ground in the Dutch taste, which would be much better subjects for modification than for absolute destruction. Their rarity now entitles them to some care as a species of antiques, and unquestionably they give character to some snug, quiet, and sequestered situations, which would otherwise have no marked feature of any kind. We ourselves retain an early and pleasing recollection of the seclusion of such a scene. A small cottage, adjacent to a beautiful village, the habitation of an ancient maiden lady, was for some time our abode. It was situated in a garden of seven or eight acres, planted about the beginning of the eighteenth century by one of the Millars, related, to the author of the Gardener's Dictionary, or, for aught we know, by himself. It was full of long straight walks betwixt hedges of yew and hornbeam, which rose tall and close on every side. There were thickets of flowering shrubs, a bower, and an arbour, to which access was obtained through a little maze of contorted walks, calling itself a labyrinth. In the centre of the bower was a splendid platanus, or Oriental plane-a huge hill of leaves-one of the noblest specimens of that regularly beautiful tree which we remember to have seen. In different parts of the garden were fine ornamental trees which had attained great size, and the orchard was filled with fruittrees of the best description. There were seats and trellis-walks, and a banqueting-house. Even in our time this little scene, intended to present a formal exhibition of vegetable beauty, was going fast to decay. The parterres of flowers were no longer watched by the quiet and simple friends under whose auspices they had been planted, and much of the ornament of the domain had been neglected or destroyed to increase its productive value. We visited it lately, after an absence of many years. Its air of retreat, the seclusion which its alleys afforded, was entirely gone; the huge platanus had died, like most of its kind, in the beginning of this century; the hedges were cut down, the trees stubbed up, and the whole character of the place so much destroyed, that we were glad when we could leave it. This was the progress of innovation, perhaps of improve→ ment: yet, for the sake of that one garden, as a place of impressive and solemn retreat, we are inclined to enter a protest against the hasty and ill-considered destruction of things which, once destroyed, cannot be restored.

We may here also notice a small place, called Barncluth, in Lanarkshire, standing on the verge of the ridgy bank which views the junction of the Evan with the Clyde. Nothing can be more romantic than the scene around: the river sweeps over a dark rugged bed of stone, overhung with trees and bushes; the ruins of the original castle of the noble family of Hamilton frown over the precipice; the oaks which crown the banks beyond those grey towers are relics

It might be thought that the house and garden of Barncluth, with its walks of velvet turf and its verdant alleys of yew and holly, would seem incongruous among natural scenes as magnificent as those we have described. But the effect generally produced is exactly the contrary. The place is so small, that its decorations, while they form, from their antique appearance, a singular foreground, cannot compete with, far less subdue the solemn grandeur of the view which you look down upon; and thus give the spectator the idea of a hermitage constructed in the midst of the wilderness.

Those who choose to prosecute this subject farther, will find in Sir U. Price's book his regret for the destruction of a garden on the old system, described in a tone of exquisite feeling, which leads that dis tinguished author to declare in favour of many parts of the old school of gardening, and to argue for the preservation of the few remains of ancient magnificence that still exist, by awakening the owner to a sense of their beauties.

It were indeed high time that some one should interfere. The garden, artificial in its structure, its shelter, its climate, and its soil, which every consideration of taste, beauty, and convenience recom→ mended to be kept near to the mansion, and maintained, as its appendage, in the highest state of ornamental decoration which could be used with reference to the character of the house itself, has, by a strange and sweeping sentence of exile, been condemned to wear the coarsest and most humbling form. Reduced to a clumsy oblong, enclosed within four rough-built walls, and sequestered in some distant corner where it may be best concealed from the eye to which it has been rendered a nuisance, the modern garden resembles nothing so much as a convict in his gaol apparel, banished, by his very appearance, from all decent society. If the peculiarity of the proprietor's taste inclines him to the worship of Flora or Pomona, he must attend their rites in distance and secresy, as if he were practising some abhorred mysteries, instead of rendering an homage which is so peculiarly united with that of the household gods.*

Such being the great change in this department of rural economy, let us next look at that which has taken place in another no less essential part of it. The passionate fondness of our ancestors for the chase is often manifested in their choice of a residence. In an ancient inscription on the house of Wharncliffe, we are informed that the lodge was built in Henry VIII.'s time, by one gentle knight, Sir Thomas Wortley, that he might hear the buck bell in the summer season-a simple record, which speaks much to the imagination. The space of ground set apart for a park of deer must, to answer its purpose, possess the picturesque qualities which afford the greatest

* The present Duke of Malborough has all but violated this law, much to the honour of

scope for the artist: there ought to be a variety of broken ground, of copse-wood, and of growing timber-of land, and of water. The soil and herbage must be left in its natural state; the long fern, amongst which the fawns delight to repose, must not be destroyed. In short, the stag, by nature one of the freest denizens of the forest, can only be kept under even comparative restraint, by taking care that all around him intimates a complete state of forest and wilderness. But the character of abode which is required by these noble animals of the chase is precisely the same which, from its beautiful effects of light and shadow, from its lonely and sequestered character, from the variety and intricacy of its glades, from the numerous and delightful details which it affords on every point, makes the strongest and most pleasing impression on all who are alive to natural beauty. The ancient English poets, Chaucer and Spenser in particular, never luxuriate more than when they get into a forest: by the accuracy with which they describe particular trees, and from their noticing the different characters of the different species, and the various effects of light and darkness upon the walks and glades of the forest, it is evident that they regarded woodland scenery not merely as associated with their favourite sports, but as having in itself beauties which they could appreciate, though their age was not possessed of the fascinating art of committing them to canvass. Even the common people, as we noticed in a former Article, seldom mention "the good forest," and "the merry green-wood," without some expression of fondness, arising, doubtless, from the pleasure they took in the scenes themselves, as well as in the pastimes which they afforded.

We are not, however, to suppose, that the old feudal barons made ornamental scenery any part of their study. When planting their parks, or when cutting paths and glades through them, their attention was probably entirely occupied with the protection of the deer and convenience of the huntsman. Long avenues were particularly necessary for those large parties, resembling our modern battues, where the honoured guests being stationed in fit standings, had an opportunity of displaying their skill in venery, by selecting the buck which was in season, and their dexterity at bringing him down with the cross-bow or long-bow; and hence all the great forests were pierced by these long rectilinear alleys which appear in old prints, and are mentioned in old books. The following description of Chantilly, by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, though the scene is in France, and on a scale of unusual grandeur and extent, is no bad picture of the domains by which the feudal nobility surrounded their castles and manor-houses, and of the dignified character of the mansions themselves.

"A little river, descending from some higher grounds, in a country which was almost

of a valley, which, to keep drawing forwards, it must on one or other side thereof have declined some of the ancestors of the Montmorencys, to ease the river of this labour, made clear channels through this rock, to give it a free passage, dividing the rock by this means into little islands, upon which he built a great strong castle, joined together with bridges, and sumptuously furnished with hangings of silk and gold, rare pictures, and statues; all which buildings, erected as I formerly told, were encompassed about with water. One might see the huge carps, pikes, and trouts, which were kept in several divisions, gliding along the waters very easily. Yet nothing, in my opinion, added so much to the glory of this castle as a forest adjoining to it, and upon a level with the house; for, being of a very large extent, and set thick both with tall trees and underwood, the whole forest, which was replenished with wild-boar, stag, and roe deer, was cut into long walks every way, so that although the dogs might follow their chase through the thickets, the huntsman might ride along the sand walks, and meet or overtake their game in some one of them, they being cut with that art that they led to all the parts in the said forest."

Charles V., when passing through France, was so delighted with Chantilly, as to declare he would have given a province in the Low Countries to have possessed such a residence; and the reader must be exclusively prejudiced indeed to the modern system, who cannot image to himself the impression made by the gorgeous splendour of the chateau, contrasted with the wilderness of the surrounding forest.

If the reader will imagine a house in the irregular form of architecture which was introduced in Elizabeth's time, its varied front, graced with projecting oriels, and its angles ornamented with turrets; its columnar chimneys, so much adorned as to make that a beauty which is generally a deformity; its fair halls, banquetingrooms, galleries, and lodgings for interior accommodation,-it will afford no uncomfortable notion of the days of good Queen Bess. In immediate and close connexion with the mansion lie its gardens, with their terraces, urns, statues, staircases, screens, alcoves, and summer-houses; its dry paved or turfed walks, leading through a succession of interesting objects, the whole line of architecture corresponding with that of the house, with its Gothic labels and entablature, but assuming gradually a plainer and more massive character, as the grounds extended and seemed to connect themselves with the open country. The inhabitants possessed the means, we must also suppose, of escaping from this display of ostentatious splendour to the sequestered paths of a lonely chase, dark enough and extensive enough to convey the idea of a natural forest, where, as in strong contrast with the scene we have quitted, the cooing of the woodpigeon is alone heard, where the streams find their way unconfined, and the trees spread their arms untortured by art; where all is solemn, grand, and untutored, and seems the work of unassisted nature. We would ask the reader, when he has arranged in his ideas such a dwelling, with its accompaniments, of a natural and ornamental character, not whether the style might be corrected by improving the internal arrangement of the apartments; by diminishing the superfluous ornaments of the plaisance; by giving better, yet not formal, access to the natural beauties of the park, extending its glades in some places, and deepening its thickets in others--for all this we

good taste could demand as the materials of most delightful habitations?

The civil wars of Charles I.'s time, as they laid low many a defensible house of the preceding period, disparked and destroyed in general the chases, ridings, and forest walks which belonged to them; and when the Restoration followed, the Cavaliers who had the good luck to retain their estates, were too poor to re-establish their deerparks, and, perforce, contented to let Ceres reassume the land. Thus the chase or park, one of the most magnificent features of the ancient mansion, was lost in so many instances, that it could be no longer regarded as the natural and marked appendage of the seat of an English gentleman of fortune. The "trim garden," which could be added as easily to the suburban villa as to the sequestered country-seat, maintained its place and fashion no longer; while the French taste of Charles II.'s time, introducing treillages and cabinets de verdure, and still more, the Dutch fashion, brought in, as we have before hinted, by King William, introduced so many fantastic caprices into the ancient style, that it became necessary, as we have already stated, to resort to the book of nature, and turn over a new leaf.

Kent, too much extolled in his life, and, perhaps, too much dispraised since his death, was the first to devise a system of laying out ground different from that which had hitherto prevailed in general, though with some variations in detail, for perhaps a century and a half. It occurred to this artist, that, instead of the marked distinction which was made by the old system between the garden and its accompaniments on the one hand, and the surrounding country on the other, it might be possible to give to the former some of the simplicity of the country, and invest that, on the other hand, with somewhat of the refinement of the garden. With this view, all, or nearly all, the ancient and domestic ornaments of the plaisance were placed under ban. The garden, as already noticed, was banished to as great a distance as possible; the plaisance was changed into a pleasureground! Down went many a trophy of old magnificence, court-yard, ornamented enclosure, foss, avenue, barbican, and every external muniment of battled wall and flanking tower, out of the midst of which the ancient dome rising high above all its characteristic accompaniments, and seemingly girt round by its appropriate defences, which again circled each other in their different gradations, looked, as it should, the queen and mistress of the surrounding country. It was thus that the huge old tower of Glamis, "whose birth tradition notes not," once showed its lordly head above seven circles (if we recollect aright) of defensive boundaries, through which the friendly guest was admitted, and at each of which a suspicious person was unquestionably put to his answer. A disciple of Kent had the cruelty