New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-05-01
ENGLISH GARDENS.

a. shas & WI os nade With those advertise BY he ssr,
All Aasssseass no. marked viii pubshd one month"; and
ENGLISH GARDENS.
Why have we no history of English gardens /,
It might make q reputation. Mr. johnson has
| drawn up sketch, but dry and imperfect We
want Evelyn and Walpole united, with tipge
| OF Gray. The monks were the first horticult1-
rlsts. Orchards and gardens grew round the
seauestered homes of learning Chaucer de-
scr1bes garden Of the fifteenth century
| This yerde was large, and rallied 81 the aleyes,
/ And shadowed well with bIossonsing bowls CREME
| And tEenched newe, and santId eli the Wages
The gardens of Nonsuch, in the reign Of
Henry VIII, might be taken as the starting
point. About the same period, Hampton Court
was laid out by Wolsey. A paper in the IS Ar
eh@oiogla supplies some pleasing notices AMI
scholar, of high attainments, recently COM
munleated several particulars to the open and
Watehfnl ear Of Sylvanus Urban He mentions
Hollar's engraving of Boscobel and Lord Arun-
defs seat in Surrey; the delicious pleasure
grounds OF Sir Matthew Decker ons Richmond
green, where the pineapple was first brought
to perfection Beddington, the place of the Ca
| rews, and the home of the earliest orange tree
planted in England; and Ham House,on the banks
OF the Thames, shaded by spreading elms and still
reminding US of EyelYns account Of its pastures,
=
later days, Ham House has been sketched by
the same pencil that gave fame to Our Village.
Ham House is perfect model of the mansion
OF the last century, with its dark, shadowy
front, ITS steps and terraces, its marble basins,
and its deep silent court Harlow Place must
have been just such an abode of stateliness and
seelusion. Those iron gates seem to have been
erected for no other purpose than to divide Love-
lace from Clarissa--they look so stern, and so
unrelenting If there were any Clarissas now
a-days, they would be found at Ham House.
And the keeping is so perfect. The very flowers
are oid-fashioned. No American borders, no
kahmias or azaleas, or magnolias or such hea-
then shrubs. No himsy China roses. Nothing
ne#-fangled None but flowers of the olden
time, arranged In gay, formal knots, staid, and
trim, and regular, and without a leaf awry .
| may add that Camden, cotemporary of
Spenser, mentions Guy Clife, in Warwickshire,
with unusual animation; and Sir William Tenn
pie bestows panegyric on Sir Henry Fanshawe's
Hover garden at Ware Park, and his artistic ar
rangement of colors. Sc He did SO precisely exl
anime the tinctures and seasons Of his flowers.
that in their settings the inwardest of which
that were to come up at the same time should be
always little darker than the utmost, and to
serve them for q kind of gentle shadow. y Tenn
pie also mentions, as the 'perfectest figure of a
garden he ever saw, g either at home or
abroad, " the one made by the Countess of Bed
ford, who was the theme Of Donne and his poetic
brethren. 1t combined every excellence Of the
antique pleasure-ground; the terrace gravel
walk, three hundred PAGES long, and broad in
proportion; & the border set with standard lau-
reis, and at large distances, which have the
beauty oforange trees both Of flower and fruit ?
the stone steps, in three series, leading to exten-
sive parterres; the fountains and statues: sum
warehouses; land o eloister facing the south and
covered with vines. These, with the ivied balus-
trade, and
Walls mellowed into harmony by time,
eempoasd garden that suited, while it encour-
aged. The meditative temper of our ancestors
The English garden of the sixteenth century
was the Latin reproduced. Lord Bacon's walks
and topiary work at Gorhambury were refec-
tons OF Pliny's Tusculan Villa. The solemn
terrace, sloPing lawn, little flower garden, with
fountain in the centre, and sculptured trees.
were common to both. Eyelyn's garden was
happy example. Perhaps the antique system
had more than one feature worthy of preserva-
ton. 1t is pleasant to look at Pliny, through
one of his own amusing letters, sitting in q room
shaded by plane-trees, and. like Sidney
Deaf to noise and blind to light;
or sauntering beneath an embowered walk of
vines, SO soft that his uncovered feet suffered no
Inconvenience, Pope describes such O path in
his ingenious imitation of cowley--
Therein bright drops the crystal fountains play
ny laurela shaded from the piercing daY;
where summer's beauty, midst Of winter strays
ana winters cooness spite of summers rays.
And Milton shows our first parents, in Eden, |
rising with the early dawn to dress the
Their yak al noon aith branches orer-s srova
Bacon, in gardening as in philosophy, had |
the prophetic eye. He foresaw the charm of
ornamental scenery, which was to delight the |
refined taste of another generation. Mason |
praises him for banishing the crisped knot and |
artificial foliage, while he restored the ample |
lawn,
Ito feast their sight
With yerdure pure unbroken, unabridged.
Bacon and Milton were the prophet and the |
herald, Pope and Addison the reformer and the |
legislator, of hortieulture-Pope in the Specta-
tor, Addison in the Guardian. Neither was a /
mere theorist. Addison made few experi- |
ments in landscape decoration at his rural seat, |
near Rugby; and Pope created q little Elysium /
At Twickenham. However modern rhymers
about green fields may deride him, he loved |
nature and understood her charms In a letter
70 Richardson, written in the freshness of |
hummer morning, he invites him to pass the
lay among his shades, ss and as much of the
night as fine moon Allows From the heat
II noon he retreated into his grotto--ft haunt
or poetry and Wood-nymphs! Sails gliding up
lnd down the river cast q faint, vanishing
sleam through q sloping arcade of trees; and
Rhen the doors of the grotto were closed, the
'hangeful scenery of hills, woods and boats |
we're reflected on the wall. AS the sun sank |
behind the branches, his terrace tempted him
lbroad: it commanded the finest reach of the
'IYer. At Richmond, in the words of Thomson,
the silver Thames first rural grows,
Fair winding up to where the Muses. haunt, |
In TWit'nam's bowers.
The leafy walks of Ham were opposite, and Pc
ersham-wood lent o dark frame to the bright
i'll of Richmond, of which the Saxon name,
sAeae, or brillianey, is so happily descriptive.
Not foot of ground was overlooked or unem
eilished. Within the small enclosure of five
cres, Pope had charming flower garden-his
wn Work-an erangery, bowling green and 4
ineyard. There he feasted his friends, Swift
aging grace. which DIR. Wharton declares that
le always did with remarkable devotion:
But gudgeon, founders which nv Thames affords " |
10 HounsloW Heath point, and Banstead Down /
Ihence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own.
FROM yon Old walnut-tree shower shall fall,
ANA grapes long ling ring on my only WALL
Ans hgs from standard and espalier join
Tor should that other garden be forgotten,
there,
through the gloom of Shenstones fairy groyes
Marlass urn still breathes the voice Of love,
was the creation and home of a most accom-
lshed person, who delighted in every refine
aent of rural taste, and brought elegance into
rustic farm, to-
Grace its lone wales with many budding rose,
New founts Of bliss disclose, -
Call for refreshing shades, and decorate repose
Yhafaly fhe hest aaaartut Of N, .o,xa, L