PLATE LVI.

PRINCIPLES OF LAYING OUT GROUNDS ADJACENT TO A MANSION IN THE ANCIENT STYLE.

"What is Nature? ring her changes round,

Her three flat notes are water, plants, and ground."-PAYNE KNIGHT.

In forming a comparison of the two styles of landscape-gardening, ancient and modern, of which we are about to treat, "it appears," says Mr. Knight, "that what constitutes the chief excellence of the old garden is richness of decoration and effect, and an agreement with the same qualities in architecture as the mansion; its defects are stiffness and formality. The excellences of the modern gardening are undulation of ground, diversity of plants, and a more varied and natural disposition than has hitherto been practised :-its defect, when considered as accompanying architecture, perhaps, a uniformity of character too nearly approaching nature.*

The ancient style of gardening, which consists of single and double avenues, was not intended as an imitation of nature, but professedly a production of art. The practice of embellishing with clumps and inclosing grounds by belts, and thick masses of plantations, as shown in the annexed Plate, is now obsolete, and should not therefore be practised. It in too decided a manner defines that which should be avoided; and parts are here made to advance which should fall back. Where thick plantations and broad masses of shade exist in the distance, they mar the effect of beautiful landscape, encroach upon the limits of the ground, and evidently betray how far the hand of art has been directed. No true admirer of landscape scenery will admit that surrounding the grounds with a belt or thick plantation, which everywhere marks the termination of property, can be reconcilable with good taste. It is however admitted, in some situations where such plantations are essential to particular residences, and where some parts can be made to produce the pleasing effect of a vista, and increase the variety of outline. There must necessarily be considerable difference in the style of laying out grounds around a rural residence, which must depend on, or be adapted to the extent or particular circumstances attached to the situation and the style of the mansion, which is to be the principal object in the picture. Upon a limited piece of ground attached to a rural cottage or small villa, perhaps no greater portion than may be composed in the view from the villa should receive such embellishments, here the endeavour must be to introduce as great a variety as can consistently be admitted, but an extensive piece of ground affords proportionate opportunity for the landscape-gardener to display his taste and ingenuity in producing ornamental and picturesque effects, as a greater diversity of subjects, both natural and artificial, may there be judiciously and appropriately introduced.

Planting for park scenery within view from the mansion, should have ornament for its principal motive; the formal and incongruous avenue, the massive clump, have no kindred association with the beauties of nature, and are therefore altogether to be rejected; but where there is a stately avenue joined to a revered pile of ancient monastic times, such should be respected, and not destroyed. To alter the appearance of an avenue will require years of growth, and the cutting away part to change the effect has rarely been attended with the desired success. It has lost its wonted grandeur, remained a mutilated avenue, and the chasms have been viewed with sad regret. §

Essay on Decoration near the house. Note. The maze at the end of the flower-garden is from the one at Hampton Court. †This practice was formerly adopted when the adjoining property of another land-owner was neither to be purchased nor obtained in exchange:"He will not sell, nor borrow, nor exchange,

Thus Marral says to his patron

And his land lying in the midst of yours

Is a foul blemish."-(Massinger's New Way to Pay Old Debts, Act ii. Scene 1.)

"What course take you,

(With your good patience) to hedge in the manor,
Of your neighbour, Master Fryal? As it is said."

Many errors have been committed by persons conceiving the true art of landscape-gardening to consist on all occasions in curved walks, and similarly-formed plantations, which at a short distance blend into such regular and formal shapes as to appear as if they were clipped. Let it not be conceived for a moment, that such forms can have any claim to the picturesque. The painter and the landscape-gardener in their productions should have the same motive, that of gratifying the eye of taste; the forms produced by clumps and belts, which were both an advance on the avenue should be rejected, as they afford little or no variety in their outline, and produce a formal and confined effect at variance with nature. "Clumps," says Mr. Price, "placed on summits of hills which we see near many noblemen and gentlemen's seats, alarm the picturesque traveller many miles off, and warn him of his approach to the enemy; the belt lies more in ambuscade, and the wretch who falls into it, and is obliged to walk the whole round in company with the improver will be forced to allow, that a snake with its tail in its mouth is comparatively but a feeble emblem of eternity."-(Price on the Picturesque.) § The avenue was succeeded by the belt without its redeeming grandeur. In an avenue similar objects are seen from beginning to end. In the belt, at intervals of twenty yards, groups of trees succeed each other throughout the insipid circle, without the least relief in variety. The contrast of masses with groups must not be too strong when grandeur is the character of the scene, for variety is essential to greatness in this particular.—(Author.)

PLATE LVII.

PRINCIPLES OF LAYING OUT GROUNDS AROUND A COUNTRY MANSION IN THE MODERN STYLE.

"To make the landscape grateful to the sight,

Three points of distance always should unite,
And howsoe'er the view may be confined,

Three marked divisions we shall always find."-PAYNE KNIGHT.

To form the surface of the grounds which surround the proposed mansion into fore-ground, middle-ground, and distance, demands all the skill of the landscape-gardener; it is by the judicious employment of the power to create unequal surfaces, to obscure or obliterate existing deformities, and to render conspicuous those beauties which are hidden or neglected, that forms the basis upon which the elegance and importance of the art is founded. It is of the utmost consequence that the entire design of the whole should be seen by the architect with a painter's eye, that the projected outlines of the building, the lawn, shrubberies, woods, water, &c. should be discerned at the commencement, regulate every exertion during the progress, and promote the intended display of nature and art at the completion. In considering the surfaces of ground, the breaks, the cavities, and all the inequalities of the park should be noticed; and if the spot which is fixed upon for the mansion should be level, or that near the site of the house be lower than the surrounding parts, such spots should be raised, not merely to make them appear dry and comfortable, but to render them so in reality. In doing this, if the soil necessary for the purpose be taken from some adjoining land, the effect is more speedily produced, and an undulated surface may be formed in view from the house, which gives the desired variety, and assists even where the grounds are very limited in producing the pleasing effect called the picturesque. A flat surface at all times appears to contract the view, while an undulating outline contributes to an appearance of extent. Monotony of surface fatigues the eye, and is insipid compared with irregularity of contour; if nature has given such surfaces, then it is to be considered whether the concave, the convex, or the level be well disposed for the different points of view. It often happens, that accidental deformities and natural excrescences may be rendered ornamental, and assist considerably in producing the picturesque or the beautiful.†

Of carriage roads, the most considerable must be that leading to the mansion; here the entrance into the park should be fixed upon before the line is marked out, and advantage should be taken of some well-grown tree or plantation on a wide part, or at a sweep on the public road, from which to form an easy and convenient park entrance. It is considered bad taste to branch one road from another at right-angles. And in directing the course of a drive or walk, nothing can be more annoying than the prospect of a straight line over which one is to travel after having previously surveyed it, and it is rendered more objectionable when the object approached is immediately before the eye. Where there is no diversity in the line of the road nor change of object, the mind becomes wearied of the sameness; and the grandeur of the mansion, which should burst upon the view in all its impressive magnificence, is lost; ‡ but when the road is conducted in a winding direction, the path so favouring it, the object is alternately, now hidden, now viewed to advantage, and the imagination is excited by the variety; although the road may be more circuitous, this is fully compensated by the beauty and continued interest of the scenery. It is desirable that distant parts of the

All natural objects should be presented to the sight, though the means by which they are produced be sometimes laborious. It is by practice and intimacy with the subject that the landscape-gardener is enabled to decide where and how improvements may be effected; for there is a material difference between altering and improving, which many theorists have discovered too late. It is not by forming in the mind's eye a rural scene, either picturesque or beautiful, and desiring it to be realized, that can produce it; there is no such talisman in the power of the theorist. Many designs there are which cannot be executed, though at the commencement of the work no obstacle was presented; thus expense is incurred, time is lost, disappointment follows unsuccessful effort, and the final impossibility of attaining the object confounds the projector and the operator.-(B.)

+ Whatever arrangement may be made in the form of the grounds, it is of importance to conceal such objects as define the boundary, whether on a limited or more extensive scale. In laying out the grounds, much may be done to destroy the highly displeasing appearance of a fence, and although fences must of necessity be used, it is bad taste to exhibit them as a surrounding border with a walk in the front, which too much defines and invites to an examination of the limits of the property.-(B.)

The modern style of laying out shrubberies, Dr. Johnson says, very justly, is to plant a walk in undulating curves, and to place a bench at every turn where there is an object to catch the view, to make the water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen, and to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be hidden. -(Life of Shenston.)

An example of this may be seen in the approach to an extensive mansion in the North of England, where a straight road through a park two miles in length leads up to the house, which is ever in view; first in semblance of a cottage, then as a respectable house, and, finally, as a magnificent and elegant mansion, which is its true character.-(R. B.)

]