358 mSTORY OF GARDENING.
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ing the objects around it. Buildings, as arbours, aviaries, covered seats, banqueting-
houscs, baths, and grottoes, would become requisite for thcir respective uses, and would
abound in proportion to tlie wealth or rank of the owner. Fruit trees would be introduced
in appropriate situations, for the sake of their fruit ; and a choice of odoriferous
flowers and shrabs would fringe tbe margin of the walks, to admit of a more easy
inspection of their beauties, and a nearer contact of thcir odours with the olfactory
nerves : they would also be disposed in greater profusion, in curious knots or partcn-cs
near to the house, or in front of the resting-places or banquctiiig-rooms. In time, even
ai-tificial objects of value, as dials, statues, vases, and urns, would be added, in order to
create as much variety and interest in a small spot as was consistent with its utility.
Such we have found to be the general aiTangement of Eastern gardens ; and as there
seems no more obvious way of attaining the wants of those to whom they belonged, we
may pronounce it to be perfectly reasonable and natural.
966. .45 to the more extensive paradises or parks in which wild beasts were admitted, and
even whole regiments exercised, we have hut few authentic particulars respecting them.
Those of Assyi-ia must be regai-ded as royal extravagances, calculated to excite astonishment
and admiration at their magnitude, and the art and expense employed in their
constractioii; and, if any reliance is to be placed in the account given by ancient authors
of the hanging gardens of Babylon, their design will be found singularly to unite
this object with the minor beauties of the confined garden ; to combine the splendour of
magnificence with the dehghts of the justest feelings of nature. They were situated
over, or, according to some, adjoining to, IGng Nebuchadnezzar’s palace, or on a platform
supported by lofty pillars, on the banks of the Euphrates, in the middle of the city of
Babylon. They are said to have contained groves, fountains, and, in short, every object
which we have mentioned, as appertaining to the more ordinary description of Eastern
gardens. The king’s object, in forming these gardens, is said to have been, to gratify his
Median queen by that sort of verdant scenery and distant prospect to which she had
been accustomed in the more romantic country of her birth. The height, then, would
give that commanding prospect of the water and sliipping of the Euphrates and the city,
as well as the gardens within and without its walls, which she particularly desired. The
air ill that elevated region would be more cool than below ; the noise and bustle of the
city would cease to be offensive; the whole would be more exposed to breezes and winds;
and the mind, deriving so much enjoyment in so singular and elevated a situation, must
have experienced emotions at once sublime and romantic. But a faint idea of these
gardens will be excited, by imagining the quadrangle of Somerset House crowned with a
portion of Kensington gai'dens; or of the summer garden of St. Petersburgh placed over
the lii-cmliii in Moscow.
967. How, and with ivhat propriety, the Eastern style came afterwards to he adopted
in Greece, Italy, France, and finally in England, is our next enquiry. The principle or
instinct of imitation -would be the first cause why the more distant nations, whether
colonies from the East or returning travellers or conquerors, adopted this style. This
is so obvious as to requfre no comment beyond what will Tdo furnished by individual
cnquii-y into our earliest tastes, habits, and predilections in dress, amusements, iurniture,
and other matters of common hfe. The next principle is that of use or fitness, which
would vary in application, proportionably to the distance, and to the different circumstances,
of the imitating country. Thus, it would not exactly apply in Greece or Italy,
where the climate was more temperate, active exercise more congenial, and the habits of
the wealthy, for a long time at least, comparatively fragal. Add to this, that verdant
landscapes, shade, breezes, rills, waterfalls, and lakes, with their accompaniments of
odours, murmurs, singing-birds, reflections of objects, were more liberally distributed
over the face of general nature. The more active character of man in such countries
would, in time, also appropriate to thefr use, from this natural abundance, a greater
variety of fruits and legumes.
968. The Eastern style assumed a variation in its character under the Romans. The
necessarily different „culture required for perfecting fraits and culinai-y vegetables in a
different climate, would give rise to the orchard and kitchen garden. This would
simplify the objects of the ornamental garden, which would thus exhibit less a collection
of natural beauties, than the display of art, the convenience of taking exercise, here a
pleasure rather than a fatigue, and the gratifications of shade, cool breezes, and aromatic
odours. A prospect of the surrounding country was desired, because it was beautiful;
and where, from various circumstances, it was inteiTupted by the garden or its boundai-y
fence, mounds or hills of earth were raised, and, in time, prospcct-towers appended to
the houses. Greater extent would he required for more atlJetic recreations, and would
be indulged in also by the wealth and pride of the owner, for obvious reasons. Abridgment
of labour would suggest the use of the shears, rather than the more tardy praning-
knifc, in pruning a row of trees. A row of low trees, so cut in, would suggest the
idea of a row of chppcd shrubs. Hence at fii'st hedges ; and subsequently, when art and
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expense had exhausted every beauty, and when the taste had become tired of repetition
veidant sculpture would be invented, as affording novel, curious, and fantastic beautr’
bordering, as do all extremes, upon absurdity. A more extended and absolute appronri!
ation of tenntoiy than what we may suppose to have taken place in the comparatNdv
Hide eountnes of the East, would lead to agi-icultural pursuits, and these again would
give rise to the various an-angements of a Roman countiy residence which we know to
have e.^sted and which it would be supei-fluous to describe. Vai-ious other circumstances
might be added; but enough has been stated to show that the gardening of the Romans
was perfectly natm-al to them, under the circumstances in whicli they were placed; and
as It raited their wants, and produced scenes which they found to be beautiiul, it was!
therefore, in the justest taste. To have imitated the scenery of nature, or studied picturesque
beauty in a garden, would have been merely adding a drop to the ocean of
beauties which sun-ounded them. Expense incun-ed for this purpose could never have
procured applause to the owner; since, the more like nature the production, the less would
It excite notice. All that was left for man to do, therefore, was to create those beauties
ot art, convenience, and magnificence, which mark out his dwelling-place, and o:ratifv
his pride and taste by thefr contrast with surrounding nature.
969. The gardening o f the Romans was copied in France and F n ia /n , with few variations
beyond those dictated by necessity and the difference of climate. I t was found to
be pertectly beautiful and agi-eeablc; and would have continued to prevail, had Britain
continued in similar circumstances to those in which she was at the time of its introduction.
But such has been the progress of improvement in this countiy, that the
general face of natm-e became as it were an ancient garden, and every estate was laid
out bounded, and subdivided, by stripes of wood, rows of trees, canals, ponds, walls,
and liedges. The credit or distinction to be obtained here, by continuing to employ
the ancient style, could be no greater than what the Romans would have obtainecf by
imitating nature. In thefr case, all the country was one scene of uncultivated, in ours
It was one scene of cidtivated, beauty. In this state of things the modern style was
adopted, not solely from a wish to imitate the gardening of the Chinese, or to display
a high degree of refinement in taste, but from the steady operation of the same motives
which produced and continued the ancient style, a desire of distinction.
'^od^rn style o f gardening is unsuitable to countries not generally under cidtlva-
tion. The English style cannot long please in such countries as Sweden, Poland,
and America, othenvise than from its novelty, or as giring rise to certain associations
with the people whose name it bears. What delight or distinction can be produced
by the English style in Poland, for example, where the whole country is one forest, and
the cultivated spots only so many open glades, with the most in-egulai- and pictm-csque
sylvan boundaries? But let a proprietor there dispose of the sceneiy around his residence
in the Roman or Pi-ench manner; let him display a fruit or kitchen garden
bounded by liigh stone walls; a farm subdivided by clipped hedges and by ditches; and
a pleasure-ground of avenues, stars, circles, fountains, statues, temples, and prospect-
towers, and he will gratify eveiy spectator. The view of so much art, indnstiy, and
magnificence, amid so much wild and rade sceneiy, must awaken so many social ideas of
comfort and happiness, and so much admiration at the wealth and skill employed, that a
mind of the greatest refinement and the justest taste would feel the higlicst degree of
picture, and would approve as much of such a countrj'-residcnce in the wilds of Poland
or America, as he would of the most natural and pictm-esque residence of England,
amid the higlily artificial scenery of that country.
971. The modem style is not an improvement on the ancient manner, but the substitution
o f one style fo r another. Part of the prevailing antipathy to the ancient style proceeds
irom a generally entertained idea, that the modera is an improvement on it, in the same
way as a modern plough is an improvement on the clumsy implements of om- ancestors-
but the trath is, the two styles arc as essentially and entirely different in principle, as
painting and architecture; the one being an imitative, and the other an inventive art.
The more the ancient style is improved and perfected, the more it will differ from the
modem style; and neither the improvement nor the neglect of the modern style will
ever bring it a step nearer the ancient manner.
972. Landscape-gardening agrees with ancient gardening in no other circumstance than
in that o f emplmjing the same material. It is an imitative art, like painting or poetiy,
and is governed by the same laws. The ancient style is an inventive and mixed art’
hke architecture, and governed by the same principles. The beauties which architecture
and geometric gai-dening aimed at, were those of art and utility, in which art
was cveiy where avowed. The modern style of gardening, and the aits of poetiy and
painting, imitate nature; and, in doing so, the art employed is studiously concealed.
Those arts, therefore, can never be compared, whose means ai-e so different; and to say
that landscape-gai'dcniiig is an improvement on geometric gardening, is a similar misapplication
of language, as to say that a laivn is an improvement on a cornfield, because
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