What was, in the earlier times, the origin of the garden? The wish
that certain esculent plants and fruits, which in the waste field and
the wide forest are scattered at great distances, in small quantities,
intermixed with useless vegetables and fruits, precarious in their
appearance, and stinted in their growth, difficult to collect, and
scarce worth the gathering, might in a nearer, a smaller, and a more
accessible spot, be better secured, more abundantly produced, kept
clearer of the noxious herbs and weeds which destroy their nutriment
and impede their growth. This was, in its origin, the sole object of
the entire garden; this, to the present hour, continues to be the
principal purpose of that essential portion of the garden, devoted to
the uses of the kitchen and the table.
In these parts of the garden then, which are destined immediately for
the gratification, not of the eye, but merely of the palate, it is only
in proportion as we more fully deviate from the desultory and confused
dispositions of simple nature—firstly, by separating the different
species of esculent plants, not only from their useless neighbors, but
from each other; and secondly, by confining the vegetables thus classed
in those symmetric and measured compartments, which enable us with
greater ease to discover, to approach, and to improve each different
species in the precise way, most congenial to its peculiar requisites,
that we more fully attain that first of intellectual beauties, which,
in every production, whether of nature or of art, resides in the exact
correspondence between the end we propose and the means we employ.
Nay, if it be true that contrast and variety of colors and of forms
are amongst the most essential ingredients of visible beauty, we may
say that even this species of sensible charm is greatly increased in
the aspect of a country by the opposition to the more widely diffused,
but more vague shades and outlines of the unsymmetrical surrounding
landscape, offered by the more vivid hues and more distinct forms of
the gay Mosaic work of nicely classed and symmetrized vegetables which
clothe these select spots.
Even where the general unadorned scenery is as bold and majestic as
in Switzerland, or as rich and luxuriant as in Sicily, the eye with
rapture beholds the variety, and enjoys the relief from the vaster
and sublimer features of rude Nature, offered by the professed art
of a neat little patch of ground, whether field, orchard, or garden,
symmetrically distributed. It looks like a small but rich gem—a topaz,
an emerald, or a ruby, sparkling amidst vast heaps of ruder ore; or
rather like a rich carpet, spread out over a corner of the valley. It
appears thus incontrovertible, that in that part at least of the garden
which is immediately intended for utility, we incidentally produce
not only greater intellectual, but greater visible beauty, by not
confining ourselves to the desultory forms of unguided Nature, but by
admitting the more symmetric outlines of avowed art, and it therefore
only remains to be inquired, whether in that other and different part
of the artificial grounds, in later times added to the former, which
is directly intended for beauty, and which we therefore call the
pleasure-grounds, we shall really produce more beauty, intellectual or
visible, or, in other words, more pleasure to the mind or eye, by only
employing the powers of art in a covert and unavowed way; in still only
preserving the closest resemblance to the interminable and irregular
forms of mere nature, or by exhibiting her additional resources in a
more open and avowed manner; in contrasting these more indeterminate
and desultory features of pure nature, with some of those more
determinate and compassed outlines, which, indeed, on a small scale,
are already found in many of the spontaneous productions of Nature
herself; but which on a more extended plan, are only displayed in the
works of art. I say, more pleasures to the mind or eye; for the portion
of the garden here alluded to, no less than the one before mentioned
professes itself to be a piece of ground wrested from Nature’s dominion
by the hand of man, for purposes to which Nature alone was inadequate;
and thence contending that there is the least necessity or propriety
in rendering this district, appropriated by art, a fac-simile of pure
Nature, independent of any consideration of superior beauty which this
imitation may offer to the eye or mind, and merely because, to form
a garden, we use materials supplied by Nature—such as air, water,
earth, and vegetables, would be absurd in the extreme. As well might
we contend, that every house, built of stone should resemble a cavern,
and every coat made of wool, a sheepskin. Every production of human
industry whatsoever, must, if we trace it to its origin, arise out of
one or more definite ingredients of pure nature; and unless, therefore,
by the same rule, every production of human industry whatsoever be
obliged everlastingly to continue wearing the less regular forms of
those peculiar objects of nature, out of which it is wrought, we cannot
with more justice arraign gardens in their capacity as aggregates of
mere natural substances and productions, for assuming the artificial
forms of a terrace or a _jet-d’eau_, an avenue or a _quincunx_, than
we can condemn opera-dancers and figurantes, in their capacity of
compounds of natural limbs and features, for exhibiting the artificial
movements of the minuet and the gavot, the entrechat and the pas-grave.
If, then, the strict resemblance to the desultory forms of rude
nature be not indispensably requisite in the artificial scenery of
pleasure-grounds, on account of any invariable reasons of propriety
or consistency, inherent in the very essence of such grounds, this
resemblance of studious art to wild nature, in the gardens that adorn
our habitations, can only be more eligible on account of some superior
pleasure which it gives the eye and mind, either in consequence of
certain general circumstances connected with the very nature of all
imitation, or only in consequence of certain more restricted effects,
solely and exclusively produced by this peculiar species of imitation;
namely, of natural landscapes through artificial grounds.
Now, with regard to the former of these two considerations, I allow
that a faithful imitation, even of a deformed original, is capable
of affording great intellectual pleasure to the beholder, provided
that imitation, like that displayed in painting and sculpture, be
produced through dint of materials, or tools so different from those
of which is composed the original imitated, as to evince in the
imitator extraordinary ingenuity and powers; but the imitation of a
natural landscape, through means of the very ingredients of all natural
scenery; namely, air, earth, trees, and water, (and which imitation
will in general offer greater truth in proportion as it is attained
through greater neglect,) cannot possess that merit which consists
in the overcoming of difficulties and the display of genius; unless,
indeed, it be an imitation of such a species of wild scenery as is
totally foreign to the genius of the locality in which it is produced;
unless it consists in substituting mountains to plains, waterfalls to
puddles, and precipices to flats; and in that case, on the contrary,
the attempt at imitation will become so arduous as to threaten
terminating in a total failure, by only offering, instead of a sublime
and improved resemblance, a most paltry and mean caricature. Since,
then, in a garden, the imitation of the less symmetric arrangements of
rude nature can afford little or no peculiar gratification to the mind
in their sole capacity as imitations, the question becomes restricted
within a very narrow compass; and all that remains to be inquired
into is, whether, in that garden, the exclusive admission of mere
unsymmetric forms of simple nature, or their mixture with a certain
proportion of the more symmetric forms of professed art, will give more
intense and more varied pleasure to the eye? And, when thus stated, I
should think the question would be nearly answered in the same way by
every unprejudiced person. I should think it would be denied by none,
that if, on the one hand, the most irregular habitation, still, through
the very nature of its construction and purposes, must ever necessarily
remain most obviously symmetric and formal; if not in its whole, at
least in its various details, of doors, windows, steps, entablatures,
etc., and if, on the other hand, as I take it, all beauty consists
in that contrast, that variety, that distinctness of each of the
different component parts of a whole, from the remaining parts, which
renders each individually a relief to the remainder, combined with that
harmony, that union of each of these different component parts of that
whole with the remaining parts, which renders each a support to the
remainder, and enables the eye and mind to glide over and compass the
whole with rapidity and with ease, fewer striking features of beauty
will be found in a garden, where, from the very threshold of the still
ever symmetric mansion, one is launched in the most abrupt manner, into
a scene wholly composed of the most unsymmetric and desultory forms of
mere nature, totally out of character with those of that mansion; and
where the same species of irregular and indeterminate forms, already
prevailing at the very centre, extend, without break or relief, to the
utmost boundaries of the grounds, than will be presented in another
garden, where the cluster of highly-adorned and sheltered apartments
that form the mansion, in the first instance, shoot out, as it were,
into certain more or less extended ramifications of arcades, porticoes,
terraces, parterres, treillages, avenues, and other such still splendid
embellishments of art, calculated by their architectural and measured
forms, at once to offer a striking and varied contrast with, and a
dignified and comfortable transition to, the more undulating and
rural features of the more extended, more distant, and more exposed
boundaries; before, in the second instance, through a still further
link, a still further continuance of this same gradation of hues and
forms, these limits of the private domain are again made in their turn,
by means of their less artificial and more desultory appearance, to
blend equally harmoniously on the other side, with the still ruder
outlines of the property of the public at large.
No doubt, that, among the very wildest scenes of unappropriated nature,
there are some so grand, so magnificent, that no art can vie with, or
can enhance their effect. Of this description are the towering rock,
the tremendous precipice, the roaring cataract, even the dark, gloomy,
impenetrable forest. Of such, let us take great care not to destroy, or
to diminish the grandeur by paltry conceits or contrivances of art. But
even these are such features as, from certain conditions unavoidably
attendant on them, we would not wish to have permanently under our
eyes and windows; or even if we wished it, could not transport
within the narrow precincts which immediately surround the mansion.
A gentleman’s country residence, situated in the way it ought to be,
for health, for convenience, and for cheerfulness, can only have room
in its immediate vicinity for the more concentrated beauties of art.
In this narrow circle, if we wish for variety, for contrast, and for
brokenness of levels, we can only seek it in arcades and in terraces,
in steps, balustrades, regular slopes, parapets, and such like; we
cannot find space for the rock and the precipice. Here, if we admire
the fleeting motion, the brilliant transparency, the soothing murmur,
the delightful coolness of the crystal stream, we must force it up in
an erect _jet-d’eau_, or hurl it down in an abrupt cascade; we cannot
admit so near us the winding torrent, dashed at wide intervals from
rock to rock. Here, if we desire to collect the elegant forms, vivid
colors, and varied fragrance of the choicest shrubs and plants, whether
exotics, or only natives, oranges, magnolias, and rhododendrons, or
roses, and lilies, and hyacinths; we still must confine them in the
boxes, the pots, or the beds of some sort of parterre; we cannot give
them the appearance of spontaneously growing from amongst weeds and
briers. Here, in fine, if we have a mind to secure the cool shade and
the convenient shelter of lofty trees, we can only plant an avenue, we
cannot form a forest. And for that, since we admire, even to an excess,
symmetry of lines and disposition in that production of art called a
house, we should abhor these attributes in the same excess in that
other avowed production of art, the immediate appendage of the former,
and consequently the sharer in its purposes and character, namely, the
garden, I do not understand. There is between the various divisions of
the house and those of the grounds, this difference, that the first
are more intended for repose, and the latter for exercise; that the
first are under cover, and the latter exposed. The difference should
make a corresponding difference in the nature of the materials, and in
the size and delicacy of the forms; but why it should occasion on the
one side an unqualified admission, and on the other, as unqualified
an exclusion of those attributes of symmetry and correspondence of
parts which may be equally produced in coarser as in finer materials,
on a vaster as on a smaller scale, I cannot conceive. The outside of
the house is exposed to the elements as well as the grounds; and why,
while columns are thought invariably to look well at regular distances,
trees should be thought invariably to look ill in regular rows, is what
I cannot comprehend. Assuredly the difference is as great between the
eruptions of Etna, or of any other volcano, and artificial fire-works,
as it is between the falls of the Niagara or of any other river, and
artificial water-works. Why, then, while we gaze with admiration on a
rocket, should we behold with disgust a _jet-d’eau_? And why, while we
are delighted with a rain of fiery sparks, should we be displeased with
a shower of liquid diamonds, issuing from a beautiful vase, and again
collected in as exquisite a basin? If the place be appropriate, if the
hues be vivid, if the outlines be elegant, if the objects be varied and
contrasted, in the name of wonder, how should, out of all these partial
elements of positive, unmixed beauty, arise a whole positively ugly?
No, there can only arise a whole as beautiful as the parts; and so,
those travellers who have not allowed any narrow and exclusive theories
to check or destroy their spontaneous feelings, must own they have
thought many of the suspended gardens within Genoa, and of the splendid
villas about Rome; so they have thought those striking oppositions of
the rarest marbles to the richest verdure; those mixtures of statues,
and vases, and balustrades, with cypresses, and pinasters, and bays;
those distant hills seen through the converging lines of lengthened
colonnades; those ranges of aloes and cactuses growing out of vases
of granite and of porphyry, scarce more symmetric by art, than these
plants are by nature; and, finally, all those other endless contrasts
of regular and irregular forms, everywhere, each individually
increasing its own charms, through their contrast with those of the
other, exhibited in the countries, which we consider as the earliest
schools, where beauty became an object of sedulous study.
But the truth is, that in our remoter climes, we carry every theory
into the extremes. Once, that very symmetry and correspondence of
parts of which a certain proportion ever has, to all refined ages and
nations, ancient and modern, appeared a requisite feature of the more
dressy and finished parts of the pleasure garden, prevailed in all
English villas with so little selection, and at the same time, in such
indiscreet profusion, as not only rendered the different parts insipid
and monotonous with respect to each other, but the whole mass a most
formal, unharmonious blotch with regard to the surrounding country.
Surfeited at last with symmetry carried to excess, we have suddenly
leaped into the other extreme. Dreading the faintest trace of the
ancient regularity of outline as much as we dread the phantoms of those
we once most loved, we have made our country residences look dropped
from the clouds, in spots most unfitted to receive them; and, at the
expense, not only of all beauty, but of all comfort, we have made the
grounds appear as much out of harmony, viewed in one direction with the
mansion, as they formerly were viewed in the opposite direction with
the country at large. Through the total exclusion of all the variety,
the relief, the sharpness, which, straight or spherical, or angular, or
other determinate lines and forms might have given to unsymmetric and
serpentining forms and surfaces, we have, without at all diminishing
the appearance of art, (which in a garden can never be totally
eradicated,) only succeeded in rendering that art of the most tame and
monotonous description; like that languid and formal blank verse, which
is equally divested of the force of poetry and the facility of prose.
Nature, who, in her larger productions, is content with exhibiting the
more vague beauties that derive from mere variety and play of hues
and forms; Nature herself, in her smaller and more elaborate, and if
I may so call them, choicer bits of every different reign, superadds
those features of regular symmetry of colors and shapes, which not only
form a more striking contrast with the more desultory modifications
of her huger masses, but intrinsically in a smaller space, produces a
greater effect than the former can display. Examine the radii of the
snow-spangle, the facettes of the crystal, the petals of the flower,
the capsules of the seed, the wings, the antennæ, the rings, the
stigmata of the insect and the butter-fly; nay, even in man and beast,
the features of the face, and the configuration of the eye, and we
shall find in all these more minute, more finished, and more centrical
productions of the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms,
reigns the nicest symmetry of outline and correspondence of parts. And
if art, which can only be founded upon, only spring out of nature; if
art, I say, should ever only be considered as the further development
of nature’s own principles, the complement of nature’s own designs,
assuredly we best obey the views of nature, and best understand the
purposes of art, when, leaving total irregularity to the more extended,
more distant, and more neglected recesses of the park, we give some
degree of symmetry to the smaller and nearer, and more studied
divisions of the pleasure-ground. This principle of proportioning the
regularity of the objects to their extent, the Greeks well understood.
While in the Medici Venus the attitude of the body only displays the
unsymmetric elegance of simple nature, the hair presents all the
symmetry of arrangement of the most studious art; and unless this
principle also become familiar among us there is great danger that
unable to make the grounds harmonize with the mansion, we attempt to
harmonize the mansion with the grounds, by converting that mansion
itself into a den or a quarry.