house" may be satisfied, without being tanta-[ while the simple and pretty wall-snapdragon lized by the rich reserves within the gate of iron weeps over the side, till its tiny pink threads tracery, of which the head gardener keeps the are tangled among the feathery ferns that fringe key. the base of the stump.

Return to the steps of the lower terrace: The lawn now stretches some distance westwhat a fine slope of green pasture loses itself in ward, its green and velvet surface uninterrupted the thorn, hazel, and holly thicket below, while by a single shrub (what a space for trapbat, or the silver thread of the running brook here and les graces!") till towards the verge of the there sparkles in the light; and how happily shrubberies, into which it falls away, irregular the miniature prospect, framed by the gnarled clumps of evergreens and low shrubs break the branches of those gigantic oaks, discloses the boundary line of greensward. Here are no borwhite spire of the village church in the middle ders for flowers, but clusters of the larger and distance! while in the background the smoke, bolder kinds, as hollyhocks and peonies, rise drifting athwart the base of the purple hill, from the turf itself; here, too, in spring, golden gives evidence that the evening fires are just lit and purple crocuses, daffodils, aconites, snowin the far-off town. drops, blue-bells, cyclamen, wood-anemonies, At the right hand corner of the lower ter- hepaticas, the pink and the blue, chequer the race the ground falls more abruptly away, and lawn in bold broad strips, the wilder sorts being the descent into the lawn, which is overlooked more distant from the house, and losing themfrom the high western terrace, is, by two or selves under the dark underwood of the adjointhree steps at a time, cut out in the native rock ing coppice. The ground here becomes more of red sandstone, which also forms the base of varied and broken; clumps of double-flowering the terrace itself. Rock plants of every descrip- gorse, tion freely grow in the crevices of the rustic battlement which flanks the path on either side: the irregularity of the structure increases as you descend, till on arriving on the lawn below, the evergreen barberry, the ilex in all its varielarge rude masses lie scattered on the turf and ties, and hardy ferns, bordering the green drive along the foundation of the western terrace. which leads to the wilder part of the plantaA profusion of the most exquisite climbing tions. Here, in the words of Bacon, "Trees I roses of endless variety here clamber up till would have none in it, but some thicket made they bloom over the very balustrades of the only of sweet-briar and honeysuckle, and some higher terrace, or creep over the rough stones wild vine amongst; and the ground set with at the foot of the descent. Here stretching to violets, strawberries, and primroses, for these the south is the nosegay of the garden. Mig- are sweet, and prosper in the shade, and these nionette," the Frenchman's darling," and the are to be in the heath here and there, not in inusk-mimulus, spring out of every fissure of any order. I like also little heaps, in the nathe sandstone; while beds of violets, ture of mole-hills (such as are in wild heaths,) to be set with wild thyme."

-"the vernal furze, With golden baskets hung,"

"That strew the green lap of the new-come spring," Another broad drive of greensward dips from and lilies of the valley scent the air below. the lawn into the darkest and most tangled part Beds of heliotrope flourish around the isolated of the wood: here, through a long vista, you blocks of sandstone; the fuchsia, alone inodo- catch a glimpse of the American shrubbery berous, claims a place from its elegance; and low. Rhododendrons, azaleas, calmias, maghoneysuckles and clematis of all kinds trail nolias, andromedas, daphnes, heaths, and bogalong the ground, or twine up the stands of plants of every species in their genial soil, form rustic baskets, filled with the more choice odo- a mass of splendid colouring during the spring riferous plants of the greenhouse. The scented months, while, even in winter, their dark foliage heath, the tuberose, and the rarer jasmines have forms an evergreen mass for the eye to rest each their place, while the sweet-briar and the upon. Returning again to the lawn, and inwall-flower and the clove and the stock gilli-clining to the south, you come to an artificial flower, are not too common to be neglected. shrubbery, not dotted about in simple plants, To bask upon the dry sunny rock on a bright but in large and bold clusters of the same spe spring morning in the midst of this "wilderness of sweets," or on a dewy summer's eve to lean over the balustrade above, while every breath from beneath wafts up the perfumed air,

". . . . stealing and giving odour,"

cies, so that the effect from a distance is as good as upon a nearer approach. Here, as elsewhere, not a sod of turf is broken; but, here and there, a bed of gay shrubby plants rises out of the smoothly-shorn grass, and in the background, amid masses of laburnum, lilac, and is one of the greatest luxuries I have in life. guelder-rose, fruit trees of every kind hang their A little farther on the lawn are the trunks bright garlands in spring, and their mellow proand stumps of old pollards hollowed out; and, duce in autumn. From thence winds a path, from the cavities, filled with rich mould, climb- the delicia of the garden, planted with such ers, creepers, trailers, and twiners of every herbs as yield their perfume when trodden upon hue and habit form a singular and picturesque and crushed,-burnet, wild thyme, and watergroup. The lophospermum, the eccrymocarpos, mints, according to Bacon's advice, who bids the maurandia, the loasa, the rodokiton, ver- us "set whole alleys of them, to have the pleabenas, and petunias in all their varieties, festoon sure when you walk or tread." themselves over the rugged bark, and form the gayest and gracefullest bouquet imaginable:

It were tedious to follow up the long shady path, not broad enough for more than two,

the "lovers' walk," and the endless winding | author we have quoted) that combined art tracks in the natural wood, till you burst upon

a wild common of

"Tooth'd briars, sharp furzes, prickly gorse, and

thorns,"

glowing with heather bloom, and scented with the perfume of the furze, just such an English scene as Linnæus is said to have fallen down and worshipped the first time he beheld it.'

If we rightly understand the plan bere detailed, it is intended to combine the chief excellences of the artificial and natural styles; keeping the decorations immediately about the house formal, and so pass ing on by gradual transitions to the wildest scenes of nature.

and nature ever produced in gardening were those fine masses of many-coloured ed vase; such as Sir Joshua delighted to holly-hocks clustered round a weather-tintplace in the wings of his pictures. And what more magnificent than a long avenue of these floral giants, the double and the single, not too straightly tied,-backed by a dark thick hedge of old-fashioned yew?'*. Such an avenue-without the dark thick hedge,' which would certainly ber to have seen, in the fulness of its auhave been an improvement--we rememnear Edinburgh, the marine villa of a deep tumn splendour, in the garden at Granton, lawyer-and another may have been inThe leading features then in such a gar-ley Hill. Here the hollyhocks 'broke the spected by many of our readers at Bromden would be an architectural terrace and horizon with their obelisks of colour; and flight of steps in connection with the house; the foreground was a mass of dahlias, Amelower terraces of grass-slopes and flowerbeds succeeding: these branching off on rican marigolds, mallows, asters, and mignionette. It was the most gorgeous mass one side towards the kitchen department, of colouring we ever beheld; but was only through an old English garden, of which a bowling-green would form a part, and one of the many beautiful effects produced on this spot by the taste of the late Lady where florists' flowers might be sheltered by the trim hedges; on the other towards limited size, this was the most complete Farnborough. For a moderate garden of an undulating lawn bounded by flowering we ever visited, the situation allowing shrubs and the larger herbaceous plants, greater variety than could well be conwith one corner for the American garden, ceived within so small a compass. A conbeyond which would lie the natural copse servatory connected with the house led to wood and forest-ground of the place of a summer-room: this looked on a small course the aspect and situation of the house, and the character of the neighbouring grounds, and affording a dim view of the Italian garden-the highest point of the ground and country, would modify these or dome of St. Paul's in the distance; and any general rules which might be laid down for the formation of a garden; but banks and steps of rock and root-work, thence you descended, by steep and grassy we think some advantage might, in every from garden to garden, each having some peculiar feature of its own, till you came to and such crystal springs, in all their nathe most perfect little Ruysdael rivulet, tural wildness, that it seemed, when you saw them, you had never known what pure cold native fountains were before. Any. common taste would have bedizened these

case, be taken from these hints.

:

In a place of any pretension, a good clear lawn where children of a younger or older growth may romp about, without fear of damaging shrubs or plants, is indispensable.

springs with cockle-shells and crockery, and what not: but there they lay among the broad leaves of the water-lily and the burdock, glittering like huge liquid dia

monds cast in a mould of nature's own

Single shrubs and flowers, or groups of them, on the verge of this lawn, springing up directly from the turf, and dotted in front of shrubberies that bound it, are preferable to those growing with a distinctly marked border. The common peonies, and the Chinese variety-the tree-peony making, and in their simplicity and pure(P. moutan.), are excellent for this purness offering a striking contrast to the pose; but there is nothing to surpass the old-fashioned hollyhock. This, as has been trim gardens, and the dusky distant city remarked, is the only landscape flower we you had just left above.f possess the only one, that is, whose forms and colours tell in the distance; and so picturesque is it, that perhaps no artist ever attempted to draw a garden without introducing it, whether it were really there or not. By far the finest effect (says the

Another source of great Leauty in these

We do not often indulge in prophesy, but we will venture to stake our gardening credit, that within five years' time, the hollyhock will again be restored to favour, become a florist's flower, and carry

off horticultural prizes.

+ There was no occasion in this place for the ex

gardens was the evident care bestowed on, of the year and day. The prospect tothe growth and position of the flowers. wards the north would then be as cheerful Every plant seemed to be just in its right as any other. place, both for its flourishing and its effect. There was a very great abundance and variety of the tenderer kinds that required protection in winter; but we believe they were, for the most part, kept in cold pits, very little forcing being used: and there were not more than six or eight gardeners or labourers at any time employed. We still have before our eyes the splendid masses of the common scarlet geranium, and a smaller bed of the leafed variety edged with a border of the ivy-leaf kind; nor ought we to forget the effect of a large low ring of ivy on the lawn, which looked like a gigantic chaplet, carelessly thrown there by some Titan hand.

A garden should always lie sloping to the south, and if possible, to the south of the house.* In this case, the chief entrance to the house should be, in an ordinarily sheltered situation, on the east or north; for, common as the fault is, nothing so entirely spoils a garden as to have it placed in front of the public approach. Views, it should be remembered, are always clearest in the opposite direction to the sun. Thus the north is most uninterruptedly clear throughout the day; the west in the morning; the east in the afternoon. Speaking with a view only to gardening effect, trees, which are generally much too near the dwelling for health, and beauty, and everything else, should be kept at a distance from the house, except on the east side. On the south and west they keep off the sun, of which we can never have too much in England: and on the north they render the place damp and gloomy; whereas, on that side they should be kept so far from the windows as to back and shelter a bright bank of shrubs and flowers, planted far enough from the shadow cast by the house so as to catch the sun upon them during the greater part

clamation of the Roman satirist on a similar scene which had been marred by art

'Quanto præstantius esset Numen aquæ, viridi si margine clauderet undas Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum.' Juv. iii., 19. And which shows, by the way, that there were some Romans, at least, who could appreciate the beauties of natural scenery.

It is astonishing how people continue to plant spruce and Scotch firs, and larches, and other incongruous forest-trees, so close, that they chafe the very house with their branches, when there are at hand such beautiful trees as the Lebanon aud Deodara cedars; or, for smaller, or more formal, or spiral shrubs, the red cedar, the cypress, the arbor-vitæ, the holly, the yew, andmost graceful of all, either as a tree or shrub, or rather uniting the properties of both, and which only requires shelter to make it flourish-the hemlock spruce.

As a low shrubby plant on the lawn, nothing can exceed the glossy, dark, indented leaves and bright yellow spikes of the new evergreen berberries (Berberis* aquifolium and B. repens), with their many hybrid varieties. They are becoming daily more popular, not only from their beauty, but as affording perhaps the best underwood covert for game yet discovered. The experiments made in the woods of Sudbury and elsewhere have completely succeeded; the plant being evergreen, very hardy, of easy growth, standing the tree-drip, and affording in its berry an excellent food for pheasants. Our nurserymen are already anticipating the demand, and we have no doubt that a few years' time will see this the main undergrowth of our game-preserves. The notice we took a few years ago (in an Article on the Arboretum Britannicum)† of the Deodara pine-now classed among the cedars-has

unless the dealers flatter us-given a great impetus to the cultivation of this

*Now changed to Mahonia.

+ Q. R., vol. xii. The Chili pine (Araucaria imbricata) is now treading upon the heels of the Deodara cedar as an ornamental garden-tree, but though announced as the largest tree in the world,' it will ever want the elegance of the latter. Even yet another monster is threatening us under the name of Parlonia imperialis: it was introduced iuto France from Japan by Dr. Siebold, and promises to be one of the most imposing plants in our gardens. We saw some young plants this spring in Mr. Rollison's nursery, which were obtained from the Royal Gardener at Versailles. The leaves of a specimen in the Jardin des Plantes are said to measure from 18 to 24 inches across. While speaking of trees, we would say one word on the acacia, Cobbett's famous locust-tree (Robinia pseudoacacia) now more than necessarily depreciated. We are fully aware of its defects as a timber-tree from the brittleness and splitting of its branches, and slowness of making bulk; but once get a bole large

To show how difficult it is to lay down any general rule, uncontroverted, here is one from Macintosh's Practical Gardener,' one of the best prac-enough to cut a post out of it, and ask your carpentical works on horticulture we possess. 'In all cases, unless in small villas, or cottage residences, the flower-garden should be entirely concealed from the windows of the house, and be placed, if circumstances will admit of it, in the shrubbery.'

ter whether it will not last as long as the iron fixed into it. It is more to our present purpose to say, that it is by far the best tree to be used for ornamental rustic-work, as its bark is as tough as its timber, and never peels off.

valuable tree. Its timber qualities as a British-grown tree have not of course been yet tested; but as an ornamental one-in which character only we can refer to it here it has more than surpassed the highest expectations entertained respecting it. The nurserymen cannot propagate it fast enough by grafts, and layers, and the abundance of seed which the East India Company has so liberally distributed.

6

The olitory, or herb-garden, is a part of our horticulture now comparatively neglected; and yet once the culture and culling of simples was as much a part of female education as the preserving and tying down of rasps and apricocks.' There was not a Lady Bountiful in the kingdom but made her dill-tea and diet-drink from herbs of her own planting; and there is a neatness and prettiness about our thyme, and sage, and mint, and marjoram, that might yet, we think, transfer them from the patronage of the blue serge to that of the white muslin apron. Lavender, and rosemary, and rue, the feathery fennel, and the bright-blue borage, are all pretty bushes in their way, and might have their due place assigned them by the hand of beauty and taste. A strip for a little herbary, halfway between the flower and vegetable garden, would form a very appropriate transition stratum, and might be the means, by being more under the eye of the mistress, of recovering to our soups and salads some of the comparatively neglected herbs of tarragon, and French sorrel, and purslane, and chervil, and dill, and clary, and others whose place is now nowhere to be found but in the pages of the old herbalists. This little plot should be laid out, of course, in a simple geometric pattern; and, having tried the experiment, we can boldly pronounce on its success. We recommend the idea to the consideration of our ladygardeners.

temple shining from afar' (it is always so drawn in frontispieces); while the hard climbing was a palpable type of the ambition of after years.

The snug smooth bowling green is another desideratum we would have restored; and gardeners ought to know that the clipt yew hedges which should accompany it are the best possible protection for their flowers; and that there is nothing flowers need so much as shelter, the nursery-grounds, where almost alone these hedges are now retained, will testify. Where they already exist, even in a situation where shelter is not required, and where yet a good view is shut out, we should prefer cutting windows or niches in the solid hedge to removing it altogether. In conjunction with these, what can be handsomer than the iron tracery-work which came into fashion with the Dutch style, and of which Hampton Court affords so splendid an example? Good screens of this work,* which on their first introduction were called clair-voyées, may be seen at Oxford in Trinity and New College Gardens. Some years ago we heard of a proposition to remove the latter: the better taste of the present day will not, we think, renew the scheme. Though neither of these are in the rich flamboyant style which is sometimes seen, there is still character enough about them to assure us that, were they destroyed, nothing so good would be put up in their place. Oxford has already lost too many of its characteristic alleys and parterres. The last sweep was at the Botanic Garden, where, however, the improvements recently introduced by the zeal and liberality of the present Professor must excuse it. If any collegegarden is again to be reformed, we hope that the fellows will have courage enough to lay it out in a style which is at once classical and monastic; and set Pliny's example against Walpole's sneer, that 'in an age when architecture displayed all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste; when arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the temple of Peace, Trajan's forum, Domitian's baths, and Adrian's villa, the ruins and vestiges of which still excite our astonishment and curiosity,--a Roman consul, a polished emperor's friend, and a man of

We can recall so much amusement in early years from the maze at Hampton Court, that we could heartily wish to see a few more such planted. Daines Barrington mentions a plan for one in Switzer (Iconographia, 1718) with twenty stops: that at Hampton has but four. A fanciful summer-house perched at the top of a high mound, with narrow winding paths leading to it, was another favourite ornament of old British gardens. Traces of many such * We were surprised, the first time we saw the mounds still exist; but the crowning build-scription, painted sky-blue and gilt, till by chance entrance gates at Althorpe, which are of this deings are, alas' no more. We must own our predilection for them, if it were only that the gilded pinnacle seemed to prefigure to the young idea Fame's proud

we fell upon a passage in Evelyn, who speaks of them (we suppose they are the same) thus coloured dered them classical, and we quite approve of the in his time. The mention of them by him has rentaste which renews them as he described.

elegant literature and taste, delighted in [nal state; but places like these are yearly what the mob now scarce admire in a becoming more curious from their rarity. college-garden.' He little thought how We have heard of one noble but eccentric soon sturdy Oxford would follow in the fashion of the day, and blunt the point of his period. Still more astonished would he have been to have had his natural style traced to no less a founder than Nero, and even the names of the Bridgeman and Brown of the day handed down for his edification.*

The good taste of the proprietors of Hardwick and Levens still retains these gardens as nearly as possible in their origi-highest luxuries to an Anglo-Indian. In