The border (4) is filled with choice Roses, and the wall along the northern boundary supplies an excellent means of growing the better sorts of climbers. On the face of the rocks round the sunk garden, and those on the line 5, places for ferns, trailing plants, dwarf evergreens, and alpine plants, are abundantly provided; and the collection of these will gradually stamp a most interesting and delightful character upon the place. The section below the engraving, which is to the same scale as the plan,* shows the form of the ground on the line A to B; and reveals that the point A is about twenty feet below the base of the house. All the lower part of this garden is occupied with clumps of Rhododendrons, Azaleas, and other dwarf American plants, and small evergreen shrubs, and the circles in the walks are filled exclusively with Rhododendrons.

* In this section, contrary to the usual practice, the vertical and horizontal scales are alike.

CHAPTER III.

PARTICULAR OBJECTS.

ANOTHER step downwards towards what is practical has now to be made. Several peculiar and more definite objects, which could not with propriety be called general, because they apply to special cases and less common circumstances, have here to be discussed. And in thus travelling towards minuter matters, I cannot do better than begin with noticing the influence of little things on all questions of taste.

1. As most of the comforts, and all the elegances and refinements of life, consist in attention to numerous small matters which are in themselves insignificant, but which, together, compose a beautiful and agreeable whole; so the expression and character of a garden will be cultivated and tasteful, or otherwise, according as its minor features are well arranged and well executed. It is surprising how much a few trifling objects or circumstances may do in the way of imparting tone to a place. There is comparatively little difference between the mode in which a first-rate artist and an inferior one would work up a picture consisting of the same elements; but in that little, what a world of meaning and expression might be conveyed! In laying out a garden, too, where much the same general features have to be dealt with, how much alike, yet how very distinct, would be the products of an untutored and unskilful operator, and the creations of the studied, and the practised, and the delicately perceptive lover of art.

A lame or imperfect curve; an artificial or abrupt connexion of lines in reference to raised ground; deep and clumsy edgings to walks; the arrangement of plants in rows in irregular gardening, or the occurrence of three conspicuous specimens nearly in a row upon a lawn, where a decided line is not sought;

plants that should be in a row, at all out of the line; specimens not placed exactly in the middle of a circle, or planted with an inclination to one side where they ought to be upright; wavy lines in near and parallel association with such as are straight; unmeaning and sudden inequalities of surface in a lawn ;-these are things which are of very slight moment, regarded individually, but of great and weighty influence upon the general character of a garden.

Where a pleasing and refined expression is aimed at, then, there must be no fancied superiority to little things, no neglect of the elegances of finish, no inattention to the most delicate propriety. And the less perfect and effective a garden is, the more will it be necessary to consider and polish the most minute of its parts: for, while striking and extraordinary things may pass off a few deficiencies without exciting observation, such as are of an inferior and more common-place stamp will need all the aid they can derive from minor details to preserve them from the lowest mediocrity.

2. Mounds and bunks are features with which a great deal may be accomplished in a garden, if they be properly treated. As frequently met with, they are the greatest possible eye-sores, altogether destitute of beauty, and having no visible relation to the general surface. They are commonly either long straight ridges or banks, such as a hedger would throw up, only with the sides softened away; or are mere lumps of earth, pretty nearly resembling compost or manure heaps.

The great point to be attempted in mounds is some degree of naturalness, and connexion with the other parts of the ground. They should not at once show that they have been put in their place by art, and solely for some purpose of convenience. But this they always will do when they rise suddenly from the ordinary level, and do not at all appear to belong to the rest of the ground. In nature, where swells and undulations of mere earth occur, without any rocky constituents, the greatest possible softness and extenuation are perceptible in the lower lines, which blend with the surrounding land in the most gradual manner. And even with rocky hills, the contour lines are mostly gentle, except in a few rugged parts, and the base, by its natural formation, or by the constant accumulation of soil and fragments washed from above, is usually carried out with a

gracefully prolonged sweep, till it blends with the hollows or plains.

To realise much of natural freedom, and still more of beauty, a raised bank or mound, (always excepting a terrace bánk, of which I do not at all treat in this place,) should be varied in its ground outline, and have more or less undulation on its surface. A bank that is backed by a wall need be no exception, unless it is to be covered with grass, when it should be managed as a terrace. Hard and straight lines never look well in contact with flowing ones; but if the bank is to be planted, the wall will be hidden.

For the outlines of a mound or bank intended as the groundwork of a plantation, the directions given a few pages back, for shaping masses of plantation generally, will apply just as forcibly here. They should be bold in some parts, always free; adapt themselves to the form of walks, or the intended shape of a lawn, and to the objects for which they are made, becoming broader where large and ugly things have to be concealed, and narrower where they are less urgently wanted.

In shaping the outlines of any raised masses of earth, a correct and practised eye will be the safest guide. Nevertheless, it may be remarked that all the more prominent and higher points should also be the fullest, and the roundest, and the steepest, while the retiring parts can be scooped out and sloped back into a kind of hollow basin. This is the shape almost univ ersally found on the face of natural hills, where fulness and precipitancy are the common attendants of the more forward projections, but are seldom or never seen in the recesses. The reverse of all this, in gardening, is among the worst features that can be introduced. Concavity should be rigidly adhered to in all the receding portions of mounds.

That this description may be all the more forcible and useful, I introduce here a sketch, (fig. 153,) giving the ground outline of a mound, with lines drawn across it to show the points at which the following sections are taken; the scale, both of the ground plan and the sections, (vertical as well as horizontal,) being thirty feet to an inch. By due attention to the letters on the outline sketch and on the sections, (fig. 154,) no difficulty can be experienced in connecting the two, and apprehending the peculiarities of line in the shaping.

Undulation of surface is as important in most mounds as freedom of outline, only this should be proportioned to the scale

B

on which they are formed.

Fig. 153.

Such mounds as can be at all fitly introduced into gardens, will, from their limited extent, admit of

Fig. 154.

only very trifling undulations, or they will thereby become all the more artificial instead of natural, and be simply absurd. For a varied and irregular ground outline, however, consistency de