produces a most pleasing murmur. From a corner of the portico you enter a very large bedchamber opposite the large dining- room, which from some of its windows has a view of the terrace, and from others, of the meadow, as those in the front look upon a cas- cade, which entertains at once both the eye and the ear ; for the water, dashing from a great height, foams over the marble basin which receives it below. This room is extremely warm in winter, lying much exposed to the sun, and on a cloudy day the heat of an adjoining stove very well supplies his absence. Leaving this room, you pass through a good-sized, pleas- ant undressing-room into the cold-bath-room, in which is a large gloomy bath ; but if you are inclined to swim more at large, or in warmer water, in the middle of the area stands a wide basin for that purpose, and near it a reservoir from which you may be supplied with cold water to brace yourself again, if you should find you are too much relaxed by the warm. Adjoining the cold bath is one of a medium de- gree of heat, which enjoys the kindly warmth of the sun, but not so intensely as the hot bath, which projects farther. This last consists of three several compartments, each of different 54 ttbe (5ar6en degrees of heat ; the two former lie open to the full sun, the latter, though not much exposed to its heat, receives an equal share of its light. Over the undressing-room is the tennis-court, which admits of different kinds of games and different sets of players. Not far from the baths is the staircase leading to the enclosed portico, three rooms intervening. One of these looks out upon the little area with the four plane- trees round it, the other upon the meadows, and from the third you have a view of several vineyards, so that each has a different one, and looks towards a different point of the heavens. At the upper end of the enclosed portico, and indeed taken off from it, is a room that looks out upon the hippodrome, the vineyards, and the mountains ; adjoining is a room which has a full exposure to the sun, especially in winter, and out of which runs another connecting the hippodrome with the house. This forms the front. On the side rises an enclosed portico, which not only looks out upon the vineyards, but seems almost to touch them. From the middle of this portico you enter a dining-room cooled by the wholesome breezes from the Apen- nine valleys : from the windows behind, which are extremely large, there is a close view of the vineyards, and from the folding-doors through the summer portico. Along that side of the tbe Mounter 55 dining-room where there are no windows runs a private staircase for greater convenience in serving up when I give an entertainment ; at the farther end is a sleeping-room with a look- out upon the vineyards, and (what is equally agreeable) the portico. Underneath this room is an enclosed portico resembling a grotto, which, enjoying in the midst of summer heats its own natural coolness, neither admits nor wants external air. After you have passed both these porticos, at the end of the dining- room stands a third, which, according as the day is more or less advanced, serves either for winter or summer use. It leads to two different apartments, one containing four chambers, the other, three, which enjoy by turns both sun and shade. This arrangement of the different parts of my house is exceedingly pleasant, though it is not to be compared with the beauty of the hippodrome, lying entirely open in the middle of the grounds, so that the eye, upon your first entrance, takes it in entire in one view. It is set round with plane-trees covered with ivy, so that, while their tops flourish with their own green, towards the roots their verdure is borrowed from the ivy that twines round the trunk and branches, spreads from tree to tree, and connects them together. Between each plane-tree are planted box-trees, and behind 56 Sbc <3arfcen these stands a grove of laurels which blend their shade with that of the planes. This straight boundary to the hippodrome alters its shape at the farther end, bending into a semi- circle, which is planted round, shut in with cypresses, and casts a deeper and gloomier shade, while the inner circular walks (for there are several), enjoying an open exposure, are filled with plenty of roses, and correct, by a very pleasant contrast, the coolness of the stiade with the warmth of the sun. Having passed through these several winding alleys, you enter a straight walk, which breaks out into a variety of others, partitioned off by box- row hedges. In one place you have a little meadow, in another the box is cut in a, thousand different forms, sometimes into letters, express- ing the master's name, sometimes the artificer's, whilst here and there rise little obelisks with fruit-trees alternately intermixed, and then on a sudden, in the midst of this elegant regu- larity, you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent beauties of rural nature. In the centre of this lies a spot adorned with a knot of dwarf plane-trees. Beyond these stands an acacia, smooth and bending in places, then again various other shapes and names. At the upper end is an alcove of white marble, shaded with vines and supported by four small tbe I>oun0et 57 Carystian columns. From this semicircular couch, the water, gushing up through several little pipes, as though pressed out by the weight of the persons who reclined themselves upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, from whence it is received into a fine polished marble basin, so skilfully contrived that it is always full without ever overflowing. When I sup here, this basin serves as a table, the larger sort of dishes being placed around the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form of vessels and water-fowl. Opposite this is a fountain which is incessantly emptying and filling, for the water which it throws up to a great height, falling back again into it, is by means of consecutive apertures returned as fast as it is received. Facing the alcove (and reflecting upon it as great an ornament as it borrows from it) stands a summer-house of exquisite marble, the doors of which project and open into a green enclosure, while from its upper and lower windows the eye falls upon a variety of different greens. Next to this is a little pri- vate closet (which, though it seems distinct, may form part of the same room), furnished with a couch, and notwithstanding it has win- dows on every side, yet it enjoys a very agree- able gloom, by means of a spreading vine which climbs to the top and entirely overshadows it. $8 tTbe (Barfcen Here you may lie and fancy yourself in a wood, with this only difference, that you are not exposed to the weather as you would be there. Here too a fountain rises and instantly disap- pears several marble seats are set in different places, which are as pleasant as the summer- house itself after one is tired out with walking. Near each seat is a little fountain, and through- out the whole hippodrome several small rills run murmuring along through pipes, wherever the hand of art has thought proper to conduct them, watering here and there different plots of green, and sometimes all parts at once. I should have ended before now, for fear of being too chatty, had I not proposed in this letter to lead you into every corner of my house and gardens. Nor do I apprehend your thinking it a trouble to read the description of a place which I feel sure would please you were you to see it ; especially as you can stop just where you please, and by throwing aside my letter, sit down as it were, and give yourself a rest as often as you think proper. Besides, I gave my little passion indulgence, for I have a passion for what I have built, or finished, myself. In a word, (for why should I conceal from my friend either my deliberate opinion or my prejudice ? ) I look upon it as the first duty of every writer to frequently glance over his title-page and tbe Kounger 59 consider well the subject lie lias proposed to himself; and he may be sure, if he dwells on his subject, he cannot justly be thought tedious, whereas if, on the contrary, he introduces and drags in any thing irrelevant, he will be thought exceedingly so. Homer, you know, has em- ployed many verses in the description of the arms of Achilles, as Virgil has also in those of J)neas, yet neither of them is prolix, because they each keep within the limits of their original design. Aratus, you observe, is not considered too circumstantial, though he traces and enu- merates the minutest stars, for he does not go out of his way for that purpose, but only follows where his subject leads him. In the same way (to compare small things with great), so long as, in endeavoring to give you an idea of my house, I have not introduced any thing irrelevant or superfluous, it is not my letter which describes, but my villa which is de- scribed, that is to be considered large. But to return to where I began, lest I should justly be condemned by my own law, if I continue longer in this digression, you see now the reasons why I prefer my Tuscan villa to those which I pos- sess at Tusculum, Tiber, and Praeneste. Be- sides the advantages already mentioned, I en- joy here a cosier, more profound and undis- turbed retirement than anywhere else, as I 60 ftbe (Barren am at a greater distance from the business of the town and the interruption of trouble- some clients. All is calm and composed ; which circumstances contribute no less than its clear air and unclouded sky to that health of body and mind I particularly enjoy in this place, both of which I keep in full swing by study and hunting. And indeed there is no place which agrees better with my family, at least I am sure I have not yet lost one (may the ex- pression be allowed ! ) of all those I brought here with me. And may the gods continue that happiness to me, and that honor to my villa. Farewell ! To DOMITIUS APPOUJNARIS. LORD BACON. OF GARDENS. GOD AlyMIGHTY first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man ; without which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works : and a man shall ever see, that, when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely ; as if gardening were the greater perfection. I do hold it in the royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season. For December, and January, and the latter part of November, you must take such things as are green all winter : holly, ivy, bays, juniper, cyprus-trees, yew, pineapple-trees, fir-trees, rosemary, lavender; periwinkle, the. white, the purple, and the 62 Gbe <3arfcen blue ; germander, flags, orange-trees, lemon- trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved ; and sweet marjoram, warm set. There followeth for the latter part of January and February, the mezereon-tree, which then blossoms : crocus vernus, both the yellow and the gray ; prim- roses, anemones, the early tulipa, the hyacin- thus orientalis ; chamairis fritellaria. For March, there come violets, especially the single blue, which are the earliest ; the yellow daffodil, the daisy, the almond-tree in blossom, the peach-tree in blossom, the cornelian-tree in blossom ; sweet-brier. In April follow the double white violet, the wallflower, the stock- gilliflower, the cowslip, flower-de-luces, and lilies of all natures ; rosemary-flowers, the tulipa ; the double peony, the pale daffodil, the French honeysuckle, the cherry-tree in blos- som, the damascene and plum-trees in blossom, the white thorn in leaf, the lilac-tree. In May and June come pinks of all sorts, spe- cially the blush-pink ; roses of all kinds, except the musk, which comes later, honeysuckles, strawberries, bugloss, columbine, the French marigold, flos Africanus, cherry-tree in fruit, ribes, figs in fruit, rasps, vine-flowers, lavender in flowers, the sweet satyrian, with the white flower ; herba muscaria, lilium cpnvallium, the apple-tree in blossom. In JSacon 63 July come gilliflowers of all varieties, musk- roses, and lime-tree in blossom, early pears, and plums in fruit, genitings, codlins. In August come plums of all sorts in fruit, pears, apricots, barberries, filberts, muskmelons, monk's-hoods, of all colors. In September come grapes, ap- ples, poppies of all colors, peaches, meloco- tones, nectarines, cornelians, wardens, quinces. In October, and the beginning of November, come services, medlars, bullaces, roses cut or removed to come late, hollyoaks, and such like. These particulars are for the climate of London, but my meaning is perceived, that you may have ver perpetuum, as the place affords. And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music), than in the hand ; there- fore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and red, are fast flowers of their smells ; so that you may walk by a whole row of them and find nothing of their sweetness ; yea, though it be in a morn- ing's dew. Bays, likewise, yield no smell as they grow, rosemary little, nor sweet marjoram ; that which, above all others, yields the sweetest smell in the air is the violet, especially the white double violet, which comes twice a year, about the middle of April, and about Bartholo- 64 Gbe <3atfcen mew-tide. Next to that is the musk-rose ; then the strawberry-leaves dying, with a most excel- lent cordial smell ; then the flower of the vines, it is a little dust like the dust of a bent, which grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth ; then sweetbrier, then wallflowers, which are very delightful to be set under a parlor or lower chamber window ; then pinks and gilli- flowers, specially the matted pink and clove gilliflower ; then the flowers of the lime-tree ; then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Of bean-flowers I speak not, because they are field-flowers ; but those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread. For gardens (speaking of those which are in- deed prince-like, as we have done of buildings), the contents ought not well to be under thirty acres of ground, and to be divided into three parts ; a green in the entrance, a heath, or desert, in the going forth, and the main garden in the midst, besides alleys on both sides ; and I like well that four acres of ground be assigned to the green, six to the heath, four and four to either side, and twelve to the main garden. The green hath two pleasures : the one, because Xorfc JBacon 65 nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn ; the other, because it will give you a fair alley in the midst, by which you may go in front upon a stately hedge, which is to enclose the garden ; but because the alley will be long, and in great heat of the year, or day, you ought not to buy the shade in the garden by going in the sun through the green ; therefore you are, of either side the green, to plant a covert alley, upon carpenter's work, about twelve foot in height, by which you may go in shade into the garden. As for the making of knots, or figures, with divers colored earths, that they may lie under the windows of the house on that side which the garden stands, they be but toys ; you may see as good sights many times in tarts. The garden is best to be square, encompassed on all the four sides with a stately arched hedge ; the arches to be upon pillars of carpenter's work, of some ten foot high and six foot broad, and the spaces between of the same dimension with the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let there be an entire hedge of some four foot high, framed also upon carpenter's work ; and upon the upper hedge, over every arch, a little turret, with a belly enough to receive a cage of birds ; and over every space between the arches some other little figure, with broad plates of round colored glass 66 Gbe <$arfcen gilt, for the sun to play upon ; but this hedge I intend to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but gently slope, of some six foot, set all with flowers. Also I understand that this square of the garden should not be the whole breadth of the ground, but to leave on either side ground enough for diversity of side alleys, unto which the two covert alleys of the green may deliver you ; but there must be no alleys with hedges at either end of this great enclosure ; not at the hither end, for letting your prospect upon this fair hedge from the green ; nor at the farther end, for letting your prospect from the hedge through the arches upon the heath. For the ordering of the ground within the great hedge, I leave it to variety of device ; ad- vising, nevertheless, that whatsoever form you cast it into first, it be not too bushy, or full of work ; wherein I, for my part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden stuff ; they be for children. lyittle low hedges, round like welts, with some pretty pyramids, I like well ; and in some places fair columns, upon frames of carpenter's work. I would also have the alleys spacious and fair. You may have closer alleys upon the side grounds, but none in the main garden. I wish also, in the very middle, a fair mount, with three ascents and alleys, enough for four to walk abreast, which XorD JBacon 67 I would have to be perfect circles, without any bulwarks or embossments, and the whole mount to be thirty foot high ; and some fine ban que ting-house with some chimneys neatly cast, and without too much glass. For fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment ; but pools mar all, and make the garden unwholesome, and full of flies and frogs. Fountains I intend to be of two natures : the one that sprinkleth or spouteth water ; the other a fair receipt of water, of some thirty or forty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud. For the first, the ornaments of images, gilt or of marble, which are in use, do well ; but the main matter is so to convey the water, as it never stay, either in the bowls or in the cistern ; that the water be never by rest discolored, green, or red, or the like, or gather any mossiness or putrefaction ; besides that, it is to be cleansed every day by the hand ; also some steps up to it, and some fine pavement about it doth well. As for the other kind of fountain, which we may call a bathing-pool, it may admit much curi- osity and beauty, wherewith we will not trouble ourselves ; as, that the bottom be finely paved, and with images ; the sides likewise ; and withal embellished with colored glass, and such things of lustre ; encompassed also with fine rails of low statues ; but the main point is the 68 same which we mentioned in the former kind of fountain ; which is, that the water be in per- petual motion, fed by a water higher than the pool, and delivered into it by fair spouts, and then discharged away under ground, by some equality of bores, that it stay little ; and for fine devices, of arching water without spilling, and making it rise in several forms (of feathers, drinking-glasses, canopies, and the like), they be pretty things to look on, but nothing to health and sweetness. For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to be framed as much as may be to a natural wildness. Trees I would have none in it, but some thickets made only of sweet- brier and honeysuckle, and some wild vine amongst ; and the ground set with violets, strawberries, and primroses ; for these are sweet, and prosper in the shade ; and these to be in the heath here and there, not in any order. I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole- hills (such as are wild heaths), to be set, some with wild thyme, some with pinks, some with germander, that gives a good flower to the eye ; some with periwinkle, some with violets, some with strawberries, some with cowslips, some with daisies, some with red roses, some with lilium convallium, some with sweet-williams red, some with bear's-foot, and the like low JSacon 69 flowers, being withal sweet and sightly ; part of which heaps to be with standards of little bushes pricked upon their top, and part with- out ; the standards to be roses, juniper, holly, barberries (but here and there, because of the smell of their blossom), red currants, gooseber- ries, rosemary, bays, sweetbrier, and such like : but these standards to be kept with cutting, that they grow not out of course. For the side grounds, you are to fill them with variety of alleys, private, to give a full shade ; some of them, wheresover the sun be. You are to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that when the wind blows sharp you may walk as in a gallery ; and those alleys must be likewise hedged at both ends, to keep out the wind ; and these closer alleys must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because of going wet. In many of these alleys, likewise, you are to set fruit- trees of all sorts, as well upon the walls as in ranges ; and this should be generally observed, that the borders wherein you plant your fruit- trees be fair, and large, and low, and not steep ; and set with fine flowers, but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees. At the end of both the side grounds I would have a mount of some pretty height, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast high, to look abroad into the fields. 70 tTbe (Barfcett For the main garden I do not deny but there should be some fair alleys ranged on both sides, with fruit-trees, and some pretty tufts of fruit- trees and arbors with seats, set in some decent order ; but these to be by no means set too thick, but to leave the main garden so as it be not close, but the air open and free. For as for shade, I would have you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there to walk, if you be dis- posed, in the heat of the year or day ; but to make account that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the year, and in the heat of summer for the morning and the evening or overcast days. For aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness as they may be turfed, and have living plants and bushes set in them ; that the birds may have more scope and natural nestling, and that no foulness appear in the floor of the aviary. So I have made a platform of a princely gar- den, partly by precept, partly by drawing ; not a model, but some general lines of it ; and in this I have spared for no cost ; but it is nothing for great princes, that for the most part, taking advice with workmen, with no less cost, set their things together ; and sometimes add statues and such things, for state and magnificence, but nothing to the true pleasure of a garden. SIR WILLIAM TBMPLB. UPON THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS J OR, OF GARDENING IN THE YEAR 1685. THK same faculty of reason, which gives mankind the great advantage and preroga- tive over the rest of creation, seems to make the greatest default of human nature, and sub- jects it to more troubles, miseries, or at least disquiets of life, than any of its fellow creatures. It is this furnishes us with such variety of passions, and consequently of wants and desires, that none other feels ; and these fol- lowed by infinite designs and endless pursuits, and improved by that restlessness of thought which is natural to most men, give him a condi- tion of life suitable to that of his birth ; so that, as he alone is born crying, he lives complaining and dies disappointed. 72 Gbe <$ar&en Since we cannot escape the pursuit of passions and perplexity of thoughts which our reason furnishes us, there is no way left, but to endeavor all we can either to subdue or to divert them. This last is the common business of common men, who seek it by all sorts of sports, pleasures, play, or business. But, because the two first are of short continuance, soon ending with weariness, or decay of vigor and appetite, the return whereof must be attended before the others can be renewed ; and because play grows dull if it be not enlivened with the hopes of gain, the general diversion of mankind seems to be business, or the pursuit of riches in one kind or other; which is an amusement that has this one advantage above all others, that it lasts those men who engage in it to the very end of their lives ; none ever growing too old for the thoughts and desires of increasing his wealth and fortunes, either for himself, his friends, or his posterity. In the first and most simple ages of each country, the conditions and lives of men seem to have been very near of kin with the rest of the creatures : they lived by the hour, or by the day, and satisfied their appetite with what they could get from the herbs, the fruits, the springs they met with when they were hungry or dry ; Sir William ttemple 73 then, with what fish, fowl, or beasts they could kill, by swiftness or strength, by craft or con- trivance, by their hands, or such instruments as wit helped or necessity forced them to invent. When a man had got enough for the day, he laid up the rest for the morrow, and spent one day in labor that he might pass the other at ease ; and lured on by the pleasure of this bait, when he was in vigor and his game fortunate, he would provide for as many days as he could, both for himself and his children, that were too young to seek out for themselves. Then he cast about, how by sowing of grain, and by pasture of the tamer cattle, to provide for the whole year. After this, dividing the lands necessary for these uses, first among children, and then among servants, he reserved to him- self a proportion of their gain, either in the native stock, or something equivalent, which brought in the use of money ; and where this once came in, none was to be satisfied without having enough for himself and his family, and all his and their posterity forever ; so that I know a certain lord who professes to value no lease, though for a hundred or a thousand years, nor any estate nor possession of land, that is not for ever and ever. From such small beginnings have grown such vast and extravagant designs of poor 74 tTbe Garden mortal men ; yet none could ever answer the naked Indian, why one man should take pains, and run hazards by sea and land all his life, that his children might be safe and lazy all theirs ; and the precept of taking no care for to- morrow, though never minded as impracticable in the world, seems but to reduce mankind to their natural and original condition of life. How- ever, by these ways and degrees, the endless in- crease of riches seems to be grown the perpetual and general amusement or business of mankind. Some few in each country make these higher flights after honor and power, and to these ends sacrifice their riches, their labor, their thought, and their lives ; and nothing diverts nor busies men more than these pursuits, which are usually covered with the pretences of serving a man's country, and of public good. But the true service of the public is a business of so much labor and so much care, that though a good and wise man may not refuse it, if he be called to it by his prince or his country, and thinks he can be of more than vulgar use, yet he will seldom or never seek it, but leaves it commonly to men who, under the disguise of public good, pursue their own designs of wealth, power, and such bastard honors as usually attend them, not that which is the true, and only true reward of virtue. Sir TOltfam temple 75 The pursuits of ambition, though not so general, yet are as endless as those of riches, and as extravagant ; since none ever yet thought he had power or empire enough ; and what prince soever seems to be so great, as to live and reign without any further desires or fears, falls into the life of a private man, and enjoys but those pleasures and entertainments, which a great many several degrees of private fortune will allow, and as much as human nature is capable of enjoying. The pleasures of the senses grow a little more choice and refined ; those of imagination are turned upon embellishing the scenes he chooses to live in; ease, conveniency, elegancy, mag- nificence, are sought in building first, and then in furnishing houses or palaces : the admirable imitations of nature are introduced by pictures, statues, tapestry, and other such achievements of arts. And the most exquisite delights of sense are pursued in the contrivance and plantation of gardens ; which, with fruits, flowers, shades, fountains, and the music of birds that frequent such happy places, seem to furnish all the pleasures of the several senses, and with the greatest, or at least the most natural perfections. Thus the first race of Assyrian kings, after the conquests of Ninus and Semiramis, passed 76 tTbc (Barren their lives, till their empire fell to the Medes. Thus the Caliphs of Egypt, till deposed by their Mamelukes. Thus passed the latter parts of those great lives of Scipio, I/ucullus, Augustus, Diocletian. Thus turned the great thoughts of Henry II. of France, after the end of his wars with Spain. Thus the present king of Moroc- co, after having subdued all his competitors, passes his life in a country villa, gives audience in a grove of orange-trees planted among purling streams. And thus the king of France, after all the successes of his councils or arms, and in the mighty elevation of his present greatness and power, when he gives himself leisure from such designs or pursuits, passes the softer and easier parts of his time in country-houses or gardens, in building, planting, or adorning the scenes, or in the common sports and entertain- ments of such kind of lives. And those mighty emperors, who contented not themselves with these pleasures of common humanity, fell into the fanatic or the extravagant ; they pretended to be gods or turned to be devils, as Caligula and Nero, and too many others known enough in story. Whilst mankind is thus generally busied or amused, that part of them, who have had either the justice or the luck to pass in common opinion for the wisest and the best part among Sir TNUllfam temple 77 them, have followed another and very different scent ; and instead of the common designs of satisfying their appetites and their passions, and making endless provisions for both, they have chosen what they thought a nearer and a surer way to the ease and felicity of life, by endeavor- ing to subdue, or at least to temper, their pas- sions, and reduce their appetites to what nature seems only to ask and to need. And this design seems to have brought philosophy into the world, at least that which is termed moral, and appears to have an end not only desirable by every man, which is the ease and happiness of life, but also in some degree suitable to the force and reach of human nature : for, as to that part of philosophy which is called natural, I know no end it can have, but that of either busying a man's brains to no purpose, or satis- fying the vanity so natural to most men of dis- tinguishing themselves, by some way or other, from those that seem their equals in birth and the common advantages of it ; and whether this distinction be made by wealth or power, or appearance of knowledge, which gains esteem and applause in the world, is all a case. More than this I know no advantage mankind has gained by the progress of natural philosophy, during so many ages it has had vogue in the world, excepting always, and very justly, what 78 en perhaps lost more than they got by the spoils of the east. There may be another reason for the small advance of gardening in those excellent and more temperate climates, where the air and soil were so apt of themselves to produce the best sorts of fruits, without the necessity of culti- vating them by labor and care ; whereas the hotter climates, as well as the cold, are forced upon industry and skill, to produce or im- prove many fruits that grow of themselves in the more temperate regions. However it were, we have very little mention of gardens in old Greece or in old Rome, for pleasure or with elegance, nor of much curiousness or care, to introduce the fruits of foreign climates, con- tenting themselves with those which were native of their own ; and these were the vine, the olive, the fig, the pear, and the apple. Cato, as I remember, mentions no more, and their gardens were then but the necessary part of their farms, intended particularly for the cheap and easy food of their hinds or slaves employed in their agriculture, and so were turned chiefly to all the common sorts of plants, herbs, or legumes (as the French call them) proper for common nourishment ; and the name of hortus is taken to be from ortus, because it perpetually furnishes some Sir TKHtlliam temple 95 rise or production of something new in the world. lyucullus, after the Mithridatic war, first brought cherries from Pontus into Italy, which so generally pleased and were so easily propagated in all climates, that within the space of about an hundred years, having travelled westward with the Roman conquests, they grew common as far as the Rhine, and passed over into Britain. After the conquest of Africa, Greece, the Lesser Asia, and Syria, were brought into Italy all the sorts of their mala, which we interpret apples, and might signify no more at first, but were afterwards applied to many other foreign fruits ; the apricots, coming from Epire, were called 'mala Epirotica ; peaches from Persia, mala Persica ; citrons of Media, Medica ; pomegran- ates from Carthage, Punica ; quinces, Cathonea^ from a small island in the Grecian seas ; their best pears were brought from Alexandria, Numidia, Greece, and Numantia, as appears by their several appellations ; their plums, from Armenia, Syria, but chiefly from Damascus. The kinds of these are reckoned, in Nero's time, to have been near thirty, as well as of figs, and many of them were entertained at Rome with so great applause, and so general vogue, that the great captains, and even con- sular men, who first brought them over, took 96 Gbe <3arfcen pride in giving them their own names (by which they run a great while in Rome), as in memory of some great service or pleasure they had done their country, so that not only laws and battles, but several sorts of apples or mala, and of pears, were called Manlian and Claudian, Pom- peian and Tiberian, and by several other such noble names. Thus the fruits of Rome, in about a hun- dred years, came from countries as far as their conquests had reached; and, like learning, architecture, painting, and statuary, made their great advances in Italy about the Augustan age. What was of most request in their common gardens in Virgil's time, or at least in his youth, may be conjectured by the description of his old Cory cian's gardens in the fourth of the Georgics, which begins : Namque sub CEbalifS memini turribus altis. Among flowers, the roses had the first place, especially a kind which bore twice a year, and none other sorts are here mentioned besides the narcissus, though the violet and the lily were very common, and the next in esteem, espe- cially the breve lilium, which was the tube- rose. The plants he mentioned are the apium, which though commonly interpreted parsley, yet comprehends all sorts of smallage, where- Sir William {Temple 97 of celery is one ; cucumis, which takes in all sorts of melons, as well as cucumbers ; olus, which is a common word for all sorts of pot- herbs and legumes ; verbenas, which signifies all kinds of sweet or sacred plants, that were used for adorning the altars, as bays, olive, rosemary, myrtle ; the acanthus seems to be what we called pericanthe ; but what their hederce were, that deserved place in a garden, I cannot guess, unless they had sorts of ivy un- known to us ; nor what his vescum papaver was, since poppies with us are of no use in eat- ing. The fruits mentioned are only apples, pears, and plums, for olives, vines, and figs were grown to be fruits of their fields, rather than of their gardens. The shades were the elm, the pine, the lime-tree, and the platanus, or plane-tree, whose leaf and shade of all others was the most in request ; and, having been brought out of Persia, was such an inclination among the Greeks and Romans, that they usual- ly fed it with wine instead of water ; they be- lieved this tree loved that liquor, as well as those that used to drink under its shade, which was a great humor and custom, and perhaps gave rise to the other, by observing the growth of the tree, or largeness of the leaves, where much wine was spilt or left, and thrown upon the roots. It is great pity the haste which Virgil seems here to have been in should have hindered him from entering farther into the account or in- structions of gardening, which he said he could have given, and which he seems to have so much esteemed and loved, by that admirable picture of this old man's felicity, which he draws like so great a master, with one stroke of a pencil in those four words : Regum csquabat opes animis. That in the midst of these small possessions,, upon a few acres of barren ground, yet he equalled all the wealth and opulence of kings, in the ease, content, and freedom of his mind. I am not satisfied with the common accepta- tion of the mala aurea for oranges ; nor do I find any passage in the authors of that age, which gives me the opinion, that these were otherwise known to the . Romans than as fruits of the eastern climates. I should take their mala aurea to be rather some kind of apples, so called from the golden color, as some are amongst us ; for otherwise, the orange-tree is too noble in the beauty, taste, and smell of its fruit ; in the per- fume and virtue of its flowers ; in the perpetual verdure of its leaves, and in the excellent uses of all these, both for pleasure and health ; not to have deserved any particular mention in the Sir Timuifam temple 99 writings of an age and nation so refined and exquisite in all sorts of delicious luxury. The charming description Virgil makes of the happy apple, must be intended either for the citron, or for some sort of orange growing in Media, which was either so proper to that country as not to grow in any other (as a cer- tain sort of fig was to Damascus), or to have lost its virtue by changing soils, or to have had its effect of curing some sort of poison that was usual in that country, but particular to it : I cannot forbear inserting those few lines out of the second of Virgil's Georgics, not having ever heard anybody else take notice of them. Media fert tristes succos, tardumque saporem Felicis mali ; quo non prcssentius ullum, Pocula si quandu sczvcz infecere noveraz, Auxilium venit, ac membris agit atra venena : ipsa ingens arbos,faciemque simillima lauro ; Et, si non altos latejactaret odores, Laurus erit ; folia haud ullis labentia ventis ; Flos apprima tenax : animas et olentia Medi Orafovent illo, ac senibus medicantur anhelis. "Media brings pois'nous herbs, and the flat taste Of the bless'd apple, than which ne'er was found A help more present, when curs'd step-dames mix Their mortal cups, to drive the venom out : 'T is a large tree, and like a bays in hue ; And, did it not such odors cast about, 'T would be a bays ; the leaves with no winds fall; The flowers all excel : with these the Medes Perfume their breaths, and cure old pursy men." {Tbe (Barren The tree being so like a bays or laurel, the slow or dull taste of the apple, the virtue of it against poison, seem to describe the citron : the perfume of the flowers and virtues of them, to cure ill scents of mouth or breath, or shortness of wind in pursy old men, seem to agree most with the orange : if flos apprima tenax mean only the excellence of the flower above all others, it may be intended for the orange : if it signifies the flowers growing most upon the tops of the trees, it may be rather the citron ; for I have been so curious as to bring up a citron from a kernel, which at twelve years of age began to flower ; and I observed all the flowers to grow upon the top branches of the tree, but to be nothing so high or sweet-scented as the orange. On the other side, I have always heard oranges to pass for a cordial juice, and a very great preservative against the plague, which is a sort of venom ; so that I know not to which of these we are to ascribe this lovely picture of the happy apple ; but I am satisfied by it, that neither of them was at all common, if at all known in Italy, at that time, or long after, though the fruit be now so frequent there in fields (at least in some parts) and make so common and delicious a part of gardening, even in these northern climates. Sir TOllfam {Temple It is certain those noble fruits, the citron, the orange, and the lemon, are the native product of those noble regions, Assyria, Media, and Persia ; and, though they have been from thence transplanted and propagated in many parts of Europe, yet they have not arrived at such perfection in beauty, taste, or virtue, as in their native soil and climate. This made it generally observed among the Greeks and Romans, that the fruits of the east far excelled those of the west. And several writers have trifled away their time in deducing the reasons of this difference, from the more benign or pow- erful influence of the rising sun. But there is nothing more evident to any man that has the least knowledge of the globe, and gives himself leave to think, than the folly of such wise reasons, since the regions, that are east to us, are west to some others ; and the sun rises alike to all that lie in the same latitude, with the same heat and virtue upon its first approaches, as well as in its progress. Besides, if the east- ern fruits were the better only for that position of climate, then those of India should excel those of Persia ; which we do not find by com- paring the accounts of those countries : but Assyria, Media, and Persia have been ever es- teemed, and will be ever found, the true regions 102 tlbe (Barfcen of the best and noblest fruits in the world. The reason of it can be no other, than that of an excellent and proper soil, being there extended under the best climate for the produc- tion of all sorts of the best fruits ; which seems to be from about twenty-five to about thirty-five degrees of latitude. Now the regions under this climate, in the present Persian empire (which comprehends most of the other two, called anciently Assyria ^and Media), are com- posed of many provinces full of great and fertile plains, bounded by high mountains, especially to the north ; watered naturally with many rivers, and those, by art and labor, derived into many more and smaller streams, which all conspire to form a country, in all circumstances, the most proper and agreeable for the production of the best and noblest fruits. Whereas if we survey the regions of the western world, lying in the same latitude be- tween twenty-five and thirty-five degrees, we shall find them extended either over the Medi- terranean Sea, the ocean, or the sandy barren countries of Africa ; and that no part of the continent of Europe lies so southward as thirty- five degrees. Which may serve to discover the true genuine reason, why the fruits of the east have been always observed and agreed to trans- cend those of the west. Sir TJdfllfam (Temple 103 In our northwest climates, our gardens are very different from what they were in Greece and Italy, and from what they are now in those regions in Spain or the southern parts of France. And as most general customs in countries grow from the different nature of climate, soils, or situations, and from the necessities or industry they impose, so do these. In the warmer regions, fruits and flowers of the best sorts are so common and of so easy production, that they grow in fields, and are not worth the cost of inclosing, or the care of more than ordinary cultivating. On the other side, the greatest pleasures of these climates are coolness of air, and whatever looks cool even to the eyes, and relieves them from the unpleas- ant sight of dusty streets or parched fields. This makes the gardens of those countries to be chiefly valued by largeness of extent (which gives greater play and openness of air), by shades of trees, by frequency of living streams or fountains, by perspectives, by statues, and by pillars and obelisks of stone scattered up and down, which all conspire to make any place look fresh and cool. On the contrary, the more northern climates, as they suffer little by heat, make little provision against it, and are careless of shade, and seldom curious in foun- tains. Good statues are in the reach of few 104 Gbe (Bar&ett men, and common ones are generally and justly despised or neglected. But no sorts of good fruits or flowers, being natives of the climates, or usual among us (nor indeed the best sort of plants, herbs, salads for our kitchen-gardens themselves), and the best fruits, not ripening without the advantage of walls and palisadoes, by reflection of the faint heat we receive from the sun, our gardens are made of smaller com- pass, seldom exceeding four, six, or eight acres ; enclosed with walls, and laid out in a manner wholly for advantage of fruits, flowers, and the product of kitchen -gardens in all sorts of herbs, salads, plants, and legumes, for the common use of tables. These are usually the gardens of England and Holland, as the first sort are those of Italy, and were so of old. In the more temperate parts of France, and in Brabant (where I take gardening to be at its greatest height), they are composed of both sorts, the extent more spacious than ours ; part laid out for flowers, others for fruits ; some standards, some against walls or palisa- does, some for forest trees, and groves for shade, some parts wild, some exact ; and foun- tains much in request among them. But after so much ramble into ancient times t and remote places, to return home and consider the present way and humor of our gardening in Sir TOlttam ftempte 105 England ; which seem to have grown into such vogue, and to have been so mightily improved in three or four and twenty years of his Ma- jesty's reign, that perhaps few countries are before us, either in the elegance of our gardens, or in the number of our plants ; and, I believe, none equal us in the variety of fruits which may be justly called good ; and from the earliest cherry and strawberry, to the last apples and pears, may furnish every day of the circling year. For the taste and perfection of what we esteem the best, I may truly say, that the French, who have eaten my grapes and peaches at Sheen, in no very ill year, have generally concluded, that the last are as good as any they have eaten in France, on this side of Fontaine- bleau ; and the first as good as any they have eat in Gascony ; I mean those which come from the stone, and are properly called peaches, not those which are hard, and are termed pavies ; for these cannot grow in too warm a climate, nor ever be good in a cold ; and are better at Madrid, than in Gascony itself. Italians have agreed, my white figs to be as good as any of that sort in Italy, which is the earlier kind of white fig there ; for in the latter kind, and the blue, we cannot come near the warm climates, no more than in the Frontignac or Muscat grape. 106 Gbe (Barren My orange-trees are as large as any I saw when I was young in France, except those of Fontainebleau, or what I have seen since in the Low Countries, except some very old ones in the Prince of Orange's ; as laden with flowers as any can well be, as full of fruit as I suffer or desire them, and as well tasted as are commonly brought over, except the best sorts of Seville and Portugal. And thus much I could not but say in defence of our climate, which is so much and so generally decried abroad, by those who never saw it ; or, if they have been here have yet perhaps seen no more of it than what belongs to inns, or to taverns and ordi- naries ; who accuse our country for their own defaults, and speak ill, not only of our gardens and houses, but of our humors, our breeding, our customs and manners of life, by what they have observed of the meaner and baser sort of mankind ; and of company among us, be- cause they wanted themselves, perhaps, either fortune or birth, either quality or merit, to introduce them among the good. I must needs add one thing more in favor of our climate, which I heard the king say, and I thought new and right, and truly like a king of Bngland, that loved and esteemed his own country; it was in reply to some of the com- pany that were reviling our climate, and Sir TOtlfam {Temple 107 extolling those of Italy and Spain, or at least of France : he said, he thought that was the best climate, where he could be abroad in the air with pleasure, or at least without trouble or inconvenience, the most days of the year, and the most hours of the day ; and this, he thought, he could be in Kngland, more than in any country he knew of in Europe. And I believe it is true, not only of the hot and cold, but even among our neighbors in France, and the Low Countries themselves ; where the heats or the colds, and changes of seasons, are less treatable than they are with us. The truth is, our climate wants no heat to produce excellent fruits ; and the default of it is only the short season of our heats or sum- mers, by which many of the latter are left behind, and imperfect with us. But all such as are ripe before the end of August are, for aught I know, as good with us as anywhere else. This makes me esteem the true region of gardens in England, to be the compass of ten miles about London ; where the accidental warmth of air from the fires and steams of so vast a town makes fruits, as well as corn, a great deal forwarder than in Hampshire or Wiltshire, though more southward by a full degree. There are, besides the temper of our climate, two things particular to us, that contribute io8 trbe Oarben much to the beauty and elegance of our gar- dens, which are the gravel of our walks, and the fineness and almost perpetual greenness of our turf. The first is not known anywhere else, which leaves all their dry walks, in other coun- tries, very unpleasant and uneasy. The other cannot be found in France or in Holland as we have it, the soil not admitting that fineness of blade in Holland, nor the sun that greenness in France, during most of the summer ; nor indeed is it to be found but in the finest of our soils. Whoever begins a garden, ought, in the first place and above all, to consider the soil, upon which the taste not only of his fruits, but his legumes, and even herbs and salads, will wholly depend ; and the default of soil is without rem- edy : for, although all borders of fruit may be made with what earth you please (if you will be at the charge), yet it must be renewed in two or three years, or it runs into the nature of the ground where it is brought. Old trees spread their roots farther than anybody's care extends, or the forms of the garden will allow ; and, after all, where the soil about you is ill, the air is too in a degree, and has influence upon the taste of fruit. What Horace says of the productions of kitchen-gardens, under the name of caulis, is true of all the best sorts of fruits, and may determine the choice of soil for all gardens : Sir William aemple 109 Caule suburbano, gut siccis crevit in agrts, Dulcior ; irriguis nihil est elutius hortis. "Plants from dry fields those of the town excel ; Nothing more tasteless is than watered grounds." Any man had better throw away his care and his money upon any thing else, than upon a garden in wet or moist ground. Peaches and grapes will have no taste but upon a sand or gravel; but the richer these are, the better; and neither salads, pease, or beans, have at all the taste upon a clay or rich earth, as they have upon either of the others, though the size and color of fruits and plants may, perhaps, be more upon the worse soils. Next to your choice of soil, is to suit your plants to your ground, since of this every one is not master : though perhaps Varro's judg- ment, upon this case, is the wisest and the best; for to one that asked him, what he should do if his father or ancestors had left him a seat in an ill air, or upon an ill soil, he answered : " Why, sell it, and buy another in good." " But what if I cannot get half the worth ? " " Why, then take a quarter ; but however sell it for any thing, rather than live upon it." Of all sorts of soil, the best is that upon a sandy gravel, or a rosiny sand ; whoever lies upon either of these may run boldly into all the best sort of peaches and grapes, how shallow Gbe (Barfcen soever the turf be upon them ; and whatever other tree will thrive in these soils, the fruits shall be of a much finer taste than any other ; a richer soil will do well enough for apricots, plums, pears, or figs ; but still the more of the sand in your earth the better, and the worse the more of the clay, which is proper for oaks, and no other tree that I know of. Fruits should be suited to the climate among us, as well as the soil ; for there are degrees of one and the other in England, where it is to little purpose to plant any of the best fruits, as peaches or grapes, hardly I doubt beyond Northamptonshire, at the farthest northwards ; and I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of plums ; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very well suc- ceeded, which he could never have done in attempts upon peaches and grapes ; and a good plum is certainly better that an ill peach. When I was at Cosevelt, with that bishop of Munste*- that made so much noise in his time, I observed no other trees but cherries in a great garden he had made. He told me the reason was because he found no other fruit would ripen well in that climate, or upon that soil ; Sir TKHfllfam temple and therefore, instead of being curious in others, he had only been so in the sorts of that, whereof he had so many, as never to be without them from May to the end of September. As to the size of a garden, which will, per- haps, in time, grow extravagant among us, I think from four or five to seven or eight acres is as much as any gentleman need design, and will furnish as much of all that is expected from it, as any nobleman will have occasion to use in his family. In every garden four things are necessary to be provided for : flowers, fruit, shade, and water ; and whoever lays out a garden, without all these, must not pretend in it any perfection ; it ought to lie to the best parts of the house, or to those of the master's commonest use, so as to be but like one of the rooms out of which you step into another. The part of your garden next your house (besides the walks that go round it) should be a parterre for flowers, or grass-plots bordered with flowers; or if, according to the newest mode, it be cast all into grass-plots and gravel walks, the dryness of these should be relieved with fountains, and the plainness of those with statues ; otherwise, if large, they have an ill effect upon the eye. However, the part next the house should be open, and no other fruit but upon the walls. If this take up (Sarfcen one half of the garden, the other should be fruit-trees, unless some grove for shade lie in the middle. If it take up a third part only, then the next third may be dwarf- trees, and the last standard fruit ; or else the second part fruit- trees, and the third all sorts of winter-greens, which provide for all seasons of the year. I will not enter upon any account of flowers, having only pleased myself with seeing or smelling them, and not troubled myself with the care, which is more the ladies' part than the men's ; but the success is wholly in the gardener. For fruits, the best we have in England, or, I believe, can ever hope for, are, of peaches, the white and red maudlin, the minion, the chevereuse, the ramboullet, the musk, the admirable, which is late ; all the rest are either varied by names, or not to be named with these, nor worth troubling a garden, in my opinion. Of the pavies or hard peaches, I know none good here but the Newington, nor will that easily hang till it is full ripe. The forward peaches are to be esteemed only because they are early, but should find room in a good gar- den, at least the white and brown nutmeg, the Persian, and the violet musk. The only good nectarines are the murry and the French ; of these there are two sorts one very round, and the other something long but the round is the Sit William temple 113 best ; of the murry there are several sorts, but, being all hard, they are seldom well ripened with us. Of grapes, the best are the chasselas, which is the better sort of our white muscadine (as the usual name was about Sheen) ; it is called the pearl-grape, and ripens well enough in common years, but not so well as the common black, or currant, which is something a worse grape. The parsley is good, and proper enough to our climate ; but all white frontiniacs are difficult, and seldom ripen, unless in extraordinary sum- mers. I have had the honor of bringing over four sorts into England : the arboyse, from the Franche Compte*, which is a small white grape, or rather runs into some small and some great upon the same bunch ; it agrees well with our climate, but is very choice in soil, and must have a sharp gravel ; it is the most delicious of all grapes that are not muscat. The Burgundy, which is a grizelin or pale red, and of all others is surest to ripen in our climate, so that I have never known them to fail one summer these fifteen years, when all others have ; and have had it very good upon the east wall. A black muscat, which is called the dowager, and ripens as well as the common white grape. And the fourth is the grizelin frontignac, being of that (Barren color, and the highest of that taste, and the noblest of all grapes I ever ate in England ; but requires the hottest wall and the sharpest gravel ; and must be favored by the summer too, to be very good. All these are, I suppose, by this time, pretty common among some gar- deners in my neighborhood, as well as several persons of quality ; for I have ever thought all things of this kind, the commoner they are made, the better. Of figs there are among us the white, the blue, and the tawny ; the last is very small, bears ill, and I think but a bawble. Of the blue there are two or three sorts, but little dif- ferent, one something longer than the other ; but that kind which smells most is ever the best. Of the white I know but two sorts, and both excellent, one ripe in the beginning of July, the other in the end of September, and is yellower than the first ; but this hard to be found among us, and difficult to raise, though an excellent fruit. Of apricots the best are the common old sort, and the largest masculin ; of which this last is much improved by budding upon a peach stock. I esteem none of this fruit but the Brussels apricot, which grows a standard, and is one of the best fruits we have, and which I first brought over among us. Sit William temple 115 The number of good pears, especially sum- mer, is very great, but the best are the blan- quet, robin, rousselet, rosati, sans, pepin, jargonel. Of the autumn, the buree, the verte- longue, and the bergamot. Of the winter, the vergoluz, chasseray, St. Michael, St. Germain, and ambret. I esteem the bon-cretien with us good for nothing but to bake. Of plums, the best are St. Julian, St. Cath- erine, white and blue pedrigon, queen-mother, Sheen plum, and cheston. Beyond the sorts I have named, none I think need trouble himself, but multiply these rather than make room for more kinds ; and I am content to leave this register, having been so often desired it by my friends, upon their de- signs of gardening. I need say nothing of apples, being so well known among us ; but the best of our climate, and I believe of all others, is the golden pip- pin, and for all sorts of uses ; the next is the Kentish pippin ; but these I think are as far from their perfection with us as grapes, and yield to those of Normandy, as these to those of Anjou, and even these to those in Gascony. In other fruits the defect of sun is in a great measure supplied by the advantage of walls. The next care to that of suiting trees with the soil is that of suiting fruits to the position. n6 Gbe (SarDen of walls : grapes, peaches, and winter-pears, to be good, must be planted upon full south, or southeast ; figs are best upon southeast, but will do well upon east and southwest ; the west are proper for cherries, plums, or apri- cots, but all of them are improved by a south wall both as to early and taste ; north, north- west, or northeast deserve nothing but greens ; these should be divided by woodbines or jessa- mines between every green, and the other walls by a vine between every fruit-tree ; the best sorts upon the south walls, the common white and black upon east and west, because the other trees being many of them (especially peaches) very transitory some apt to die with hard winters, others to be cut down to make room for new fruits ; without this method the walls are left for several years unfurnished, whereas the vines on each side cover the void space in one summer, and when the other trees are grown, make only a pillar between them of two or three feet broad. Whoever would have the best fruits, in the most perfection our climate will allow, should not only take care of giving them as much sun, but also as much air as he can ; no tree, unless dwarf, should be suffered to grow within forty feet of your best walls, but the farther they lie open is still the better, Of all others, Sir TKtlilUam {Temple 117 this care is most necessary in vines, which are observed abroad to make the best wines, where they lie upon sides of hills, and so most ex- posed to air and the winds. The way of prun- ing them too is best learned from the vine- yards, where you see nothing in winter but what looks like a dead stump ; and upon our walls they should be left but like a ragged staff, not above two or three eyes at most upon the bearing branches, and the lower the vine and fewer the branches, the grapes will be still the better. The best figure of a garden is either a square or an oblong, and either upon a flat or a de- scent ; they have all their beauties, but the best I esteem an oblong upon a descent. The beauty, the air, the view make amends for the expense, which is very great in finishing and supporting the terrace-walks, in levelling the parterres, and in the stone stairs that are neces- sary from one to the other. The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest wits of her time, and celebrated by Doctor Donne, and with very great care, excellent contrivance, uch cost ; but greater sums may be thrown tlbe (Barben away without effect or honor, if there want sense in proportion to money, or if nature be not followed, which I take to be the great rule in this, and perhaps in every thing else, as far as the conduct not only of our lives, but our governments. And whether the greatest of mortal men should attempt the forcing of na- ture, may best be judged by observing how seldom God Almighty does it himself, by so few true and undisputed miracles as we see or hear of in the world. For my own part, I know not three wiser precepts for the conduct either of princes or private man, than -Servare modum,finemque tueri, Naturamque sequi. Because I take the garden I have named to have been in all kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a model to those that meet with such a situation, and are above the regards of common expense. It lies on the side of a hill (upon which the house stands) but not very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden ; the great parlor opens into the middle of a terrace gravel-walk that lies even Sir TOlltam {Temple 119 with it, and which may be, as I remember, about three hundred paces long, and broad in proportion ; the border set with standard lau- rels, and at large distances, which have the beauty of orange-trees, out of flower and fruit ; from this walk are three descents by many stone steps, in the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre. This is divided into quarters by gravel-walks, and adorned with two fountains and eight statues in the several quarters ; at the end of the terrace-walk are two summer-houses, and the sides of the par- terre are ranged with two large cloisters, open to the garden, upon arches of stone, and end- ing with two other summer-houses even with the cloisters, which are paved with stone, and designed for walks of shade, there being none other in the whole parterre. Over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with lead, and fenced with balusters, and the passage into these airy walks is out of the two summer- houses, at the end of the first terrace-walk. The cloister facing the south is covered with vines, and would have been proper for an orange-house, and the other for myrtles, or other more common greens, and had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if this piece of gardening had been then in as much vogue as it is now. Garden From the middle of the parterre is a descent by many steps flying on each side of a grotto that lies between them (covered with lead, and flat) into the lower garden, which is all fruit- trees, ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness which is very shady ; the walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with fig- ures of shell-rock-work, fountains, and water- works. If the hill had not ended with the lower garden, and the walls were not bounded by a common way that goes through the park, they .might have added a third quarter of all greens ; but this want is supplied by a garden on the other side of the house, which is all of that sort, very wild, shady, and adorned with rough rock- work and fountains. This was Moor Park, when I was acquainted with it, and the sweetest place, I think, that I have seen in my life, either before or since, at home or abroad ; what it is now I can give little account, having passed through several hands that have made great changes in gardens as well as houses ; but the remembrance of what it was is too pleasant ever to forget, and there- fore I do not believe to have mistaken the fig- ure of it, which may serve for a pattern to the best gardens of our manner, and that are most proper for our country and climate. What I have said, of the best forms of gar- Sir 'ddilliam tTempIe 121 dens is meant only of such as are in some sort regular, for there may be other forms wholly irregular that may, for aught I know, have more beauty than any of the others ; but they must owe it to some extraordinary dispositions of nature in the seat, or some great race of fancy or judgment in the contrivance, which may reduce many disagreeing parts into some figure which shall yet, upon the whole, be very agreeable. Something of this I have seen in some places, but heard more of it from others who have lived much among the Chinese a people whose way of thinking seems to lie as wide of ours in Europe as their country does. Among us the beauty of building and planting is placed chiefly in some certain proportions, symmetries, or uniformities our walks and our trees ranged so as to answer one another, and at exact distances. The Chinese scorn this way of planting, and say, a boy, that can tell an hundred, may plant walks of trees in straight lines, and over against one another, and to what length and extent he pleases. But their greatest reach of imagination is employed in contriving figures, where the beauty shall be great and strike the eye, but without any order or disposition of parts that shall be commonly or easily observed ; and, though we have hard- ly any notion of this sort of beauty, yet they ttbe (Batmen have a particular word to express it, and where they find it hit their eye at first sight, they say the sharawadgi is fine or is admirable, or any such expression of esteem. And whoever ob- serves the work upon the best India gowns, or the painting upon their best screens or purcellans, will find their beauty is all of this kind, that is, without order. But I should hardly advise any of these attempts in the figure of gardens among us ; they are adventures of too hard achievement for any common hands ; and, though there may be more honor if they suc- ceed well, yet there is more dishonor if they fail, and it is twenty to one they will ; whereas, in regular figures, it is hard to make any great and remarkable faults. The picture I have met with in some relations of a garden made by a Dutch governor of their colony, upon the Cape de Bonne Esperance, is admirable, and described to be of an oblong figure, very large extent, and divided into four quarters by long and crossed walks, ranged with all sorts of orange-trees, lemons, limes, and citrons ; each of these four quarters is planted with the trees, fruits, flowers, and plants that are native and proper to each of the four parts of the world ; so as in this one in closure are to be found the several gardens of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. There could Sir Militant ftempte 123 not be, in my mind, a greater thought of a gar- dener, nor a nobler idea of a garden, nor better suited or chosen for the climate, which is about thirty degrees, and may pass for the Hesperides of our age, whatever or wherever the other was. Yet this is agreed by all to have been in the islands or continent upon the southwest of Africa ; but what their forms or their fruits were, none, that I know, pretend to tell ; nor whether their golden apples were for taste, or only for sight, as those of Montezuma were in Mexico, who had large trees, with stocks, branches, leaves, and fruits, all admirably com- posed and wrought of gold ; but this was only stupendous in cost and art, and answers not at all, in my opinion, the delicious varieties of nature in other gardens. What I have said of gardening is perhaps enough for any gentleman to know, so as to make no great faults, nor to be much imposed upon in the designs of that kind, which I think ought to be applauded and encouraged in all countries ; that and building being a sort of creation, that raise beautiful fabrics and figures out of nothing, that make the convenience and pleasure of all private habitations, that employ many hands and circulate much money among the poorer sort and artisans, that are a public service to one's country, by the example as well 124 ttbe (Barfcen as effect, which adorn the scene, improve the earth, and even the air itself in some degree. The rest that belongs to this subject must be a gardener's part ; upon whose skill, diligence, and care the beauty of the grounds and excel- lence of the fruits will much depend. Though if the soil and sorts be well chosen, well suited, and disposed to the walls, the ignorance or carelessness of the servants can hardly leave the master disappointed. I will not enter further upon his trade, than by three short directions or advices : first, in all plantations, either for his master or himself, to draw his trees out of some nursery that is upon a leaner and lighter soil than his own where he removes them ; without this care they will not thrive in several years, perhaps never ; and must make way for new, which should be avoided all that can be ; for life is too short and uncertain to be renewing often your plan- tations. The walls of your garden, without their furniture, look as ill as those of your house ; so that you cannot dig up your garden too often, nor too seldom cut them down. The second is, in all trees you raise, to have some regard to the stock, as well as the graft or bud ; for the first will have a share in giving taste and season to the fruits it produces, how little soever it is usually observed by our gar- Sit William temple 125 deners. I have found grafts of the same tree upon a bon-cretien stock bring chasseray pears that lasted till March, but with a rind green and rough ; and others, upon a metre-John stock, with a smooth and yellow skin, which were rotten in November. I am apt to think, all the difference between the St. Michael and the ambrette pear (which has puzzled our gar- deners) is only what comes from this variety of the stocks ; and by this, perhaps, as well as by raising from stones and kernels, most of the new fruits are produced every age. So the grafting a crab upon a white thorn brings the lazarolli, a fruit esteemed at Rome, though I do not find it worth cultivating here ; and I believe the cidrato (or hermaphrodite) came from budding a citron upon an orange. The best peaches are raised by buds of the best fruits upon stocks growing from stones of the best peaches ; and so the best apples and pears, from the best kinds grafted upon stocks from kernels also of the best sorts, with respect to the season, as well as beauty and taste. And I believe so many excellent winter-pears, as have come into France since forty years, may have been found out by grafting summer-pears of the finest taste and most water upon winter stocks. The third advice is, to take the greatest care and pains in preserving your trees from the worst disease, to which those of the best fruits are subject in the best soils and upon the best walls. It is what has not been (that I know of) taken notice of with us, till I was forced to ob- serve it by the experience of my gardens, though I have since met with it in books, both ancient and modern. I found my vines, peaches, apri- cots, and plums upon my best south walls, and sometimes upon my west, apt for several years to a soot or smuttiness upon their leaves first, and then upon their fruits, which were good for nothing the years they were so affected. My orange-trees were likewise subject to it, and never prospered while they were so ; and I have known some collections quite destroyed by it. But I cannot say that ever I found either my figs or pears infected with it, nor any trees upon my east walls, though I do not well conjecture at the reason. The rest were so spoiled with it, that I complained to several of the oldest and best gardeners of England, who knew nothing of it, but that they often fell into the same misfortune, and esteemed it some blight of spring. I observed after some years that the diseased trees had very frequent, upon their stocks and branches, a small insect of a dark- brown color, figured like a shield, and about the size of a large wheat-corn ; they stuck close to the bark, and in many cases covered it. Sir TlGlilltam temple 127 especially about the joints ; in winter they are dry and thin-shelled, but in spring they begin to grow soft and to' fill with moisture, and to throw a spawn, like a black dust, upon the stocks, as well as the leaves and fruits. I met afterwards with the mention of this disease, as known among orange-trees, in a book written upon that subject in Holland, and since in Pausanias, as a thing so much taken notice of in Greece, that the author describes a certain sort of earth which cures pediculos vitis y or the lice of the vine. This is of all others the most pestilent disease of the best fruit-trees, and upon the very best soils of gravel and sand (especially where they are too hungry), and is so contagious, that it is propagated to new plants raised from old trees that are infected, and spreads to new ones that are planted near them, which makes me imagine that it lies in the root, and that the best cure were by application there. But I have tried all sorts of soil without effect, and can prescribe no other remedy than to prune your trees as close as you can, especially the tainted wood, then to wash them very clean with a wet brush, so as not to leave one shell upon them that you can discern ; and upon your oranges to pick off every one that you can find by turning every leaf, as well as brushing clean the stocks and branches. 128 Hbe (Sarfcen Without these cares and diligences you had better root up any trees that are infected, renew all the mould in your borders or boxes, and plant new sound trees, rather than suffer the disappointments and vexation of your old ones. I may perhaps be allowed to know something of this trade, since I have so long allowed my- self to be good for nothing else, which few men will do, or enjoy their gardens, without often looking abroad to see how other matters play, what motions in the state, and what invitations they may hope for into other scenes. For my own part, as the country life, and this part of it more particularly, were the incli- nation of my youth itself, so they are the pleas- ure of my age ; and I can truly say that, among many great employments that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or sought for any one of them, but often endeavored to escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a pri- vate scene, where a man may go his own way and his own pace in the common paths or circles of life. Inter cuncta leges et per cunctabere dodos Qua ratione queas traducere leniter : I received yours of May the 1 2th but yesterday, July the gth. I am surprised you complain of my silence. I have never failed answering yours the post after I received them ; but I fear, being directed to Twickenham (having no other direction from you), your servants there may have neglected them. I have been these six weeks, and still am, at my dairy -house, which joins to my garden. I believe I have already told you it is a long mile from the Castle, which is situate in the midst of a very large village, once a considerable town, part of the walls still remaining, and has not vacant ground enough about it to make a * Written from I^overe, near Brescia. The "Castle" referred to in this letter was the chateau rented and occupied by Ien the lake ; the ground is irregularly broken ; thickets hang on the sides, and towards the top is placed an Ionic portico, which commands a noble extent of water not less than a mile in circumference, bounded on one side with wood and open on the other to two sloping lawns, the least of an hundred acres, diversified with clumps and bordered by plantations. Yet this lake, when full in view and with all the import- ance which space, form, and situation can give, is not more interesting than the sequestered river, which has been mentioned as the third great division of the water. It is just within the verge of a wood three quarters of a mile long, everywhere broad, and its course is such as to admit of infinite variety without any confusion. The banks are cleared of underwood, but a few thickets still remain, and on one side an impenetrable covert soon begins. The interval is a beautiful grove of oaks, scattered over a green sward of extraordinary verdure. Between these trees and these thickets the river seems to glide gently along, constantly winding, without one short turn or one extended reach in the whole length of the way. This even temper in the stream suits the scenes through which it passes. They are, in general, of a very sober cast ; not melancholy, but grave : never exposed to a glare ; never darkened with Gbomae TKHbatelB 193 gloom, nor by strong contrasts of light and shade exhibiting the excess of either. Un- disturbed by an extent of prospects without, or a multiplicity of objects within, they re- tain at all times a mildness of charac- ter, which is still more forcibly felt when the shadows grow faint as they lengthen ; when a little rustling of birds in the spray, the leap- ing of the fish, and the fragrancy of the wood- bine denote the approach of evening ; while the setting sun shoots its last gleams on a Tuscan portico which is close to the great basin, but which, from a seat near this river, is seen at a distance through all the obscurity of the wood, glowing on the banks and reflected on the sur- face of the water. In another still more distin- guished spot is built an elegant bridge, with a colonnade upon it, which not only adorns the place where it stands, but is also a picturesque object to an octagon building near the lake, where it is shown in a singular situation, over- arched, encompassed, and backed with wood, without any appearance of the water beneath. This building, in return, is also an object from the bridge, and a Chinese room, in a little island just by, is another. Neither of them are con- siderable, and the others which are visible are at a distance. But more or greater adventitious ornaments are not required in a spot so rich as 194 this in beauties peculiar to its character. A profusion of water pours in from all sides round upon the view ; the opening of the lake appears ; a glimpse is caught of the large basin ; one of the collateral streams is full in sight; and the bridge itself is in the midst of the finest part of the river. All seem to communi- cate the one with the other, though thickets often intercept, and groups perplex the view, yet they never break the connection between the several pieces of water ; each may still be traced along large branches, or little catches, which in some places are overshadowed and dim ; in others glisten through a glade, or glimmer between the boles of trees in a distant perspective ; and in one, where they are quite lost to the view, some arches of a stone bridge, but partially seen among the wood, preserve their connection. However interrupted, how- ever varied, they still appear to be parts of one whole, which has all the intricacy of number, and the greatness of unity ; the variety of a stream, and the quantity of a lake ; the solem- nity of a wood, and the animation of water. OF A GARDEN. The gravel paths have been mentioned as contributing to the appearance of a garden ; they are unusual elsewhere ; they constantly Gbomas TKHbatelE 195 present the idea of a walk ; and the correspond- ence between their sides, the exactness of the edges, the nicety of the materials and of the preservation, appropriate them to spots in the highest state of improvement. Applied to any other subject than a park, their effect is the same. A field surrounded by a gravel walk is to a degree bordered by a garden ; and many orna- ments may be introduced as appendages to the latter, which would otherwise appear to be inconsistent with the former. When these ac- companiments occupy a considerable space, and are separated from the field, the idea of a garden is complete as far as they extend ; but if the gravel be omitted, and the walk be only of turf, a greater breadth to the border and more rich- ness in the decorations are necessary to preserve that idea. Many gardens are nothing more than such a walk round a field ; that field is often raised to the character of a lawn, and sometimes the enclosure is, in fact, a paddock ; whatever it be, the walk is certainly garden ; it is a spot set apart for pleasure ; it admits on the sides a profusion of ornament ; it is fit for the recep- tion of every elegance, and requires the nicest preservation ; it is attended also with many advantages, may be made and kept without much expense, leads to a variety of points, and 196 Gbe <3arfcen avails itself in its progress of the several cir- cumstances which belong to the enclosure it surrounds, whether they be the rural appurte- nances of a farm, or those more refined which distinguish a paddock. But it has at the same time its inconveniences and defects : its approach to the several points is always circuitous, and they are thereby often thrown to a distance from the house and from each other ; there is no access to them across the open exposure ; the way must constantly be the same ; the view all along is into one open- ing, which must be peculiarly circumstanced to furnish within itself a sufficient variety, and the embellishments of the walk are seldom import- ant : their number is limited, and the little space allotted for their reception admits only of those which can be accommodated to the scale and will conform to the character. This species of garden, therefore, reduces almost to a sameness all the places it is applied to ; the subject seems exhausted ; no walk round a field can now be very different from several others already existing. At the best, too, it is but a walk ; the fine scenery of a garden is wanting, and that in the field, which is substituted in its stead, is generally of an inferior character, and often defective in connection with the spot which commands it, by the intervention of the Gbomas Mbatel^ 197 fence, or the visible difference in the preserva- tion. This objection, however, has more or less force, according to the character of the enclos- ure : if that be a paddock or a lawn it may exhibit scenes not unworthy of the most elegant garden, which, agreeing in style, will unite in appearance with the garden. The other objec- tions also are stronger or weaker in proportion to the space allowed for the appendages, and not applicable at all to a broad circuit of gar- den, which has room within itself for scenery, variety, and character ; but the common narrow walk, too indiscriminately in fashion, if con- tinued to a considerable extent, becomes very tiresome, and the points it leads to must be more than ordinarily delightful to compensate for the fatigue of the way. This tediousness may, however, be remedied without any extravagant enlargement of the plan, by taking in at certain intervals an addi- tional breadth, sufficient only for a little scene to interrupt the uniformity of the progress. The walk is then a communication, not between points of view, through all which it remains unaltered, but between the several parts of a garden, in each of which it is occasionally lost, and, when resumed, it is at the worst a repeti- tion, not a continuation, of the same idea ; the 198 ftbe (Barbert eye and the mind are not always confined to one tract: they expatiate at times, and have been relieved before they returned to it. An- other expedient, the very reverse of this, may now and then be put in practice : it is to con- tract, instead of enlarging, the plan ; to carry the walk, and in some part of its course, directly into the field, or, at the most, to secure it from cattle ; but to make it quite simple, omit all its appendages and drop every idea of a garden. If neither of these nor any other means be used to break the length of the way, though the enclosures should furnish a succession of scenes, all beautiful, and even contrasted to each other, yet the walk will introduce a similarity between them. This species of garden, therefore, seems proper only for a place of a very moderate extent ; if it be stretched out to a great length, and not mixed with other characters, its same- ness hurts that variety, which it is its peculiar merit to discover. But the advantages attending it upon some, and the use of it on so many occasions, have raised a partiality in its favor, and it is often carried round a place where the whole enclosure is garden; the interior openings and communi- cations furnish there a sufficient range, and they do not require that number and variety of appendages which must be introduced to dis- ttbomas MbatelE 199 guise the uniformity of the circuitous walk, but which often interfere with greater effect. It is at the least unnecessary in such a garden, but plain gravel walks to every part are commonly deemed to be indispensable ; they undoubtedly are convenient, but it must also be acknowl- edged, that though sometimes they adorn, yet, at other times, they disfigure, the scenes through which they are conducted. The proprietor of the place, who visits these scenes at different seasons, is most anxious for their beauty in fine weather ; he does not feel the restraint to be grievous, if all of them be not at all times equally accessible, and a gravel walk perpetually before him, especially when it is useless, must be irk- some ; it ought not, therefore, to be ostenta- tiously shown ; on many occasions it should be industriously concealed. That it lead to the capital points is sufficient ; it can never be requisite along the whole extent of every scene ; it may often skirt a part of them without appear- ing, or just touch upon them and withdraw ; but if it cannot be induced at all without hurting them, it ought commonly to be omitted. The sides of a gravel walk must correspond, and its course be in sweeps gently bending all the way. It preserves its form, though con- ducted through woods or along glades of the most licentious irregularity. But a grass walk 200 ZTbe (SarDen is under no restraint : the sides of it may be perpetually broken, and the direction frequently changed sudden turns, however, are harsh ; they check the idea of progress ; they are rather disappointments than varieties, and if they are familiar they are in the worst style of affecta- tion. The line must be curved, but it should not be wreathed ; if it be truly serpentine, it is the most unnatural of any ; it ought constantly to proceed, and wind only just so much, that the termination of the view may differ at every step, and the end of the walk never appear ; the thickets which confine it should be diversified with several mixtures of greens ; no distinctions in the forms of the shrubs or the trees will be lost, when there are opportunities to observe them so nearly ; and combinations and con- trasts without number may be made, which will be there truly ornamental. Minute beauties are proper in a spot precluded from great effects: and yet such a walk, if it be broad, is by no means insignificant ; it may have an importance which will render it more than a mere communication. But the peculiar merit of that species of gar- den which occupies the whole enclosure, con- sists in the larger scenes ; it can make room for them both in breadth and in length ; and, being dedicated entirely to pleasure, free from all other considerations, those scenes may be in Gbomas any style which the nature of the place will al- low ; a number of them is expected, all different, sometimes contrasted, and each distinguished by its beauty. If the space be divided into lit- tle slips, and made only a collection of walks, it forfeits all its advantages, loses its character, and can have no other excellence than such as it may derive from situation j whereas by a more liberal disposition it may be made independent of whatever is external ; and though prospects are nowhere more delightful than from a point of view which is also a beautiful spot, yet if in such a garden they should be wanting, the ele- gant, picturesque, and various scenes within itself almost supply the deficiency. THE GARDENS AT STOWE. This is the character of the gardens at Stowe ; for there the views into the country are only circumstances subordinate to the scenes, and the principal advantage of the situation is the variety of the ground within the enclosure. The house stands on the brow of a gentle ascent ; parts of the gardens lie on the declivity, and spread over the bottom beyond it ; this emi- nence is separated by a broad winding valley from another which is higher and steeper ; and the descents of both are broken by large dips and hollows, sloping down the sides of the hills. 202 Gbe (Barfcen The whole space is divided into a number of scenes, each distinguished with taste and fancy ; and the changes are so frequent, so sud- den, and complete, the transitions so artfully conducted, that the same ideas are never con- tinued or repeated to satiety. These gardens were begun when regularity was in fashion ; and the original boundary is still preserved on account of its magnificence ; for round the whole circuit, of between three and four miles, is carried a very broad gravel walk, planted with rows of trees, and open either to the park or the country ; a deep-sunk fence attends it all the way, and comprehends a space of near four hundred acres. But in the interior scenes of the garden few traces of regu- larity appear ; where it yet remains in the planta- tions it is generally disguised ; every symptom almost of formality is obliterated from the ground ; and an octagon basin in the bottom is now converted into an irregular piece of water, which receives on one hand two beautiful streams, and falls on the other down a cascade into a lake. In the front of the house is a considerable lawn, open to the water, beyond which are two elegant Doric pavilions, placed in the boundary of the garden, but not marking it, though they correspond to each other ; for still farther back, ftbomas t&batetg 203 on the brow of some rising grounds without the enclosure, stands a noble Corinthian arch, by which the principal approach is conducted, and from which all the gardens are seen reclining back against their hills ; they are rich with plantations, full of objects, and lying on both sides of the house almost equally, every part is within a moderate distance, notwithstanding the extent of the whole. On the right of the lawn, but concealed from the house, is a perfect garden scene called the Queen's Amphitheatre, where art is avowed, though formality is avoided ; the foreground is scooped into a gentle hollow ; the plantations on the sides, though but just rescued from regu- larity, yet in style are contrasted to each other ; they are, on one hand, chiefly thickets, standing out from a wood ; on the other, they are open groves, through which a glimpse of the water is visible ; at the end of the hollow, on a little knoll, quite detached from all appendages, is placed an open Ionic rotunda ; beyond it a large lawn slopes across the view ; a pyramid stands on the brow ; the Queen's Pillar, in a recess on the descent ; and all the three build- ings being evidently intended for ornament alone, are peculiarly adapted to a garden scene ; yet their number does not render it gay ; the dusky hue of the pyramid, the retired situation 204 tTbe (Barfcett of the Queen's Pillar, and the solitary appear- ance of the rotunda, give it an air of gravity ; it is encompassed with wood ; and all external views are excluded ; even the opening into the lawn is but an opening into an enclosure. At the King's Pillar, very near to this, is an- other lovely spot, which is small, but not con- fined, for no termination appears ; the ground one way, the water another, retire under the trees out of sight, but nowhere meet with a boundary ; the view is first over some very broken ground, thinly and irregularly planted ; then between two beautiful clumps, which fea- ther down to the bottom, and afterwards across a glade, and through a little grove beyond it, to that part of the lake where the thickets close upon the brink, spread a tranquillity over the surface, in which their shadows are reflected. Nothing is admitted to disturb that quiet ; no building obtrudes ; for objects to fix the eye are needless in a scene, which may be compre- hended at a glance ; and none would suit the pastoral idea it inspires, of elegance too refined for a cottage, and of simplicity too pure for any other edifice. The situation of the rotunda promises a pros- pect more enlarged, and, in fact, most of the objects on this side the garden are there visible ; but they want both connection and contrast ; Gbomas TDdbatelg 205 each belongs peculiarly to some other spot ; they are all blended together in this, without meaning, and are rather shown on a map than formed into a picture. The water only is capi- tal ; a broad expanse of it is so near as to be seen under the little groups on the bank with- out interruption ; beyond it is a wood, which in one place leaves the lake to run up behind a beautiful building of three pavilions, joined by arcades, all of the Ionic order ; it is called Kent's Building ; and never was a design more happily conceived ; it seems to be character- istically proper for a garden ; it is so elegant, so varied, and so purely ornamental ; it directly fronts the rotunda, and a narrow rim of the country appears above the trees beyond it ; but the effect even of this noble object is fainter here than at other points ; its position is not the most advantageous ; and it is but one among many other buildings, none of which are principal. The scene at the Temple of Bacchus is in character directly the reverse of that about the rotunda, though the space and the objects are nearly the same in both. But in this, all the parts concur to form one whole : the ground from every side shelves gradually towards the lake ; the plantations on the farthest bank open to show Kent's Building, rise from the 206 ftbe <3arfcen water's edge towards the knoll on which it stands, and close again behind it. That elegant structure, inclined a little from a front view, becomes more beautiful by being thrown into perspective ; and though at a greater distance, is more important than before, because it is alone in the view ; for the Queen's Pillar and the rotunda are removed far aside, and every other circumstance refers to this interesting object ; the water attracts, the ground and the plantations direct the eye thither, and the country does not just glimmer in the offscape, but is close and eminent above the wood, and connected by clumps with the garden. The scene altogether is a most animated landscape, and the splendor of the building, the reflection in the lake, the transparency of the water, and the picturesque beauty of its form, diversified by little groups on the brink, while on the broadest expanse no more trees cast their shad- ows than are sufficient to vary the tints of the surface all these circumstances, vying in lus- tre with each other, and uniting in the point to which every part of the scene is related, dif- fuse a peculiar brilliancy over the whole com- position. The view from Kent's Building is very differ- ent from those which have been hitherto described : they are all directed down the de ftbomas WbatelB 207 clivity of the lawn ; this rises up the ascent ; the eminence, being crowned with lofty wood, becomes thereby more considerable and the hillocks, into which the general fall is broken, sloping farther out this way than any other, they also acquire an importance which they had not before. That particularly on which the rotunda is placed, seems here to be a proud situation, and the structure appears to be properly adapted to so open an exposure. The Temple of Bacchus, on the contrary, which commands such an illustrious view, is itself a retired object, close under the covert. The wood rising on the brow, and descending down one side of the hill, is shown to be deep ; is high, and seems to be higher than it is. The lawn, too, is extensive ; and part of the boundary being concealed, it suggests the idea of a still greater extent. A small portion only of the lake, indeed, is visible, but it is not here an object ; it is a part of the spot, and neither ter- mination being in sight, it has no diminutive appearance. If more water had been admitted, it might have hurt the character of the place, which is sober and temperate, neither solemn nor gay, great and simple, but elegant, above rusticity, yet free from ostentation. These are the principal scenes on one side of the gardens ; on the other, close to the lawn 208 Gbe (Barren before the house, is the winding valley above- mentioned ; the lower part of it is assigned to the Blysian fields ; they are watered by a lovely rivulet, are very lightsome, and very airy, so thinly are the trees scattered about them, are open at one end to more water and a larger glade, and the rest of the boundary is frequent- ly broken to let in objects afar off, which ap- pear still more distant from the manner of showing them. The entrance is under a Doric arch, which coincides with an opening among the trees, and forms a kind of vista, through which a Pembroke bridge just below, and a lodge built like a castle in the park, are seen in a beautiful perspective. That bridge is at one extremity of the gardens, the Queen's Pillar is at another, yet both are visible from the same station in the Blysian fields, and all these external objects are unaffectedly introduced, divested of their own appurtenances, and com- bined with others which belong to the spot. The Temple of Friendship also is in sight just without the place, and within it are the Temples of Ancient Virtue and of the British worthies, the one in an elevated situation, the other down in the valley, and near to the water. Both are decorated with the effigies of those who have been most distinguished for military, civil, or literary merit ; and near to the former stands a Gbomas TKHbatelg 209 rostral column, sacred to the memory of Cap- tain Grenville, who fell in an action at sea. By placing here the meed of valor, and by filling these fields with the representations of those who have deserved best of mankind, the char- acter intended to be given to the spot is justly and poetically expressed, and the number of the images which are presented or excited per- fectly corresponds with it. Solitude was never reckoned among the charms of Elysium ; it has been always pictured as the mansion of delight and of joy, and in this imitation every circum- stance accords with that established idea : the vivacity of the stream which flows through the vale, the glimpses of another approaching to join it, the sprightly verdure of the green- sward, and every bust of the British worthies, reflected in the water ; the variety of the trees, the lightness of their greens, their disposition, all of them distinct objects, and dispersed over gentle inequalities of the ground, together with the multiplicity of objects, both within and without, which embellish and enliven the scene, give it a gayety which the imagination can hardly conceive, or the heart wish to be ex- ceeded. Close by this spot, and a perfect contrast to it, is the alder grove, a deep recess in the midst of a shade, which the blaze of noon cannot 2io brighten. The water seems to be a stagnated pool, eating into its banks, and of a peculiar color, not dirty, but cloudy, and dimly reflect- ing the dun hue of the horse-chestnuts and alders, which press upon the brink. The stems of the latter, rising in clusters from the same root, bear one another down, and slant over the water. Misshaped elms and ragged firs are fre- quent in the wood which encompasses the hollow ; the trunks of dead trees are left stand- ing amongst them ; and the uncouth sumach, and the yew, with elder, nut, and holly, com- pose the underwood ; some limes and laurels are intermixt, but they are not many. The wood is in general of the darkest greens, and the foliage is thickened with ivy, which not only twines up the trees, but creeps also over the falls of the ground ; they are steep and abrupt. The gravel walk is covered with moss ; and a grotto at the end, faced with broken flints and pebbles, preserves, in the simplicity of its materials and the duskiness of its color, all the character of its situation. Two little rotundas near it were better away ; one building is sufficient for such a scene of solitude as this, in which more circumstances of gloom concur than were ever perhaps collected together. Immediately above the alder grove is the principal eminence in the garden ; it is divided Gbomas Wbatelg 211 by a great dip into two pinnacles, upon one of which is a large Gothic building. The space be- fore this structure is an extensive lawn ; the ground on one side falls immediately into the dip ; and the trees which border the lawn, sink- ing with the ground, the house rises above them, and fills the interval. The vast pile seems to be still larger than it is; for it is thrown into perspective, and between and above the heads of the trees, the upper story, the por- ticos, the turrets and balustrades, and all the slated roofs appear in a noble confusion. On the other side of the Gothic building the ground slopes down a long-continued declivity into a bottom, which seems to be perfectly irriguous. Divers streams of water wander about it in several directions ; the conflux of that which runs from the Klysian fields with another below it, is in full sight ; and a plain wooden bridge thrown over the latter, and evidently designed for a passage, imposes an air of reality on the river. Beyond it is one of the Doric porticos which front the house, but now it is alone ; it stands on a little bank above the water, and is seen under some trees at a distance before it. Thus grouped, and thus accompanied, it is a happy incident, concurring with many other circumstances to distinguish this landscape by &. character of cheerfulness and amenity, 212 From the Gothic building a broad walk leads to the Grecian valley, which is a scene of more grandeur than any in the gardens ; it enters them from the park, spreading at first to a considerable breadth, then winds, grows nar- rower but deeper, and loses itself at last in a thicket, behind some lofty elms, which interrupt the sight of the termination. L,ovely woods and groves hang all the way on the declivities, and the open space is broken by detached trees, which near the park are cautiously and sparing- ly introduced, lest the breadth should be con- tracted by them ; but as the valley sinks they advance more boldly down the sides, stretch across or along the bottom, and cluster at times into groups and forms, which multiply the varieties of the larger plantations. Those are sometimes close coverts, and sometimes open groves. The trees rise in one upon high stems, and feather down to the bottom in another, and between them are short openings in the park or the gardens. In the midst of the scene, just at the bend of the valley and commanding it on both sides, upon a large, easy, natural rise, is placed the Temple of Concord and Victory. At one place its majestic front of six Ionic col- umns, supporting a pediment filled with bas- relief, and the points of it crowned with statues, faces the view ; at another, the beautiful colon- Cbomas TJdbatetg 213 nade on the side of ten lofty pillars retires in perspective. It is seen from every part, and impressing its own character of dignity on all around, it spreads an awe over the whole, but no gloom, no melancholy attends it. The sensa- tions it excites are rather placid, but full of respect, admiration, and solemnity ; no water appears to enliven, no distant prospect to enrich, the view. The parts of the scene are larger, the idea of it sublime, and the execution happy ; it is independent of all adventitious circum- stances, and relies on itself for its greatness. The scenes which have been described are such as are most remarkable for beauty or character, but the gardens contain many more ; and even the objects in these, by their several combinations, produce very different effects, within the distance sometimes of a few paces, from the unevenness of the ground, the variety of the plantations, and the number of the build- ings. The multiplicity of the last has indeed been often urged as an objection to Stowe ; and certainly when all are seen by a stranger in two or three hours, twenty or thirty capital struc- tures, mixed with others of inferior note, do seem too many ; but the growth of the wood every day weakens the objection, by concealing them one from the other. Bach belongs to a distinct scene ; and if they are considered sep- (Barbett arately, at different times, and at leisure, it may be difficult to determine which to take away ; yet still it must be acknowledged that their frequency destroys all ideas of silence and re- tirement. Magnificence and splendor are the characteristics of Stowe ; it is like one of those places celebrated in antiquity, which were de- voted to the purposes of religion, and filled with sacred groves, hallowed fountains, and temples dedicated to several deities ; the resort of distant nations, and the object of venera- tion to half the heathen world. This pomp is at Stowe blended with beauty, and the place is equally distinguished by its amenity and its grandeur. In the midst of so much embellishment as may be introduced into this species of garden, a plain field, or a sheep walk, is sometimes an agreeable relief, and even wilder scenes may occasionally be admitted. These indeed are not properly parts of a garden, but they may be comprehended within the verge of it, and their proximity to the more ornamented scenes is at least a convenience, that the transition from the one to the other may be easy, and the change always in our option : for though a spot in the highest state of improvement be a necessary r.ppendage to a seat, yet in a place which is tTbomas Mbatetg perfect, other characters will not be wanting ; if they cannot be had on a large scale, they are acceptable on a smaller ; and so many circum- stances are common to all, that they may always border on each other. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. DESCRIPTION OF A CHINESE GARDEN. From " The Citizen of the World." THE English have not yet brought the art of gardening to the same perfection with the Chinese, but have lately begun to imitate them : nature is now followed with greater as- siduity than formerly ; the trees are suffered to shoot out into the utmost luxuriance ; the streams, no longer forced from their native beds, are permitted to wind along the valleys ; spontaneous flowers take the place of finished parterre, and the enamelled meadow of the shaven green. Yet still the English are far behind us in this charming art ; their designers have not yet attained a power of uniting instruction with beauty. A European will scarcely conceive liver (BolDsmftb 217 my meaning, when I say that there is scarce a garden in China which does not contain some fine moral, couched under the general design, where one is not taught wisdom as he walks, and feels the force of some noble truth, or deli- cate precept, resulting from the disposition of the groves, streams, or grottos. Permit me to illustrate what I mean by a description of my gardens at Quamsi. My heart still hovers round those scenes of former happiness with pleasure ; and I find a satisfaction in enjoying them at this distance, though but in imagina- tion. You descended from the house between two groves of trees, planted in such a manner that they were impenetrable to the eye ; while on each hand the way was adorned with all that was beautiful in porcelain, statuary, and paint- ing. This passage from the house opened into an arena surrounded with rocks, flowers, trees, and shrubs, but all so disposed as if each was the spontaneous production of nature. As you proceeded forward on this lawn, to your right and left hand were two gates, opposite each other, of very different architecture and design ; and before you lay a temple, built rather with minute elegance than ostentation. The right-hand gate was planned with the utmost simplicity, or rather rudeness ; ivy tTbe (Sarfcett clasped round the pillars, the baleful cypress hung over it ; time seems to have destroyed all the smoothness and regularity of the stone ; two champions with lifted clubs appeared in the act of guarding its access ; dragons and serpents were seen in the most hideous attitudes, to deter the spectator from approaching ; and the per- spective view that lay behind seemed dark and gloomy to the last degree ; the stranger was tempted to enter only from the motto Pervia Virtuti. The opposite gate was formed in a very indif- ferent manner ; the architecture was light, ele- gant, and inviting ; flowers hung in wreaths round the pillars ; all was finished in the most exact and masterly manner ; the very stone of which it was built still preserved its polish ; nymphs, wrought by the hand of a master, in the most alluring attitudes, beckoned the stran- ger to approach ; while all that lay behind, as far as the eye could reach, seemed gay, luxuri- ant, and capable of affording endless pleasures. The motto itself contributed to invite him, for over the gate were written these words Facilis Descensus. By this time I fancy you begin to perceive that the gloomy gate was designed to represent the road to Virtue ; the opposite, the more agreeable passage to Vice. It is but natural to liver (Botfcemftb suppose that the spectator was always tempted to enter by the gate which offered him so many allurements. I always in these cases left him to his choice, but generally found that he took to the left, which promised most entertainment. Immediately upon his entering the gate of Vice the trees and flowers were disposed in such a manner as to make the most pleasing impres- sion ; but as he walked farther on, he insensibly found the garden assuming the air of a wilder- ness ; the landscapes began to darken, the paths grew more intricate ; he appeared to go down- wards ; frightful rocks seemed to hang over his head ; gloomy caverns, unexpected precipices, awful ruins, heaps of unburied bones, and ter- rifying sounds caused by unseen waters, began to take the place of what at first appeared so lovely. It was in vain to attempt returning ; the laby- rinth was too much perplexed for any but my- self to find the way back. In short, when suffi- ciently impressed with the horrors of what he saw, and the imprudence of his choice, I brought him by a hidden door a shorter way back into the area from whence at first he had strayed. The gloomy gate now presented itself before the stranger, and though there seemed little in its appearance to tempt his curiosity, yet, en- couraged by the motto, he gradually proceeded. The darkness of the entrance, the frightful fig- 220 tlbe (Barren ures that seemed to obstruct his way, the trees of the mournful green, conspired at first to dis- gust him ; as he went forward, however, all began to open and wear a more pleasing ap- pearance ; beautiful cascades, beds of flowers, trees loaded with fruit or blossoms, and unex- pected brooks, improved the scene. He now found that he was ascending, and, as he pro- ceeded, all nature grew more beautiful ; the prospect widened as he went higher ; even the air itself seemed to become more pure. Thus pleased and happy from unexpected beauties, I at last led him to an arbor, from whence he could view the garden and the whole country around, and where he might own that the road to Virtue terminated in Happiness. Though from this description you may ima- gine that a vast tract of ground was necessary to exhibit such a pleasing variety in, yet be as- sured I have seen several gardens in England take up ten times the space which mine did, without half the beauty. A very small extent of ground is enough for an elegant taste ; the greater room is required if magnificence is in view. There is no spot, though ever so little, which a skilful designer might not thus im- prove, so as to convey a delicate allegory, and impress the mind with truths the most useful and necessary. Adieu ! OLIVER GOLDSMITH. THE HISTORY OF A POET'S GARDEN. OF all men who form gay illusions of distant happiness, perhaps the poet is the most sanguine. Such is the ardor of his hopes, that they are often equal to actual enjoyment ; he feels more in expectance than actual fruition. I have often regarded the character of this kind with some degree of envy. A man possessed of such warm imagination commands all nature, and arrogates possessions of which the owner has a blunter relish. While life continues, the alluring prospect lies before him ; he travels in the pursuit with confidence, and resigns it only with his last breath. It is this happy confidence which gives life its true relish, and keeps up our spirits amidst every distress and disappointment. How much less would, be done if a man knew how little lie can 222 Ube <$arfcen do ! How wretched a creature would he be if he saw the end as well as the beginning of his projects ! He would have nothing left but to sit down in torpid despair, and exchange employ- ment for actual calamity. I was led into this train of thinking upon lately visiting the beautiful gardens of the late Mr. Shenstone,* who was himself a poet, and pos- sessed of that warm imagination which made him ever foremost in the pursuit of flying hap- piness. Could he but have foreseen the end of all his schemes, for whom he was improving, and what changes his designs were to undergo, he would have scarcely amused his innocent life with what, for several years, employed him in a most harmless manner, and abridged his scanty fortune. As the progress of this im- provement is a true picture of sublunary vicissi- tude, I could not help calling up my imagina- tion, which, while I walked pensively along, suggested the following reverie. As I was turning my back upon a beautiful piece of water enlivened with cascades and rock- work, and entering a dark walk by which ran a prattling brook, the Genius of the Place ap- peared before me, but more resembling the God of Time than him more peculiarly appointed to *"The I^easowes," sometimes spoken of as a ferme i situated between Birmingham and Hagley, <3oR>0mitb 223 the care of gardens. Instead of shears he bore a scythe ; and he appeared rather with the im- plements of husbandry than those of a modern gardener. Having remembered this place in its pristine beauty, I could not help condoling with him on its present ruinous situation. I spoke to him of the many alterations which had been made, and all for the worse ; of the many shades which had been taken away ; of the bowers that were destroyed by neglect, and the hedgerows that were spoiled by clipping. The Genius with a sigh received my condolement, and assured me that he was equally a martyr to ignorance and taste, to refinement and rusticity. Seeing me desirous of knowing further, he went on : " You see, in the place before you, the pater- nal inheritance of a poet ; and to a man content with little, fully sufficient for his subsistence : but a strong imagination and a long acquaint- ance with the rich are dangerous foes to con- tentment. Our poet, instead of sitting down to enjoy life, resolved to prepare for its future en- joyment, and set about converting a place of profit into a scene of pleasure. This he at first supposed could be accomplished at a small ex- pense ; and he was willing for a while to stint his income, to have an opportunity of display- ing his taste. The improvement in this manner 224 Gbe (Barfcen went forward ; one beauty attained led him to wish for some other : but he still hoped that every emendation would be the last. It was now, therefore, found that the improvement ex- ceeded the subsidy, that the place was grown too large and too fine for the inhabitant. But that pride which was once exhibited could not retire : the garden was made for the owner, and though it was become unfit for him, he could not will- ingly resign it to another. Thus the first idea of its beauties contributing to the happiness of his life was found unfaithful ; so that, instead of looking within for satisfaction, he began to think of having recourse to the praises of those who came to visit his improvement. ' 'In consequence of this hope, which now took possession of his mind, the gardens were opened to the visits of every stranger ; and the country flocked round to walk, to criticise, to admire, and to do mischief. He soon found that the admirers of his taste left by no means such strong marks of their applause as the envious did of their malignity. All the win- dows of his temples, and the walls of his re- treats, were impressed with the characters of profaneness, ignorance, and obscenity ; his hedges were broken, his statues and urns de- faced, and his lawns worn bare. It was now, therefore, necessary to shut up the gardens liver <3ott>6mftb 225 once more, and to deprive the public of that happiness which had before ceased to be his own. "In this situation the poet continued for a time in the character of a jealous lover, fond of the beauty he keeps, but unable to supply the extravagance of every demand. The garden by this time was completely grown and finished ; the marks of art were covered up by the luxuri- ance of nature ; the winding walks were worn dark ; the brook assumed a natural sylvage ; and the rocks were covered with moss. Noth- ing now remained but to enjoy the beauties of the place, when the poor poet died, and his gar- den was obliged to be sold for the benefit of those who had contributed to its embellishment. " The beauties of the place had now for some time been celebrated as well in prose as in verse ; and all men of taste wished for so envied a spot, where every urn was marked with the poet's pencil, and every walk awakened genius and meditation. The first purchaser was one Mr. Truepenny, a button-maker, who was possessed of three thousand pounds, and was willing also to be possessed of taste and genius. "As the poet's ideas were for the natural wildness of the landscape, the button-maker's were for the more regular productions of art. He conceived, perhaps, that as it is a beauty in 8 226 Gbe <3arDen a button to be of a regular pattern, so the same regularity ought to obtain in a landscape. Be this as it will, he employed the shears to some purpose ; he clipped up the hedges, cut down the gloomy walks, made vistas upon the stables and hog-sties, and showed his friends that a man of taste should always be doing. " The next candidate for taste and genius was a captain of a ship, who bought the garden be- cause the former possessor could find nothing more to mend ; but, unfortunately, he had taste too. His great passion lay in building, in mak- ing Chinese temples, and cage-work summer- houses. As the place before had an appearance of retirement and inspired meditation, he gave it a more peopled air ; every turning presented a cottage, or ice-house, or a temple ; the im- provement was converted into a little city, and it only wanted inhabitants to give it the air of a village in the Bast Indies. "In this manner, in less than ten years, the improvement has gone through the hands of as many proprietors, who were all willing to have taste, and to show their taste too. As the place had received its best finishing from the hand of the first possessor, so every innovator only lent a hand to do mischief. Those parts which were obscure have been enlightened ; those walks which led naturally, have been twisted into liver (BolDsmftb serpentine windings. The color of the flowers of the field is not more various than the variety of tastes that have been employed here, and all in direct contradiction to the original aim of the first improver. Could the original possessor but revive, with what a sorrowful heart would he look upon his favorite spot again ! He would scarcely recollect a Dryad or a Wood-nymph of his former acquaintance, and might perhaps find himself as much a stranger in his own plantation as in the deserts of Siberia. " HORACE WALPOLE. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF WII/EJAM KKN*T. UNDER the auspices of Lord Burlington and Lord Pembroke, architecture, as I have said, recovered its genuine lustre. The former, the Apollo of arts, found a proper priest in the person of Mr. Kent. As I mean no panegyric on any man, beyond what he deserved, or what to the best of my possibly erroneous judgment I think he deserved, I shall speak with equal impartiality on the merits and faults of Kent, the former of which exceedingly preponderated. He was a painter, an architect, and the father of modern gardening. In the first character, he was below mediocrity ; in the second, he was a restorer of the science ; in the last, an original, and the inventor of an art that realizes painting and improves nature. Mahomet imagined an Elysium, but Kent created many. f>orace tKHatpole 229 He was born in Yorkshire and put apprentice to a coach-painter, but feeling the emotions of genius, he left his master without leave, and repaired to London, where he studied a little, and gave indications enough of abilities to excite a generous patronage in some gentlemen of his own county, who raised a contribution sufficient to send him to Rome, whither he accompanied Mr. Talman in 1710. In that capital of the arts he studied under Cavalier Luti, and in the Academy gained the second prize of the second class ; still without suspecting that there was a sister art within his reach, more congenial to his talents. Though his first resources were exhausted, he still found friends. Another of his countrymen, Sir John Went- worth, allowed him ^40 a year for seven years. But it was at Rome that his better star brought him acquainted with Lord Burlington, whose sagacity discovered the rich vein of genius that had been hid from the artist himself. On their return to England in 1719, Lord Burlington gave him an apartment in his own house, and added all the graces of favor and recommenda- tion. By that noble person's interest Kent was employed in various works, both as a painter of history and portrait ; and yet it must be al- lowed that in each branch partiality must have operated strongly to make his lordship believe 230 Sbe (Sarfcett he discovered any merit in his friend. His por- traits bore little resemblance to the persons that sat for them, and the coloring was worse, more raw and undetermined than that of the most errant journeymen to the profession. The whole lengths at Esher are standing evidences of this assertion. In his ceilings, Kent's draw- ing was as defective as the coloring of his portraits, and as void of every merit. I have mentioned Hogarth's parody, if I may call it so, of his picture at St. Clement's. The hall at Wanstead is another proof of his incapacity. Sir Robert Walpole, who was persuaded to em- ploy him at Houghton, where he painted several ceilings and the staircase, would not permit him, however, to work in colors, which would have been still more disgraced by the presence of so many capital pictures, but restrained him to chiaro-scuro. If his faults are thence not so glaring, they are scarce less numerous. He painted a staircase in the same way for Lord Townshend at Rainham. To compensate for his bad paintings, he had an excellent taste for ornaments, and gave de- signs for most of the furniture at Houghton, as he did for several other persons. Yet chaste as these ornaments were, they were often unmeas- urably ponderous. His chimney-pieces, though lighter than those of Inigo, whom he imitated, Iboracc TKIlalpole 231 are frequently heavy ; and his constant intro- duction of pediments and the members of archi- tecture over doors and within rooms, was disproportioned and cumbrous. Indeed, I much question whether the Romans admitted regular architecture within their houses. At least the discoveries at Herculaneum testify that a light and fantastic architecture, of a very Indian air, made a common decoration of private apartments. Kent's style, however, predomi- nated authoritatively during his life ; and his oracle was so much consulted by all who affected taste, that nothing was thought complete with- out his assistance. He was not only consulted for furniture, as frames of pictures, glasses, tables, chairs, etc., but for plate, for a barge, for a cradle. And so impetuous was fashion, that two great ladies prevailed on him to make designs for their birthday gowns. The one he dressed in a petticoat decorated with columns of the five orders ; the other like a bronze, in a copper-colored satin, with ornaments of gold. He was not more happy in other works in which he misapplied his genius. The gilt rails to the hermitage at Richmond were in truth but a trifling impropriety ; but his celebrated monument of Shakespeare in the abbey was preposterous. What an absurdity to place busts at the angles of a pedestal, and at the bottom 232 ftbe Garden of that pedestal ! Whose choice the busts were I do not know ; but though Queen Elizabeth's head might be intended to mark the era in which the poet flourished, why were Richard II. and Henry V. selected? Are the pieces under the names of those princes two of Shakespeare's most capital works? or what reason can be assigned for giving them the preference ? As Kent's genius was not universal, he has succeeded as ill in Gothic. The King's Bench at Westminster and Mr. Pelham's house at Bsher are proofs how little he conceived either the principles or graces of that architecture. Yet he was sometimes sensible of its beauties, and published* a print of Wolsey's noble hall at Hampton Court, now crowded and half-hidden by a theatre. Kent gave the design for the ornaments of the chapel at the Prince of Orange's wedding, of which he also made a print.* Such of the drawings as he designed for Gay's ' ' Fables " have some truth and nature ; but who- ever would search for his faults, will find an ample crop in a very favorite work of his, the prints for Spenser's " Fairy Queen." As the drawings were exceedingly cried up by his admirers, and * His vignettes to the large edition of Pope's works are in good taste. Iborace tKttalpoIe 233 disappointed the public in proportion, the blame was thrown on the engraver ; but so far unjustly, that, though ill-executed, the wretchedness of drawing, the total ignorance of perspective, the want of variety, the dispro- portion of the buildings, the awkwardness of the attitudes, could have been the faults of the inventor only. There are figures issuing from cottages not so high as their shoulders, castles in which the towers could not contain an infant, and knights who hold their spears as men do who are lifting a load sideways. The landscapes are the only tolerable parts, and yet the trees are seldom other than young beeches, to which Kent, as a planter, was accustomed. But in architecture his taste was deservedly admired ; and without enumerating particulars, the staircase at Lady Isabella Finch's, in Berke- ley Square, is as beautiful a piece of scenery, and, considering the space, of art, as can be imagined. The Temple of Venus at Stowe has simplicity and merit, and the great room at Mr. Pelham's, in Arlington Street, is as remarkable for magnificence. I do not admire equally the room ornamented with marble and gilding at Kensington. The staircase there is the least defective work of his pencil, and his ceilings in that palace from antique paintings, which he first happily introduced, show that he was not 234 Gbe Garden too ridiculously prejudiced in favor of his own historic compositions. Of all his works, his favorite production was the Karl of Leicester's house, at Holkam, in Norfolk. The great hall, with the flight of steps at the upper end, in which he proposed to place a colossal Jupiter, was a noble idea. How the designs of that house, which I have seen a hundred times in Kent's original draw- ings, came to be published under another name, and without the slightest mention of the real architect, is beyond comprehension. The bridge, the temple, the great gateway, all built, I be- lieve, the two first certainly, under Kent's own eye, are alike passed off as the works of another ; and yet no man need envy or deny him the glory of having oppressed a triumphal arch with an Egyptian pyramid. Holkam has its faults, but they are Kent's faults, and marked with all the peculiarities of his style. As I intend to consider him as the inventor of modern gardening in a chapter by itself, I will conclude this account of him with the few remaining circumstances of his life. By the patronage of the queen, of the Dukes of Graf- ton and Newcastle, and Mr. Pelham, and by the interest of his constant friend, he was made master carpenter, architect, keeper of the pic- tures, and, after the death of Jervas, principal Iborace TWlalpote 235 painter to the crown ; the whole, including a pension of 100 a year, which was given him for his works at Kensington, producing 600 a year. In 1743 he had a disorder in his eyes that was thought paralytic, but recovered. But in March, 1748, he had an inflammation both in his bowels and foot, which turned to a general mortification, and put an end to his life at Burlington House, April 12, 1748, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. He was buried in a very handsome manner in Lord Burlington's vault at Chiswick. His fortune, which, with pictures and books, amounted to about ten thousand pounds, he divided between his rela- tions and an actress with whom he had long lived in particular friendship. HORACE THE HISTORY OF THE MODERN TASTE IN GAR- DENING.* ARDENING was probably one of the first arts that succeeded to that of building houses, and naturally attended property and in- dividual possession. Culinary and afterwards medicinal herbs were the objects of every head of a family ; it became convenient to have them within reach, without seeking them at random in woods, in meadows, and on mountains, as often as they were wanted. When the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously all these primi- tive luxuries, and culture became requisite, sepa- rate enclosures for rearing herbs grew expedient. Fruits were in the same predicament, and those most in use or that demand attention, must have * Printed at Strawberry Hill, 1771. Translated into French by the Duke de Nivernois, and printed at Straw- berry Hill, 1785. Iborace Walpole 237 entered into and extended the domestic en- closure. The good man Noah, we are told, planted a vineyard, drank of the wine, and was drunken, and everybody knows the conse- quences. Thus we acquired kitchen-gardens, orchards, and vineyards. I am apprised that the prototype of all these sorts was the garden of Eden, but as that paradise was a good deal larger than any we read of afterwards, being enclosed by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, as every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food grew in it, and as two other trees were likewise found there, of which not a slip or sucker remains, it does not belong to the present discussion. After the fall no man living was suffered to enter into the garden ; and the poverty and necessities of our first ancestors hardly allowed them time to make improvements on their estates in imitation of it, supposing any plan had been preserved. A cottage and a slip of ground for a cabbage and a gooseberry-bush, such as we see by the side of a common, were in all probability the earliest seats and gardens : a well and bucket succeeded to the Pison and Euphrates. As settlements increased, the orchard and the vineyard followed ; and the earliest princes of tribes possessed just the necessaries of a modern farmer. 238 Gbe <3ar&en Matters, we may well believe, remained long in this situation ; and though the generality of mankind form their ideas from the import of words in their own age, we have no reason to think that for many centuries the term garden implied more than a kitchen-garden or orchard. When a Frenchman reads of the garden of Eden, I do not doubt but that he concludes it was something approaching to that of Ver- sailles, with clipt hedges, berceaus, and trellis- work. If his devotion humbles him so far as to allow that, considering who designed it, there might be a labyrinth full of ^sop's fables, yet he does not conceive that four of the largest rivers in the world were half so magnificent as a hundred fountains full of statues by Giradon. It is thus that the word garden has at all times passed for whatever was understood by that term in different countries. But that it meant no more than a kitchen-garden or orchard for several centuries, is evident from those few de- scriptions that are preserved of the most famous gardens of antiquity. That of Alcinous, in the Odyssey, is the most renowned in the heroic times. Is there an ad- mirer of Homer who can read his description without rapture ; or who does not form to his imagination a scene of delights more picturesque than the landscapes of Tinian or Juan Fernandez ? Iborace TDdalpole 239 Yet what was that boasted paradise with which " the gods ordain 'd To grace Alcinous and his happy land" ? POPE. Why, divested of harmonious Greek and be- witching poetry, it was a small orchard and vineyard, with some beds of herbs and two fountains that watered them, enclosed within a quickset hedge. The whole compass of this pompous garden enclosed four acres. " Four acres was th' allotted space of ground, Fenc'd with a green inclosure all around." The trees were apples, figs, pomegranates, pears, olives, and vines. " Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould ; The redd'ning apple ripens into gold. Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows ; With deeper red the full pomegranate glows. The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, And verdant olives flourish round the year. Beds of all various herbs, for ever green, In beauteous order terminate the scene." Alcinous' garden was planted by the poet, en- riched by him with the fairy gift of eternal summer, and, no doubt, an effort of imagina- tion surpassing any thing he had ever seen. As he has bestowed on the same happy prince a palace with brazen walls and columns of silver, 240 Gbe (Sarfcen he certainly intended that the garden should be proportionately magnificent. We are sure, therefore, that as late as Homer's age, an en- closure of four acres, comprehending orchard, vineyard, and kitchen-garden, was a stretch of luxury the world at that time had never beheld. The hanging gardens of Babylon were a still greater prodigy. We are not acquainted with their disposition or contents, but as they are supposed to have been formed on terraces and walls of the palace, whither soil was conveyed on purpose, we are very certain of what they were not ; I mean, they must have been trifling, of no extent, and a wanton instance of expense and labor. In other words, they were what sumptuous gardens have been in all ages till the present unnatural, enriched by art, possi- bly with fountains, statues, balustrades, and summer-houses, and were any thing but ver- dant and rural. From the days of Homer to those of Pliny, we have no traces to lead our guess to what were the gardens of the intervening ages. When Ro- man authors, whose climate instilled a wish for cool retreats, speak of their enjoyments in that kind, they sigh for grottos, caves, and the re- freshing hollows of mountains, near irriguous and shaded founts ; or boast of their porticos, walks of planes, canals, baths, and breezes from Iborace Walpole 241 the sea. Their gardens are never mentioned as affording shade and shelter from the rage of the dog-star. Pliny has left us descriptions of two of his villas. As he used his Laurentine villa for his winter retreat, it is not surprising that the garden makes no considerable part of the account. All he says of it is, that the gestatio or place of exercise, which surrounded the gar- den (the latter consequently not being very large), was bounded by a hedge of box, and where that was perished, with rosemary ; that there was a walk of vines, and that most of the trees were fig and mulberry, the soil not being proper for any other sorts. On his Tuscan villa he is more diffuse ; the garden makes a considerable part of the descrip- tion and what was the principal beauty of that pleasure-ground ? Exactly what was the admi- ration of this country about threescore years ago box-trees cut into monsters, animals, let- ters, and the names of the master and the artifi- cer. In an age when architecture displayed all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste ; when arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the Tem- ple of Peace, Trajan's forum, Domitian's baths, and Adrian's villa, the ruins and vestiges of which still excite our astonishment and curi- osity, a Roman consul, a polished emperor's friend, and a man of elegant literature and taste 242 ftbe <3arDen delighted in what the mob now scarce admire in a college-garden. All the ingredients of Pliny's correspond exactly with those laid out by I,on- don and Wise on Dutch principles. He talks of slopes, terraces, a wilderness, shrubs method- ically trimmed, a marble basin,* pipes spouting water, a cascade falling into the basin, bay- trees, alternately planted with planes, and a straight walk, from whence issued others part- ed oif by hedges of box, and apple-trees, with obelisks placed between every two. There wants nothing but the embroidery of a parterre, to make a garden in the reign of Trajan serve for a description of one in that of King William, j In one passage above Pliny seems to have con- * The English gardens described by Hentzner in the. reign of Elizabeth are exact copies of those of Pliny. In that at Whitehall was a sun-dial andjet-d'eau, which, on turning a cock, spurted put water and sprinkled the spectators. In I,ord Burleigh's, at Theobald's, were obe- lisks, pyramids, and circular porticos, with cisterns of lead for bathing. At Hampton Court the garden walls were covered with rosemary, a custom, he says, very common in England. At Theobald's was a labyrinth also, an ingenuity I shall mention presently to have been frequent in that age. f Dr. Plot, in his " Natural History of Oxfordshire," p. 380, seems to have been a great admirer of trees carved into the most heterogeneous forms, which he calls topiary works, and quotes one I^aurembergius for saying that the English are as expert as most nations in that kind of sculpture ; for which Hampton Court was particularly remarkable. The doctor then names other gardens that flourished with animals and castles, formed artetopiaria, and above all a wren's nest that was capacious enough to receive a man to sit on a seat made within for that purpose. Iborace Walpole 243 ceived that natural irregularity might be a beauty: in opere urbanisshno, says he, subita velut illati ruris imitatio. Something like a rural view was contrived amidst so much pol- ished composition. But the idea soon vanished, lineal walks immediately enveloped the slight scene, and names and inscriptions in box again succeeded to compensate for the daring introduc- tion of nature. In the paintings found at Herculaneum are a few traces of gardens, as may be seen in the second volume of the prints. They are small square enclosures formed by trellis-work and espaliers,* and regularly ornamented with vases, fountains, and careatides, elegantly symmetri- cal, and proper for the narrow spaces allotted to the garden of a house in a capital city. From such I would not banish those playful waters that refresh a sultry mansion in town, nor the neat trellis, which preserves its wooden verdure better than the natural greens exposed to dust. Those treillages in the gardens at Paris, partic- ularly on the Boulevard, have a gay and de- lightful effect. They form light corridors, and transpicuous arbors, through which the sun- beams play and checker the shade, set off the statues, vases, and flowers, that marry with their * At Warwick Castle is an ancient suit of arras, in which there is a garden exactly resembling these pig- tures of Herculaneum. 244 Gbe (Barren gaudy hotels, and suit the gallant and idle society who paint the walks between their parterres, and realize the fantastic scenes of Watteau and Durfe. From what I have said, it appears how natu- rally and insensibly the idea of a kitchen-garden slid into that which has for so many ages been peculiarly termed a garden, and by our ances- tors in this country distinguished by the name of a pleasure-garden. A square piece of ground was originally parted off in early ages for the use of the family ; to exclude cattle and ascer- tain the property it was separated from the fields by a hedge. As pride and desire of pri- vacy increased, the enclosure was dignified by walls ; and in climes where fruits were not lav- ished by the ripening glow of nature and soil, fruit-trees were assisted and sheltered from sur- rounding winds by like expedients ; for the in- undations of luxuries which have swelled into general necessities have almost all taken their source from the simple fountain of reason. When the custom of making square gardens enclosed with walls was thus established, to the exclusion of nature and prospect,* pomp and * It was not uncommon, after the circumjacent coun- try had been shut out, to endeavor to recover it by raising large mounds of earth to peep over the walls pf the garden, Ibotace tKftalpole 245 solitude combined to call for something that might enrich and enliven the insipid and tin- animated partition. Fountains, first invented for use, which grandeur loves to disguise and throw out of the question, received embellish- ments from costly marbles, and at last, to con- tradict utility, tossed their waste of waters into air in spouting columns. Art, in the hands of rude man, had at first been made a suc- cedaneum to nature ; in the hands of ostenta- tious wealth, it became the means of opposing nature ; and the more it traversed the march of the latter, the more nobility thought its power was demonstrated. Canals measured by the line were introduced in lieu of meandering streams, and terraces were hoisted aloft in opposition to the facile slopes that impercepti- bly unite the valley to the hill. Balustrades defended these precipitate and dangerous eleva- tions, and flights of steps rejoined them to the subjacent flat from which the terrace had been dug. Vases and sculpture were added to these unnecessary balconies, and statues furnished the lifeless spot with mimic representations of the excluded sons of men. Thus, difficulty and expense were the constituent parts of those sumptuous and selfish solitudes ; and every im- provement that was made was but a step farther from nature. The tricks of water-works to wet 246 ttbe (Barfcett the unwary, not to refresh the panting specta- tor, and parterres embroidered in patterns like a petticoat, were but the childish endeavors of fashion and novelty to reconcile greatness to what it had surfeited on. To crown these im- potent displays of false taste, the shears were applied to the lovely wildness of form with which nature has distinguished each various species of tree and shrub. The venerable oak, the romantic beech, the useful elm, even the aspiring circuit of the lime, the regular round of the chestnut, and the almost moulded orange- tree, were corrected by such fantastic admirers of symmetry. The compass and square were of more use in plantations than the nursery- man. The measured walk, the quincunx, and the e*toile imposed their unsatisfying sameness on every royal and noble garden. Trees were headed, and their sides pared away ; many French groves seem green chests set upon poles. Seats of marble, arbors, and summer- houses terminated every vista ; and symmetry, even where the space was too large to permit its being remarked at one view, was so essential, that, as Pope observed : " Each alley has a brother, And half the garden just reflects the other." Knots of flowers were more defensibly subjected fborace TDQalpole 247 to the same regularity. Leisure, as Milton ex- pressed it, " In trim gardens took his pleasure." In the garden of Marshal de Biron, at Paris, consisting of fourteen acres, every walk is but- toned on each side by lines of flower-pots, which succeed in their seasons. When I saw it, there were nine thousand pots of asters, or la Reine Marguerite. We do not precisely know what our ancestors meant by a bower, it was probably an arbor ; sometimes it meant the whole frittered enclos- ure, and in one instance it certainly included a labyrinth. Rosamond's bower was indisputably of that kind, though, whether composed of walls or hedges, we cannot determine. A square and a round labyrinth were so capital ingredients of a garden formerly, that in Du Cerceau's archi- tecture, who lived in the time of Charles IX. and Henry III., there is scarce a ground-plot without one of each. The enchantment of an- tique appellations has consecrated a pleasing idea of a royal residence, of which we now regret the extinction. Havering in the Bower, the jointure of many dowager queens, conveys to us the notion of a romantic scene. In Kip's views of the seats of our nobility and gentry, we see the same tiresome and 248 tlbe (Barren returning uniformity. Kvery house is ap- proached by two or three gardens, consisting perhaps of a gravel- walk and two grass- plats, or borders of flowers. Bach rises above the other by two or three steps, and as many walls and terraces ; and so many iron gates, that we recollect those ancient romances, in which every entrance was guarded by nymphs or dragons. At Lady Oxford's, at Piddletown, in Dorsetshire, there was, when my brother mar- ried, a double enclosure of thirteen gardens, each, I suppose, not much above a hundred yards square, with an enfilade of correspondent gates ; and before you arrived at these, you passed a narrow gut between two stone ter- races, that rose above your head, and which were crowned by a line of pyramidal yews. A bowl- ing-green was all the lawn admitted in those times ; a circular lake the extent of magnificence. Yet, though these and such preposterous in- conveniences prevailed from age to age, good sense in this country had perceived the want of something at once more grand and more natu- ral. These reflections, and the bounds se*. to the waste made by royal spoilers, gave origin to parks. They were contracted forests and ex- tended gardens. Hentzner says that, accord- ing to Rous of Warwick, the first park was that at Woodstock. If so, it might be the founda- fborace tKflalpolc 249 tion of a legend that Henry II. secured his mistress in a labyrinth ; it was no doubt more difficult to find her in a park than in a palace, when the intricacy of the woods and various lodges buried in covert might conceal her actual habitation. It is more extraordinary that having so long ago stumbled on the principle of modern gar- dening, we should have persisted in retaining its reverse, symmetrical, and unnatural gardens. That parks were rare in other countries, Hentz- ner, who travelled over great part of Europe, leads- us to suppose, by observing that they were common in England. In France they re- tain the name, but nothing is more different both in compass and disposition. Their parks are usually square or oblong enclosures, regu- larly planted with walks of chestnuts or limes, and generally every large town has one for its public recreation. They are exactly like Bur- ton's Court, at Chelsea College, and rarely larger. One man, one great man we had, on whom nor education nor custom could impose their prejudices ; who, on evil days though fallen, and with darkness and solitude compassed round, judged that the mistaken and fantastic ornaments he had seen in gardens were un- worthy of the Almighty hand that planted the 250 ftbe (Barrett delights of Paradise. He seems, with the pro- phetic eye of taste (as I have heard taste well defined), to have conceived, to have foreseen, modern gardening ; as Lord Bacon announced the discoveries since made by experimental philosophy. The description of Eden is a warmer and more just picture of the present style than Claude Lorraine could have painted from Hagley or Stourhead. The first lines I shall quote exhibit Stourhead on a more mag- nificent scale : " Thro' lden went a river large, Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill Pass'd underneath ingulf 'd, for God had thrown That mountain as his garden-mound, high rais'd Upon the rapid current." Hagley seems pictured in what follows : " Which thro' veins Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn, Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill Water 'd the garden." What coloring, what freedom of pencil, what landscape in these lines : " From that sapphire fount the crisped brooks, Rolling on orient pearls and sands of gold, With mazy error under pendent shades Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Ibotace Malpote Flow'rs worthy of Paradise, which not nice art In beds and curious knots, but nature boon Pour'd forth profuse on hill and dale and plain, Both where the morning sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierced shade Imbrown'd the moontide bow'rs. Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view" Read this transporting description, paint to your mind the scenes that follow, contrast them with the savage but respectable terror with which the poet guards the bounds of his para- dise, fenced " with the champain head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, Access denied ; and overhead upgrew Insuperable height of Idftiest shade, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend, Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view," and then recollect that the author of this sublime vision had never seen a glimpse of any thing like what he imagined, that his favorite ancients had dropped not a hint of such divine scenery, and that the conceits in Italian gardens, and Theobald's, and Nonsuch were the brightest originals that his memory could furnish. His intellectual eye saw a nobler plan, so little did 252 be (Barfcett he suffer by the loss of sight. It sufficed him to have seen the materials with which he could work. The vigor of a boundless imagination told him how a plan might be disposed that would embellish nature and restore art to its proper office the just improvement or imitation of it* It is necessary that the concurrent testimony of the age should swear to posterity that the description above quoted was written about half a century before the introduction of modern gardening, or our incredulous descendants will defraud the poet of half his glory by being per- suaded that he copied some garden he had seen, so minutely do his ideas correspond with the present standard. But what shall we say for that intervening half century which could read that plan and never attempt to put it in execu- tion ? Now let us turn to an admired writer posterior to Milton, and see how cold, how insipid, how tasteless is his account of what he pronounced a perfect garden. I speak not of his style, which it was not necessary for him to animate with the coloring and glow of poetry. It is his want of ideas, of imagination, of taste, that I * Since the above was written I have found Milton praised and Sir William Temple censured, on the same foundations, in a poem called " The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting," printed in 1767. Iborace TKRalpole 253 censure when he dictated on a subject that is capable of all the graces that a knowledge of beautiful nature can bestow. Sir William Tem- ple was an excellent man, Milton a genius of the first order. We cannot wonder that Sir William declares in favor of parterres, fountains, and statues, as necessary to break the sameness of large grass- plats, which he thinks have an ill effect upon the eye, when he acknowledges that he dis- covers fancy in the gardens of Alcinous. Milton studied the ancients with equal enthusiasm but no bigotry, and had judgment to distinguish between the want of invention and the beauties of poetry. Compare his paradise with Homer's garden, both ascribed to a celestial design. For Sir William it is just to observe that his ideas centred in a fruit-garden. He had the honor of giving to his country many delicate fruits, and he thought of little else than disposing of them to the best advantage. Here is the passage I proposed to quote. It is long, but I need not make an apology to the reader for entertaining him with any other words instead of my own : " The best figure of a garden is either a square or an oblong, and either upon a flat or a descent ; they have all their beauties, but the best I es- teem an oblong upon a descent. The beauty, the air, the view, make amends for the expense, 254 {Tbe (Barren which is very great in finishing and support- ing the terrace- walks, in levelling the parterres, and in the stone stairs that are necessary from one to the other. " The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest wits of her time, and celebrated by Doctor Donne ; and with very great care, excellent contrivance, and much cost ; but greater sums may be thrown away without effect or honor, if there want sense in proportion to money, or \inature be not followed^ which I take to be the great rule in this, and perhaps in every thing else, as far as the conduct not only of our lives, but our gov- ernments." We shall see how natural that admired garden was. "Because I take* the garden I have named to have been in all kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a model to those that meet with such a situation, and are above the regards of common expense. It lies on the side of a hill, upon which the * This garden seems to have been made after the plan laid down by Lord Bacon in his 46th Bssay, to which, that I may not multiply quotations, I will refer the reader, Ibotace TKftalpole 255 house stands, but not very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden ; the great parlor opens into the middle of a terrace gravel-walk that lies even with it, and which may lie, as I remember, about three hundred paces long, and broad in proportion ; the border set with standard laurels and at large distances, which have the beauty of orange-trees out of flower and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many stone steps, in the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre. This is divided into quar- ters by gravel-walks, and adorned with two fountains and eight statues in the several quar- ters. At the end of the terrace-walk are two summer-houses, and the sides of the parterre are ranged with two large cloisters open to the garden, upon arches of stone, and ending with two other summer-houses even with the cloisters, which are paved with stone, and designed for walks of shade, there being none other in the whole parterre. Over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and fenced with balusters : and the passage into these airy walks is out of the two summer- houses at the end of the first terrace-walk. The cloister facing the south is covered with vines, have been proper for an orange* 256 Gbe Garden house, and the other for myrtles or other more common greens, and had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if this piece of gardening had been then in as much vogue as it is now. " From the middle of this parterre is a de- scent by many steps flying on each side of a grotto that lies between them, covered with lead and flat, into the lower garden, which is all fruit-trees ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness which is very shady. The walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with figures of shell rock- work, fountains, and water- works. If the hill had not ended with the lower garden, and the walls were not bounded by a common way that goes through the park, they might have added a third quarter of all greens ; but this want is supplied by a garden on the other side the house, which is all of that sort very wild, shady, and adorned with rough rock-work and fountains. " This was Moor Park, when I was acquaint- ed with it, and the sweetest place I think that I have seen in my life, either before or since, at home or abroad." I will make no further remarks on this de- scription. Any man might design and build as sweet a garden, who had been born in and never stirred out of Holborn. It was not pe- culiar to Sir William Temple to think in that Iborace TOalpolc 257 manner. How many Frenchmen are there who have seen our gardens, and still prefer natural flights of steps and shady cloisters covered with lead? L,e Nautre, the architect of the groves and grottos at Versailles, came hither on a mission to improve our taste. He planted St. James' and Greenwich parks no great monu- ments of his invention. To do further justice jto Sir William Temple, I must not omit what he adds : " What I have said of the best forms of gar- dens is meant only of such as are in some sort regular, for there may be other forms wholly irregular, that may, for aught I know, have more beauty than any of the others ; but they must owe it to some extraordinary dispositions of nature in the seat, or some great race of fancy or judgment in the contrivance ', which may reduce many disagreeing parts into some figure, which shall yet, upon the whole, be very agreeable. Something of this I have seen in some places, but heard more of it from others who have lived much among the Chinese, a people whose way of thinking seems to lie as wide of ours in Europe as their country does. Their greatest reach of imagination is employed in contriving figures, where the beauty shall be great and strike the eye, but without any order or disposition of parts that shall be commonly 258 ITbe <$ar&en or easily observed. And though we have hardly any notion of this sort of beauty, yet they have a particular word to express it, and where they find it hit their eye at first sight, they say the Sharawadgi is fine or is admirable, or any such expression of esteem, but I should hardly ad- vise any of these attempts in the figure of gar- dens among us. They are adventures of too hard achievement for any common hands, and though there may be more honor if they suc- ceed well, yet there is more dishonor if they fail, and it is twenty to one they will ; whereas in regular figures it is hard to make any great and remarkable faults." Fortunately, Kent and a few others were not quite so timid, or we might still be going up and down stairs in the open air. It is true we have heard much lately, as Sir William Temple did, of irregularity and imita- tions of nature in the gardens or grounds of the Chinese. The former is certainly true. They are as whimsically irregular as European gar- dens are formally uniform and varied ; but with regard to nature it seems as much avoided as in the squares and oblongs and straight lines of our ancestors. An artificial perpendicular rock starting out of a flat plain and connected with nothing, often pierced through in various places with oval hollows, has no more preten- Iborace Walpole 259 sion to be deemed natural than a lineal terrace or a parterre. The late Mr. Joseph Spence, who had both taste and zeal for the present style, was so persuaded of the Chinese em- peror's pleasure-ground being laid out on prin- ciples resembling ours, that he translated and published, under the name of Sir Harry Beau- mont, a particular account of that enclosure from the collection of the letters of the Jesuits. I have looked it over, and except a determined irregularity, can find nothing in it that gives me any idea of attention being paid to nature. It is of vast circumference, and contains two hun- dred palaces, besides as many contiguous for the eunuchs, all gilt, painted, and varnished. There are raised hills from twenty to sixty feet high, streams and lakes, and one of the latter five miles round. These waters are passed by bridges, but even their bridges must not be straight they serpentize as much as the rivu- lets, and are sometimes so long as to be fur- nished with resting-places, and begin and end with triumphal arches. Methinks a straight canal is as rational at least as a meandering bridge. The colonnades undulate in the same manner. In short, this pretty gaudy scene is the work of caprice and whim, and when we reflect on their buildings presents no image but that of unsubstantial tawdriness. Nor is "this 260 Gbe <3arDen all. Within this fantastic paradise is a square town, each side a mile long. Here the eunuchs of the court, to entertain his imperial majesty with the bustle and business of the capital in which he resides, but which it is not of his dignity ever to see, act merchants and all sorts of trades, and even designedly exercise for his royal amusement every art of knavery that is practised under his auspicious government. Methinks this is the childish solace and repose of grandeur, not a retirement from affairs to the delights of rural life. Here, too, his ma- jesty plays at agriculture. There is a quartet set apart for that purpose. The eunuchs sow, reap, and carry in their harvest in the imperial presence, and his majesty returns to Pekin persuaded that he has been in the country. Having thus cleared my way by ascertaining what have been the ideas on gardening in all ages as far as we have materials to judge by, it remains to show to what degree Mr. Kent in- vented the new style, and what hints he had re- ceived to suggest and conduct his undertaking. We have seen what Moor Park was when pronounced a standard. But as no succeeding generation in an opulent and luxurious country contents itself with the perfection established by its ancestors, more perfect perfection was still sought, and improvements had gone on, Iborace Walpote 261 till London and Wise had stocked our gardens with giants, animals, monsters,* coats-of-arms, and mottoes in yew, box, and holly. Absurd- ity could go no further, and the tide turned. Bridgman, the next fashionable designer of gar- dens, was far more chaste, and whether from good sense, or that the nation had been struck and reformed by the admirable paper in the Guar- dian, No. 173, he banished verdant sculpture, and did not even revert to the square precision of the foregoing age. He enlarged his plans, disdained to make every division tally to its opposite ; and though he still adhered much to straight walks with high clipped hedges, they were only his great lines, the rest he diversified by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges. I have observed in the garden f at Gubbins, in Hert- fordshire, many detached thoughts that strong- ly indicate the dawn of modern taste. As his reformation gained footing he ventured further, and in the royal garden at Richmond dared to * On the piers of a garden gate, not far from Paris, I observed two very coquet sphinxes. These lady mon- sters had straw hats, gracefully smart on one side of their heads, and silken cloaks half veiling their necks- all executed in stone. f The seat of the late Sir Jeremy Sambroke. It had formerly belonged to I^ady More, mother-in-law of Sir Thomas More, and had been tyrannically wrenched from her by Henry VIII. on the execution of Sir Thomas, though not her son, and though her jointure from a former husband. 262 ftbe (Barfcett introduce cultivated fields, and even morsels of a forest appearance, by the sides of those end- less and tiresome walks that stretched out of one into another without intermission. But this was not till other innovators had broken loose, too, from rigid symmetry. But the capi- tal stroke, the leading step to all that has followed, was (I believe the first thought was Bridgman's) the destruction of walls for boun- daries, and the invention of fosses an attempt then deemed so astonishing that the common people called them Ha ! Ha's ! to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk. One of the first gardens planted in this simple, though still formal style, was my father's at Hough ton. It was laid out by Mr. Byre, an imitator of Bridgman. It contains three and twenty acres, then reckoned a considerable portion. I call a sunk fence the leading step for these reasons : No sooner was this simple enchant- ment made, than levelling, mowing, and rolling followed. The contiguous ground of the park, without the sunk fence, was to be harmonized with the lawn within ; and the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prim regularity, that it might assort with the wilder country without. The sunk fence ascertained the fcotace Walpole 263 specific garden ; but that it might not draw too obvious a line of distinction between the neat and the rude, the contiguous out-lying parts came to be included in a kind of general design : and when nature was taken into the plan, under improvements, every step that was made pointed out new beauties and inspired new ideas. At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imper- ceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell or concave swoop, and re- marked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament ; and while they called in the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive comparison. Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the arts of landscape on the scenes he handled. The great principles on which he worked were perspective, and light and shade. Groups of trees broke too uniform or too ex- tensive a lawn ; evergreens and woods were opposed to the glare of the champaign ; and 264 Gbe (Barren where the view was less fortunate, or so much exposed as to be beheld at once, he blotted out some parts by thick shades to divide it into variety, or to make the richest scene more enchanting by reserving it to a farther advance of the spectator's step. Thus selecting favorite objects and veiling deformities by screens of plantation, sometimes allowing the rudest waste to add its foil to the richest theatre, he realized the compositions of the greatest masters in painting. Where objects were wanting to ani- mate his horizon, his taste as an architect could bestow immediate termination. His buildings, his seats, his temples, were more the works of his pencil than of his compasses. We owe the restoration of Greece and the diffusion of archi- tecture to his skill in landscape. But of all the beauties he added to the face of this beautiful country none surpassed his management of water. Adieu to canals, circu- lar basins, and cascades tumbling down marble steps, that last absurd magnificence of Italian and French villas. The forced elevation of cataracts was no more. The gentle stream was taught to serpentize seemingly at its pleasure, and where discontinued by different levels its course appeared to be concealed by thickets properly interspersed, and glittered again at a distance where it might be supposed naturally Ibotace Matpote 265 to arrive. Its borders were smoothed, but pre- served their waving irregularity. A few trees scattered here and there on its edges sprinkled the tame bank that accompanied its meanders ; and when it disappeared among the hills, shades descending from the heights leaned towards its progress, and framed the distant point of light under which it was lost, as it turned aside to either hand of the blue horizon. Thus dealing in none but the colors of nature, and catching its most favorable features, men saw a new creation opening before their eyes. The living landscape was chastened or polished, not transformed. Freedom was given to the forms of trees ; they extended their branches unrestricted, and where any eminent oak or master beech had escaped maiming and sur- vived the forest, bush and bramble were re- moved, and all its honors were restored to dis- tinguish and shade the plain. Where the united plumage of an ancient wood extended wide its undulating canopy, and stood venerable in its darkness, Kent thinned the foremost ranks and left but so many detached and scattered trees as softened the approach of gloom, and blended a checkered light with the thus lengthened shadows of the remaining columns. Succeeding artists have added new master- strokes to these touches ; perhaps improved or 266 Gbe (Barren brought to perfection some that I have named. The introduction of foreign trees and plants, which we owe principally to Archibald, Duke of Argyle, contributed essentially to the rich- ness of coloring so peculiar to our modern landscape. The mixture of various greens, the contrast of forms between our forest-trees and the northern and West Indian firs and pines, are improvements more recent than Kent, or but little known to him. The weeping willow, and every florid shrub, each tree of delicate or bold leaf, are new tints in the composition of our gardens. The last century was certainly ac- quainted with many of those rare plants we now admire. The Weymouth pine has long been naturalized here ; the patriarch plant still exists at Longleat. The light and graceful acacia was known as early ; witness those ancient stems in the court of Bedford House in Bloomsbury Square ; and in the Bishop of London's garden at Fulham are many exotics of very ancient date. I doubt therefore whether the difficulty of preserving them in a clime so foreign to their nature did not convince our ancestors of their inutility in general ; unless the shapeliness of the lime and horse-chestnut, which accorded so well with established regularity, and which thence and from their novelty grew in fashion, boracc tKHalpote 267 did not occasion the neglect of the more curious plants. But just, as the encomiums are that I have bestowed on Kent's discoveries, he was neither without assistance nor faults. Mr. Pope un- doubtedly contributed to form his taste. The design of the Prince of Wales' garden at Carlton House was evidently borrowed from the poet's at Twickenham. There was a little of affected modesty in the latter, when he said, of all his works he was most proud of his garden. And yet it was a singular effort of art and taste, to impress so much variety of scenery on a spot of five acres. The passing through the gloom from the grotto to the opening day, the retiring and again assembling shades, the dusky groves, the larger lawn, and the solemnity of the termi- nation at the cypresses that lead up to his mother's tomb, are managed with excellent judgment ; and though Lord Petersborough assisted him " To form his quincunx and to rank his vines," those were not the most pleasing ingredients of his little perspective. I do not know whether the disposition of the garden at Rousham, laid out for General Dor- mer, and in my opinion the most engaging of 268 tTbe (Barfcen all Kent's works, was not planned on the model of Mr. Pope's, at least in the opening and re- tiring shades of Venus' vale. The whole is as elegant and antique as if the Emperor Julian had selected the most pleasing solitude about Daphne to enjoy a philosophic retirement. That Kent's ideas were but rarely great was in some measure owing to the novelty of his art. It would have been difficult to have transported the style of gardening at once from a few acres to tumbling of forests ; and though new fash- ions, like new religions (which are new fash- ions), often lead men to the most opposite ex- cesses, it could not be the case in gardening, where the experiments would have been so ex- pensive. Yet it is true, that the features in Kent's landscapes were seldom majestic. His clumps were puny, he aimed at immedi- ate effect, and planted not for futurity. One sees no large woods sketched out by his direc- tion. Nor are we yet entirely risen above a too great frequency of small clumps, especially in the elbows of serpentine rivers. How common to see three or four beeches, then as many larches, a third knot of cypresses, and a revo- lution of all three ! Kent's last designs were in a higher style, as his ideas opened on success. The north terrace at Claremont was much supe- rior to the rest of the garden. Iborace Walpole 269 A return of some particular thoughts was com- mon to him with other painters, and made his hand known. A small lake edged by a wind- ing bank with scattered trees that led to a seat at the head of the pond, was common to Clare- mont, Bsher, and others of "his designs. At Esher, " Where Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love," the prospects more than aided the painter's genius. They marked out the points where his art was necessary or not, but thence left his judgment in possession of all its glory. Having routed prof essed art ^ for the modern gardener exerts his talents to conceal his art, Kent, like other reformers, knew not how to stop at the just limits. He had followed nature, and imitated her so happily, that he began to think all her works were equally proper for im- itation. In Kensington Garden he planted deal trees, to give a greater air of truth to the scene : but he was soon laughed out of this excess. His ruling principle was, that nature abhors a straight line ; his mimics, for every genius has his apes, seemed to think that she could love nothing but what was crooked. Yet so many men of taste of all ranks devoted themselves to the new improvements, that it is surprising how much beauty has been struck out, with how 270 few absurdities. Still in some lights the refor- mation seems to me to have been pushed too far. Though an avenue crossing a park or sep- arating a lawn, and intercepting views from the seat to which it leads, are capital faults, yet a great avenue * cut through woods, perhaps be- fore entering a park, has a noble air, and, " I^ike footmen running- before coaches To tell the inn what lord approaches," announces the habitation of some man of dis- tinction. In other places the total banishment of all particular neatness immediately about a house, which is frequently left gazing by itself in the middle of a park, is a defect. Sheltered and even close walks, in so very uncertain a climate as ours, are comforts ill exchanged for the few picturesque days that we enjoy ; and when- ever a family can purloin a warm and even something of an old-fashioned garden, from the landscape designed for them by the undertaker * Of this kind, one of the most noble is that of Stanstead, the seat of the Earl of Halifax, traversing an ancient wood for two miles, and bounded by the sea. The very extensive lawns at that seat, richly enclosed by venera- ble beech woods, and checkered by single beeches of vast size, particularly when you stand in the portico of the temple and survey the landscape that wastes itself in rivers of broken seas recall such exact pictures of Claude Lorraine, that it is difficult to conceive that he did not paint them from this very spot. Iborace Walpole 271 in fashion, without interfering with the pic- ture, they will find satisfaction on those days that do not invite strangers to come and see their improvements. Fountains have with great reason been ban- ished from gardens as unnatural ; but it sur- prises me that they have not been allotted to their proper position to cities, towns, and the courts of great houses, as proper accompani- ments to architecture, and as works of grandeur in themselves. Their decorations admit the utmost invention ; and when the waters are thrown up to different stages, and tumble over their border, nothing has a more imposing or a more refreshing sound. A palace demands its external graces and attributes, as much as a garden. Fountains and cypresses peculiarly become buildings ; and no man can have been at Rome, and seen the vast basins of marble dashed with perpetual cascades in the area of St. Peter's, without retaining an idea of taste and splendor. Those in the Piazza Navona are as useful as sublimely conceived. Grottos in this climate are recesses only to be looked at transiently. When they are regularly composed within of symmetry and architecture, as in Italy, they are only splendid improprieties. The most judiciously, indeed most fortunately, placed grotto, is that at Stour- 272 head, where the river bursts from the urn of its god, and passes on its course through the cave. But it is not my business to lay down rules for gardens, but to give a history of them. A sys- tem of rules pushed to a great degree of refine- ment, and collected from the best examples and practice, has been lately given in a book entitled "Observations on Modern Gardening." The work is very ingeniously and carefully executed, and in point of utility rather exceeds than omits any necessary directions. The author will ex- cuse me if I think it a little excess, when he examines that rude and unappropriated scene of Matlocke Bath, and criticises nature for hav- ing bestowed on the rapid river Derwent too many cascades. How can this censure be brought home to gar- dening ? The management of rocks is a prov- ince can fall to few directors of gardens ; still in our distant provinces such a guide may be necessary. The author divides his subject into gardens, parks, farms, and ridings. I do not mean to find fault with this division. Directions are requi- site to each kind, and each has its department at many of the great scenes from whence he drew his observations. In the historic light, I distinguished them into the garden that con- nects itself with a park, into the ornamented Iborace IDdatpole 273 farm, and into the forest or savage garden. Kent, as I have shown, invented or established the first sort. Mr. Philip Southcote founded the second, or ferme orne> of which is a very just description in the author I have been quot- ing. The third I think he has not enough dis- tinguished. I mean that kind of Alpine scene, composed almost wholly of pines and firs, a few birch, and such trees as assimilate with a sav- age and mountainous country. Mr. Charles Hamilton, at Pain's Hill, in my opinion has given a perfect example of this mode in the ut- itnost boundary of his garden. All is great and foreign and rude ; the walks seem not designed, but cut through the wood of pines ; and the istyle of the whole is so grand, and conducted with so serious an air of wild and uncultivated extent, that when you look down on this seem- ing forest you are amazed to find it contain a very few acres. In general, except as a screen to conceal some deformity, or as a shelter in winter, I am not fond of total plantations of evergreens. Firs in particular form a very un- graceful summit, all broken into angles. Sir Henry Bnglefield was one of the first im- provers on the new style, and selected with singular taste that chief beauty of all gardens prospect and fortunate points of view. We tire of all the painter's art when it wants these 274 finishing touches. The fairest scenes, that de- pend upon themselves alone, weary when often seen. The Doric portico, the Palladian bridge, the Gothic ruin, the Chinese pagoda, that sur- prise the stranger, soon lose their charms to their surfeited master. The lake that floats the valley is still more lifeless, and its lord seldom enjoys his expense but when he shows it to a visitor. But the ornament whose' merit soonest fades is the hermitage, or scene adapted to con- templation. It is almost comic to set aside a quarter of one's garden to be melancholy in. Prospect, animated prospect, is the theatre that will always be the most frequented. Prospects formerly were sacrificed to convenience and warmth. Thus Burleigh stands behind a hill, from the top of which it would command Stam- ford. Our ancestors, who resided the greatest part of the year at their seats, as others did two years together or more, had an eye to com- fort first, before expense. Their vast mansions received and harbored all the younger branches, the dowagers and ancient maiden aunts of the families ; and other families visited them for a month together. Their method of living is now totally changed, and yet the same superb palaces are still created, becoming a pompous solitude to the owner, and a transient enter- tainment to a few travellers. If any incident Iboracc TKHalpole 275 abolishes or restrains the modern style of gar- dening, it will be this circumstance of solitari- ness. The greater the scene, the more distant it is probably from the capital, in the neighborhood of which land is too dear to admit considerable extent of property. Men tire of expense that is obvious to few spectators. Still, there is a more eminent danger that threatens the pres- ent, as it has ever done all taste I mean the pursuit of variety. A modern French writer has in a very affected phrase given a just account of this, I will call it, distemper. He says : D 'ennui du beau amene le gout singu- lier. The noble simplicity of the Augustan age was driven out by false taste. The gigan- tic, the puerile, the quaint, and at last the barbarous and the monkish, had each their suc- cessive admirers. Music has been improved till it is a science of tricks and sleight-of-hand ; the sober greatness of Titian is lost, and painting since Carlo Maratti has little more relief than Indian paper. Borromini twisted and curled architecture, as if it was subject to the change of fashions like a head of hair. If we once lose sight of the propriety of landscape in our gar- dens, we shall wander into all the fantastic sharawadgis of the Chinese. We have dis- covered the point of perfection. We have given the true model of gardening to the world. Let 276 Gbe (Barren other countries mimic or corrupt our taste ; but let it reign here on its verdant throne, original by its elegant simplicity, and proud of no other art than that of softening nature's harshnesses and copying her graceful touch. The ingenious author of the " Observations on Modern Gardening" is, I think, too rigid when he condemns some deceptions because they have been often used. If those decep- tions, as a feigned steeple of a distant church, or an unreal bridge to disguise the termination of water, were intended only to surprise, they were indeed tricks that would not bear repe- tition ; but being intended to improve the landscape, are no more to be condemned be- cause common, than they would be if employed by a painter in the composition of a picture. Ought one man's garden to be deprived of a happy object, because that object has been employed by another? The more we exact novelty, the sooner our taste will be vitiated. Situations are everywhere so various that there never can be a sameness, while the disposition of the ground is studied and followed, and every incident of view turned to advantage. In the meantime, how rich, how gay, how picturesque the face of the country ! The demo- lition of walls laying open each improvement, every journey is made through a % succession of Iborace tKftatpote 277 v pictures ; and even where taste is wanting in the spot improved, the general view is embellished by variety. If no relapse to barbarism, formal- ity, and seclusion is made, what landscapes will dignify every quarter of our island, where the daily plantations that are making have attained venerable maturity ! A specimen of what our gardens will be may be seen at Petworth, where the portion of the park nearest the house has been allotted to the modern style. It is a gar- den of oaks two hundred years old. If there is a fault in so august a fragment of improved nature, it is that the size of the trees is out of all proportion to the shrubs and accompani- ments. In truth, shrubs should not only be reserved for particular spots and home delight, but are past their beauty in less than twenty years. Enough has been done to establish such a school of landscape as cannot be found on the rest of the globe. If we have the seeds of a Claude or a Caspar amongst us, he must come forth. If wood, water, groves, valleys, glades, can inspire or poet or painter, this is the coun- try, this is the age to produce them. The flocks, the herds, that are now admitted into, now graze on the borders of, our cultivated plains, are ready before the painter's eyes, and group themselves to animate his picture. One 278 ftbe <3ar6ert misfortune, in truth, there is, that throws a difficulty on the artist. A principal beauty in our gardens is the lawn and smoothness of turf; in a picture it becomes a dead and uni- form spot, incapable of chiaro-scuro, and to be broken insipidly by children, dogs, and other unmeaning figures. Since we have been familiarized to the study of landscape we hear less of what delighted our sportsmen-ancestors a fine open country. Wilt- shire, Dorsetshire, and such ocean -like extents, were formerly preferred to the rich blue pros- pects of Kent, to the Thames-watered views in Berkshire, and to the magnificent scale of na- ture in Yorkshire. An open country is but a can- vas on which a landscape might be designed. It was fortunate for the country and Mr. Kent that he was succeeded by a very able master ; and did living artists come within my plan, I should be glad to do justice to Mr. Brown ; but he may be a gainer by being reserved for some abler pen. In general it is probably true, that the pos- sessor, if he has any taste, must be the best designer of his own improvements. He sees his situation in all seasons of the year, at all times of the day. He knows where beauty will not clash with convenience, and observes in Ids silent walks, or accidental rides, a thousand foorace IDdalpole hints that must escape a person who in a few days sketches out a pretty picture, but has not had leisure to examine the details and relations of every part. Truth, which, after the opposition given to most revolutions, preponderates at last, will probably not carry our style of garden into general use on the Continent. The expense is only suited to the opulence of a free country, where emula- tion reigns among many independent particu- lars. The keeping of our grounds is an obstacle, as well as the cost of the first formation. A flat country, like Holland, is incapable of land- scape. In France and Italy the nobility do not reside much, and make small expense at their villas. I should think the little princes of Germany, who spare no profusion on their palaces and country-houses, most likely to be our imitators ; especially as their country and climate bears in many parts resemblance to ours. In France, and still less in Italy, they could with difficulty attain that verdure which the humidity of our clime bestows as the groundwork of our improvements. As great an obstacle in France is the embargo laid on the growth of their trees : as after a certain age, when they would rise to bulk, they are liable to be marked by the crown's surveyors as royal timber, it is a curiosity to see an old tree. A 280 tTbe (Barren landscape and a crown surveyor are incom- patible. I have thus brought down to the conclusion of the last reign (the period I had marked to this work) the history of our arts and artists, from the earliest era in which we can be said to have had either. Though there have been only gleams of light and flashes of genius, rather than progressive improvements or flourishing schools, the inequality and insufficiency of the execution have flowed more from my own de- fects than from those of the subject. The merits of the work, if it has any, are owing to the indefatigable industry of Mr. Vertue in amassing all possible materials. As my task is finished, it will, I hope, at least excite others to collect and preserve notices and anecdotes for some future continuator. The era promises to furnish a nobler harvest. Our exhibitions, and the institution of a Royal Academy, inspire the artists with emulation, and recommend them to employment. The public examines and rea- sons on their works, and spectators by degrees become judges. Nor are persons of the first rank mere patrons. Lord Harcourt's etchings are superior in boldness and freedom of stroke to any thing we have seen from established artists. Gardening and architecture owe as much to the nobility and to men of fortune as Ibotace to the professors. I need but name General Con way's rustic bridge, at Park Place, of which every stone was placed by his own direction in one of the most beautiful scenes in nature ; and the theatric staircase designed and just erected by Mr. Chute, at his seat of the Vine in Hamp- shire. If a model is sought of the most perfect taste in architecture, where grace softens dig- nity, and lightness attempers magnificence; where proportion removes every part from peculiar observation, and delicacy of execution recalls every part to notice ; where the position is most happy, and even the color of the stone the most harmonious, the virtuoso should be directed to the new front* of Wentworth Castle, the result of the same elegant judg- ment that had before distributed so many beauties over that domain, and called from wood, water, hills, prospects, and buildings, a compendium of picturesque nature, improved by the chastity of art. Such an era will de- mand a better historian. With pleasure, there- fore, I resign my pen, presuming to recommend nothing to my successor, but to observe a strict impartiality. AUGUST 2, 1770. * The old front, still extant, was erected by Thomas Wentworth, late Earl of Stafford ; the new one was entirely designed by the present Karl William himself. JOHN OF FENCES AND QUICKSETS. From " Silva." * OUR main plantation is now finished, and our forest adorned with a just variety. But what is yet all this labor, but loss of time and irreparable expense, unless our young and (as yet) tender plants be sufficiently guarded with munitions from all external injuries? For, as old Tusser, " If cattle or coney may enter to crop, Young oak is in danger of losing his top." But with something of a more polished style, though to the same purpose, the best of poets : Texendez sepes etiam, et pecusomne tenendum est : Prcecipu dumfrons tenera, imprudensque laborum : * A discourse delivered before the Royal Society on the isth of October, 1662. The notes to this selection are those appended to the edition of 1777. 3obn jEvelgn 283 Cui, super indignas hy ernes, solemque potentem, Sylvestres uri assidue, capre&que sequaces Illudunt ; pascuniur oves, avid&quejuvenccz. Frigora nee tantum cana concreta pruina, Aut grams incumbens scopulis arentibus czstas ; Q antum illi nocuere greges, durique venenum Dentis, et admorso signata in stirpe cicatrix. Georg., ii. " Guard, too, from cattle thy new planted ground, And infant vines that ill can bear a wound : For not alone by winter's chilling frost, Or summer's scorching beam the young are lost ; But the wild buffaloes and greedy cows, And goats and sportive kids the branches browze ; Not piercing colds, nor Sirius' beams that beat On the parched hills, and split their tops with heat, So deeply injure, as the nibbling flocks, That wound with venom'd teeth the tender, fearful stocks." The reason that so many complain of the im- prosperous condition of their woodlands and plantations of this kind, proceeds from this neglect ; though, sheep excepted, there is no employment whatsoever incident to the farmer, which requires less expense to gratify his ex- pectations ; one diligent and skilful man will govern five hundred acres. But if through any accident a beast shall break into his master's field, or the wicked hunter make a gap for his dogs and horses, what a clamor is there 284 Hbe <3ar&ett made for the disturbance of a year's crop at most in a little corn ! whilst abandoning his young woods all this time, and perhaps many years, to the venomous bitings and treading of cattle, and other like injuries, for want of due care, the detriment is many times irrepar- able, young trees once cropped hardly ever recovering. It is the bane of all our most hope- ful timber. But shall I provoke you by an instance ? A kinsman of mine has a wood of more than sixty years' standing. It was, before he purchased it, exposed and abandoned to the cattle for divers years. Some of the outward skirts were nothing save shrubs and miserable starvelings ; yet still the place was disposed to grow woody, but by this neglect continually suppressed. The in- dustrious gentleman fenced in some acres of this, and cut all close to the ground ; and it is come in eight or nine years to be better worth than the wood of sixty, and will, in time, prove most incomparable timber ; whilst the other part, so many years advanced, shall never re- cover : and all this from no other cause than preserving it fenced. Judge then by this, how our woods come to be so decried ! Are five hundred sheep worthy the care of a shepherd ? And are not five thousand oaks worth the fen- cing, and the inspection of a hayward ? Jobn Bvelgn 285 Et dubitant homines serere, atque impendere curam ? Georg., ii. " And shall men doubt to plant, and careful be ? " Let us therefore shut up what we have thus labo- riously planted, with some good quickset hedge. THE HAWTHORN. The hawthorn * is raised off seeds ; but then it must not be with despair because sometimes you do not see them peep the first year ; for the haw, and many other seeds, being invested with a very hard integument, will now and then suffer imprisonment two whole years under the * The hawthorn, of all other thorns, is the best calcu- lated for forming a good fence ; and in all new enclosures is solely applied to that purpose. The plants should, at least, be three years old, with good roots, and put down in single rows, allowing four inches between each plant. Such a hedge, if properly attended to, will in six years be proof against sheep arid cattle ; but if neglected for the first two years, especially if the land be poor, much art will be required to form it afterwards into a good fence. Quickset hedges are of great antiquity. It appears from Homer that, when Ulysses returned to his father, I^aertes, the good old man, had sent his servants into the woods to gather young thorns, and was occupied himself in preparing ground to receive them. Odyssey, lib. xxiv.^ Varro calls this sort of fence, Tutela nat- uralis et mva. And Columella prefers it before the struc- tile one, or dead hedge, as being more lasting and less expensive. Vetustissimi auctores vivam sepem structili preltt 287 But Columella has another expedient for the raising of our spinetutn, by rubbing the now mature hips and haws, ashen-keys, etc., into the crevices of bass-ropes, or wisps of straw, and then burying them in a trench. Whether way you attempt it, they must (so soon as they peep, and as long as they require it) be sedu- lously cleansed of the weeds ; which, if in beds for transplantation, had need be, at the least, three or four years ; by which time even your seedlings will be of stature fit to remove. For I do by no means approve of the vulgar prema- ture planting of sets, as is generally used throughout England ; which is to take such only as are the very smallest, and so to crowd them into three or four files, which are both egregious mistakes. Whereas it is found by constant experience, that plants as big as one's thumb, set in the posture, and at the distance which we spake of in the hornbeam that is, almost perpendicular, (not altogether, because the rain should not get in betwixt the rind and wood), and single, or at most not exceeding a double row, do prosper infinitely, and much outstrip the densest and closest ranges of our trifling sets which make but weak shoots, and whose roots do but hinder each other, and for being couched in that pos- ture, on the sides of banks and fences (espe- 288 cially where the earth is not very tenacious), are bared of the mould which should entertain them, by that time the rains and storms of one winter have passed over them. In Holland and Flanders (where they have the goodliest hedges of this kind about the counterscarps of their invincible fortifications, to the great secu- rity of their musketeers upon occasion) they plant them according to my description, and raise fences so speedily, and so impenetrable, that our best are not to enter into the compari- son. Yet that I may not be wanting to direct such as either affect the other way, or whose grounds may require some bank of earth, as or- dinarily the verges of copses and other enclos- ures do, you shall by line cast up your foss of about three feet broad, and about the same depth, provided your mould hold out; begin- ning first to turn the turf, upon which be care- ful to lay some of the best earth to bed your quick in, and there lay or set the plants, two in a foot space is sufficient ; being diligent to procure such as are fresh- gathered, straight, smooth, and well-rooted ; adding now and then, at equal spaces of twenty or thirty feet, a young oakling or elm-sucker, ash, or the like, which will come in time, especially in plain countries, to be ornamental standards, and good timber. If you will needs multiply your rows, a foot, or Jobn J6\>elgn 289 somewhat less, above that, upon more congested mould, plant another rank of sets, so as to point just in the middle of the vacuities of the first, which I conceive enough. This is but for the single foss ; but if you would fortify it to the purpose, do as much on the other side, of the same depth, height, and planting ; and then, last of all, cap the top v&pyramis with the worst, or bottom of the ditch. Some, if the mould be good, plant a row or two on the hedge, or very crest of the mound, which ought to be a little flattened. Here also many set their dry hedge ; for hedges must be hedged till they are able to defend and shade their under plantation, and I cannot reprove it ; but great care is to be had in this work, that the main bank be well footed, and not made with too sudden a declivity, which is subject to fall in after frosts and wet weather, and this is good husbandry for moist grounds ; but where the land lies high, and is hot and gravelly, I prefer the lower fencing ; which, though even with the area itself, may be protected with stakes and a dry hedge on the foss side, the distance competent, and to very good purposes of educating more frequent tim- ber amongst the rows. Your hedge being yet young should be con- stantly weeded two or three years, especially before mid-summer, of brambles, the great dock, lo 2QO abe (SarDen thistle, etc., though some admit not of this work till after Michaelmas, for reasons that I approve not. It has been the practice of Here- fordshire, in the plantation of quickset hedges, to plant a crab-stock at every twenty feet dis- tance ; and this they observe so religiously, as if they had been under some rigorous statute requiring it. And by this means they were pro- vided in a short time with all the advantages for the graffing of fruit amongst them, which does highly recompense their industry. Some cut their sets at three years' growth, even to the very ground, and find that in a year or two they will have shot as much as in the seven, had they been let alone. When your hedge is now of near six years' stature, plash it about February or October ; but this is the work of a very dexterous and skilful husbandman, and for which our honest countryman, Mr. Markham, gives excellent directions ; only I approve not so well of his deep cutting the stems, if it be possible to bend them, having suffered in something of that kind. It is almost incredible to what perfec- tion some have laid these hedges by the rural way of plashing, better than by clipping ; yet may both be used for ornament, as where they are planted about our garden fences, and fields near the mansion. In Scotland, by tying the 3obn jevelgn 291 young shoots with bands of hay, they make the stems grow so very close together, as that it encloseth rabbits in warrens instead of pales ; and for this robust use we shall prefer the black thorn ; the extravagant suckers, which are apt to rise at a distance from the hedge line, being sedulously extirpated, that the rest may grow the stronger and thicker. And now since I did mention it, and that most I find do greatly affect the vulgar way of quicking (that this our discourse being in nothing deficient), we will in brief give it you again after George Markham's description, be- cause it is the best and most accurate, although much resembling our former direction, of which it seems but a repetition, till he comes to the plashing. In ground which is more dry than wet (for watery places it abhors), plant your quick thus : Let the first rows of sets be placed in a trench of about half a foot deep, even with the top of your ditch, in somewhat a sloping or inclining posture ; then, having raised your bank near a foot upon them, plant another row, so as their tops may just peep out over the middle of the spaces of your first row. These covered again to the height or thickness of the other, place a third rank opposite to the first, and then finish your bank to its intended height. The distances of the plants should not be above one 292 ftbe <3atfcen foot ; and the season to do the work in may be from the entry of February till the end of March, or else in September to the beginning of December. When this is finished, you must guard both the top of your bank, and outmost verge of your ditch, with a sufficient dry hedge, interwoven from stake to stake into the earth, which commonly they do on the bank to secure your quick from the spoil of cattle. And then, being careful to repair such as decay, or do not spring, by supplying the dead and trimming the rest, you shall, after three years' growth, sprinkle some trees amongst them, such as oak, beech, ash, maple, fruit, and the like ; which, being drawn young out of your nurseries, may be very easily inserted. I am not, in the meantime, ignorant of what is said against the scattering these masts and keys among our fences ; which grown, overtop the subnascent hedge, and prejudice it with their shade and drip. But this might be pre- vented by planting hollies, proof against these impediments, in the line or trench where you would raise standards, as far as they usually spread in many years, and which, if placed at good distances, how close soever to the stem, would, besides their stout defence, prove a won- drous decoration to large and ample enclosures. But to resume our former work, That which Jobn J&velvn 293 we affirmed to require the greatest dexterity, is the artificial plashing of our hedge, when it is arrived at a six or seven years' head ; though some stay till the tenth, or longer. In Febru- ary, therefore, or October, with a very sharp handbill cut away all superfluous sprays and stragglers, which may hinder your progress and are useless. Then searching out the principal stems, with a keen and light hatchet cut them slantwise, close to the ground, hardly three quarters through, or rather so far only as till you can make them comply handsomely, which is your best direction, lest you rift the stem, and so lay it from your sloping as you go, folding in the lesser branches which spring from them ; and ever within five or six feet distance, where you find an upright set (cutting off only the top to the height of your intended hedge), let it stand as a stake to fortify your work, and to re- ceive the twinings of those branches about it. lastly, at the top (which should be about five feet above ground), take the longest, most slen- der, and flexible twigs which you reserved, and (being cut as the former, where need requires) bind in the extremities of all the rest ; and thus your work is finished. This being done very close and thick, makes an impregnable hedge in a few years ; for it may be repeated as you see occasion ; and what you so cut away will ttbe (Barren help to make your dry hedges for your young plantations, or be profitable for the oven, and make good bavin. There are some yet who would have no stakes cut from the trees, save here and there one, so as to leave half the head naked, and the other standing ; but the over- hanging boughs will kill what is under them, and ruin the tree, so pernicious is this half- topping ; let this be a total amputation for a new and lusty spring. There is nothing more prejudicial to subnascent young trees than, when newly trimmed and pruned, to have their (as yet raw) wounds poisoned with continual dripping, as is well observed by Mr. Nourse ; but this is meant of repairing decayed hedges. For stakes in the above work, oak is to be pre- ferred, though some will use elder, but it is not good, or the blackthorn and crab-tree ; in moor- ish ground withy, ash, maple, and hazel, but not lasting, driven well in at every yard of interval, both before and after they are bound, till they have taken the hard earth, and are very fast ; and even your plashed hedges need some small thorns to be laid over to protect the spring from cattle and sheep till they are some- what fortified, and the doubler the winding is lodged the better, which should be beaten, and forced down together with the stakes as equally as may be. Note that in sloping your windings, 5obn if it be too low done, as very usually, it fre- quently mortifies the tops ; therefore it ought to be so bent as it may not impede the mount- ing of the sap. If the plash be of a great and extraordinary age, wind it at the nether boughs altogether, and cutting the sets as directed, permit it rather to hang downwards a little than rise too forwards ; and then twist the branches into the work, leaving a set free and unconstrained at every yard space, besides such as will serve for stakes, abated to about five feet in length (which is a competent stature for a hedge), and so let it stand. One shall often find in this work, especially in old neglected hedges, some great trees or stubs that com- monly make gaps for cattle ; such should be cut so near the earth as till you can lay them thwart, that the top of one may rest on the root or stub of the other, as far as they extend, stop- ping the cavities with its boughs and branches ; and thus hedges, which seem to consist but only of scrubby trees and stumps, may be reduced to a tolerable fence ; but in case it be superannu- ated and very old, it is advisable to stub all up, being quite renewed and well guarded. We have been the longer on these descriptions, because it is of main importance, and that so few husbandmen are so perfectly skilled in it ; but he that would be more fully satisfied, I 296 Gbe 0ij ; if of the latter, it is rightly translated of thorns , but the former word signi- fies what we call bear's-foot, and the French branche ursine. This is not of the thorny kind of plants, but is soft and smooth. Virgil calls it mollis acanthus (Kcl. , iii., 45, andGeorg., iv., 137) ; so does Pliny, Sec. Epist. , v., 6 ; and Pliny the elder, in his Nat. Hist., xxii., 22 (p. 277, Edit. Hard .fol.), says that it is l&vi's, smooth, and that it is one of those plants which are cultivated in gardens. I have somewhere read (but cannot at present recollect where) that this soft and smooth herb was very common Jobn jEvelEtt 299 most venerable relics in Sainte Chapelle at Paris, as is pretended by the devotees, etc., and hence has the tree (for it sometimes exceeds a shrub) the name of Chris? s thorn. Thus might barberries now and then be also inserted among our hedges, which with the hips, haws, and cornel-berries, do well in light lands, and should rather be planted to the south than north of west, as usually we observe them. Some, as we noted, mingle their very hedges with oaklings, ash, and fruit-trees, sown or planted, and it is a laudable improvement ; though others do rather recommend to us sets of in and about Jerusalem. I find nothing 1 in the New Testament said concerning- this crown which Pilate's soldiers put upon the head of Jesus, to incline one to think that it was made of thorns, and intended (as is usually supposed) to put him to pain. The reed put into his hand, and the scarlet robe on his back, were only meant as marks of mockery and contempt. One may also reasonably judge by the soldiers being said to plait this crown, that it was not composed of such twigs and leaves as were of a thorny nature. I do not find that it is mentioned by any of the primitive Christian writers as an instance of the cruelty used towards our Saviour be- fore he was led to his crucifixion, till the time of Tertul- lian, who lived after Jesus' death at the distance of about one hundred and sixty years. He indeed seems to have understood aKavQuv in the sense of thorns, and says, De Coron. Milit., sect. xiv. (Edit. Pomel. Franck. 1597), guale, oro te, Jesus Christus sertum pro utraquesexu subtit ? Ex spinis, opinor, et tribulis. The total silence of Poly- carp, Barnabas, Clem. Romanus, and all the other Christian writers whose works are now extant and who wrote before Tertullian, in this particular, will give some weight to incline one to think that this crown was not plaited with thorns." Vol. 1, p. 196. Ed, 1777. 300 tTbe (Barfcen all one sort, and will not so much as admit of the blackthorn to be mingled with the white, be- cause of their unequal progress ; and, indeed, timber trees set in the hedge (though contem- poraries with it) do frequently wear it out : and therefore I should rather encourage such plan- tations to be at some yards' distance, near the verges, than perpendicularly in them. Lastly, if in planting any of the most robust forest- trees (especially oak, elm, chestnut) at compe- tent spaces, and in rows, you open a ring of ground at about four feet distance from the stem, and prick in quickset plants, you may, after a while, keep them clipped, at what height you please. They will appear ex- ceedingly beautiful to the eye, prove a good fence, and yield useful bush, bavin, and (if you maintain them unshorn) hips and haws in abundance ; this should therefore be es- pecially practised, where one would invite the birds. In Cornwall they secure their lands and woods with high mounds, and on them they plant acorns, whose roots bind in the looser mould, and so form a double and most durable fence, encircling the fields with a coronet of trees. They do likewise, and with great com- mendation, make hedges of our Genista spino- sa, prickly furze, of which they have a taller Jobn Bvelgtt 301 sort, such as the French employ for the same purpose in Bretagne, where they are incom- parable husbands. FURZE. Furze is to be sown (which is best) or planted of the roots in a furrow. If sown, weed till it be strong, both tonsile, and to be diligently clipped, which will render it a very thick, excellent, and beautiful hedge ; otherwise per- mitted to grow at large, it will yield very good fagot ; it is likewise admirable covert for wild fowl, and will be made to grow even in moist as well as dry places. The young and tender tops of furze, being a little bruised, and given to a lean, sickly horse, will strangely recover and plump him. Thus, in some places, when they lay down their barren grounds, they sow the last crop with this seed, and so let them remain till they break them up again, and, during that interim, reap real advantage. Would you be- lieve (writes a worthy correspondent of mine) that in Herefordshire, famous for plenty of wood, their thickets of furzes, viz., the vulgar, should yield them more profit than a like quantity of the best wheat land of England ? for such is theirs. If this be questioned, the scene is within a mile of Hereford, and proved by anniversary experience, in the lands, as I 302 Gbe <3arfcen take it, of a gentleman who is now one of the burgesses for that city. And in Devonshire (the seat of the best husbands in the world) they sow on their worst land, well ploughed, the seeds of the rankest furzes, which, in four or five years, becomes a rich wood ; no proven- der, as we say, makes horses so hardy as the young tops of these furzes ; no other wood so thick, nor more excellent fuel ; and for some purposes also, yielding them a kind of timber to their more humble buildings, and a great refuge for fowl and other game. I am assured in Bretagne it is sometimes sown no less than twelve yards thick, for a speedy, profitable, and impenetrable mound ; if we imitated this hus- bandry in the dry and hot barren places of Surrey, and other parts of this nation, we might exceedingly spare our woods. I have bought the best sort of French seed at the shops in London. It seems that in the more eastern parts of Germany, and especially in Poland, this vulgar trifle, and even our common broom, is so rare that they have desired the seeds of them out of England, and preserve them with extraordinary care in their best gardens. This I learn out of Johnson's "Herbal," by which we may consider that what is reputed a curse and a cumber in one place, is often esteemed au Jobn iBvelvn 303 ornament and a blessing in another ; but we shall not need go so far for this, since both beech and birch are almost as great strangers in many parts of this nation, particularly Northampton and Oxfordshire. Mr. Cook says much in praise of juniper hedges, especially for the more elegant enclosures. BROOM. Genista scoparia. Broom. This is another improvement for barren grounds, and saver of more substantial fuel. It may be sown English, or (what is more sweet and beautiful) Spanish, with equal success. In the western parts of France, and with us in Cornwall, it grows to an incredible height (however our poet gives it the epithet of humilis), and so it seems they had it of old, as appears by Gratius' genista altinates^ with which, as he affirms, they used to make staves for their spears and hunting darts. The seeds of broom vomit and purge, whilst the buds and flowers, being pic- kled, are very grateful. Sambucus. The elder. This makes a con- siderable fence, if set of reasonably lusty truncheons, much like the willow, and (as I 304 have seen them maintained) laid with great curiosity ; these far excel those extravagant plantations of them about London, where the lops are permitted to grow without due and skilful laying. There is a sort of elder which has hardly any pith ; this makes exceedingly stout fences, and the timber is very useful for cogs of mills, butchers' skewers, and such tough employments. Old trees do in time be- come firm, and close up the hollowness to an almost invisible pith. But if the medicinal properties of the leaves, bark, berries, etc., were thoroughly known, I cannot tell what our countrymen would ail, for which he might not fetch a remedy from every hedge, either for sickness or wound. The inner bark of elder, applied to any burning, takes out the fire immediately; that, or in season the buds, boiled in water-gruel for a breakfast, has effected wonders in a fever ; and the decoction is admirable to assuage inflammations and tet- terous humors, and especially the scorbut. But an extract, or theriaca (so famous in the poem of Nicander), may be composed of the berries, which is not only efficacious to eradicate this epidemical inconvenience, and greatly to assist longevity, but is a kind of catholicon against all infirmities whatever ; and of the same ber- ries is made an incomparable spirit, which, 3obn JEvelyn 305 drunk by itself, or mingled with wine, is not only an excellent drink, but admirable in the dropsy. In a word, the water of the leaves and berries is approved in the dropsy, every part of the tree being useful, as may be seen at large in Blocwitzius' Anatomy thereof. The ointment made with the young buds and leaves in May with butter, is most sovereign for aches, shrunk sinews, haemorrhoids, etc., and the flowers macerated in vinegar, not only are of a grateful relish, but good to attenuate and cut raw and gross humors. Lastly, the fungus (which we call Jews'-ears) decocted in milk, or macerated in vinegar, is of known effect in the angina and sores of the throat. And less than this I could not say (with the leave of the charitable phy- sician) to gratify our poor woodman ; and yet when I have said all this, I do by no means commend the scent of it, which is very noxious to the air ; and therefore, though I do not un- dertake that all things which sweeten the air are salubrious, nor all ill savors pernicious, yet, as not for its beauty, so neither for its smell, would I plant elder near my habitation ; since we learn from Biesius that a certain house in Spain, seated among many elder trees, diseased and killed almost all the inhabitants, which, when at last they were grubbed up, became a very wholesome and healthy place. The elder so6 ftbe (Barren does likewise produce a certain green fly, almost invisible, which is exceedingly trouble- some, and gathers a fiery redness where it attacks. Evonymus. Spindle.-tree. This is a shrub which commonly grows in our hedges, and bears a very hard wood, of which they some- times make bows for viols, and the inlayer uses it for his color, and instrument-makers for toothing of organs, and virginal keys,* tooth- pickers, etc. What we else would do with it I know not, save that (according to its name abroad) they make spindles with it. I also learn that three or four of the berries purge both by vomit and siege, and the powder, made of the berry, being baked, kills nits, and cures scurfy heads. Matthiolus says the poor people about Trent press oil out of the berries where- with to feed their lamps. But why they were wont to scourge parricides with rods made of this shrub, before they put them into the sack, see Modestinus, L. penult. SS. ad Leg em Pomp. de Parricid ; cited by Mr. Ray. * Mr. Evelyn subsequently refers to the virginals as a musical instrument played on by young ladies in his time. It was made like the harpsichord, and was played, upon by the fingers, Jobn BvelBtt 307 DOGWOOD. Here might come in, or be named, at least, wild cornel, or dogwood, good to make mill- cogs, pestles, bobbins for bone-lace, spokes for wheels, etc. ; also the best skewers for butchers, because it does not taint the flesh, and is of so very hard a substance as to make wedges to cleave and rive other wood instead of iron. VIBURNUM. The viburnum, or wayfaring tree, growing plentifully in every corner, makes pins for the yokes of oxen ; and superstitious people think that it protects their cattle from being be- witched, and place the shrub about their stalls ; it certainly makes the most pliant and best bands to fagot with. The leaves and berries are astringent, and make an excellent gargle for loose teeth, sore-throat, and stop fluxes. The leaves decocted to a lye not only color the hair black, but fasten the roots ; and the bark of the root, macerated under ground, well beaten, and often boiled, serves for bird-lime. YUCCA. The American yucca is a hardier plant than we take it to be, for it will suffer our sharpest 308 Gbe (Barren winter, as I have seen by experience, without that trouble and care of setting it in cases in our conservatories of hiemation. Such as nave be- held it in flower (which is not indeed till it be of some age) must needs admire the beauty of it ; and it being easily multiplied, why should it not make one of the best and most ornamental fences in the world for our gardens, with its natural palisadoes, as well as the more tender and impatient of moisture, the aloe, does for their vineyards in lyanguedoc ? But we believe nothing improvable, save what our grand- fathers taught us. Finally, let trial likewise be made of that thorn mentioned by Captain L,ig- gon in his " History of Barbadoes," whether it would not be made to grow amongst us, and prove as convenient for fences as there, the seeds or sets being transported to us with due care. Having thus accomplished what, by your commands, I had to offer concerning the propa- gation of the more solid material and useful trees, as well the dry as the aquatical, and, to the best of my talent, fenced our plantation in, I should here conclude, and set a bound likewise to my discourse, by making an apology for the many errors and impertinencies of it, did not the zeal and ambition of this illustrious society to promote and improve all attempts which may concern public utility or ornament, per- Jobn 309 suade me, that what I am adding for the further encouragement to the planting of some other useful (though less vulgar) trees will at least obtain your pardon, if it miss of your approba- tion. B (Quincunx. 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