The Revd. Thomas Maurice wrote a poem entitled Richmond Hill, but it
contains nothing deserving of quotation after the above passage from
Thomson. In the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers the labors of
Maurice are compared to those of Sisyphus
So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heaves
Dull Maurice, all his granite weight of leaves.
Towards the latter part of the last century the Empress of Russia
(Catherine the Second) expressed in a French letter to Voltaire her
admiration of the style of English Gardening.[029] "I love to
distraction," she writes, "the present English taste in gardening. Their
curved lines, their gentle slopes, their pieces of water in the shape of
lakes, their picturesque little islands. I have a great contempt for
straight lines and parallel walks. I hate those fountains which torture
water into forms unknown to nature. I have banished all the statues to
the vestibules and to the galleries. In a word English taste
predominates in my plantomanie."[030]
I omitted when alluding to those Englishmen in past times who
anticipated the taste of the present day in respect to laying out
grounds, to mention the ever respected name of John Evelyn, and as all
other writers before me, I believe, who have treated upon gardening,
have been guilty of the same oversight, I eagerly make his memory some
slight amends by quoting the following passage from one of his letters
to his friend Sir Thomas Browne.
"I might likewise hope to refine upon some particulars, especially
concerning the ornaments of gardens, which I shall endeavor so to handle
as that they may become useful and practicable, as well as magnificent,
and that persons of all conditions and faculties, which delight in
gardens, may therein encounter something for their owne advantage. The
modell, which I perceive you have seene, will aboundantly testifie my
abhorrency of those painted and formal projections of our cockney
gardens and plotts, which appeare like gardens of past-board and
marchpane, and smell more of paynt then of flowers and verdure; our
drift is a noble, princely, and universal Elysium, capable of all the
amoenities that can naturally be introduced into gardens of pleasure,
and such as may stand in competition with all the august designes and
stories of this nature, either of antient or moderne tymes; yet so as to
become useful and significant to the least pretences and faculties. We
will endeavour to shew how the air and genious of gardens operat upon
humane spirits towards virtue and sanctitie: I mean in a remote,
preparatory and instrumentall working. How caves, grotts, mounts, and
irregular ornaments of gardens do contribute to contemplative and
philosophicall enthusiasme; how elysium, antrum, nemus, paradysus,
hortus, lucus, &c., signifie all of them rem sacram it divinam; for
these expedients do influence the soule and spirits of men, and prepare
them for converse with good angells; besides which, they contribute to
the lesse abstracted pleasures, phylosophy naturall; and longevitie: and
I would have not onely the elogies and effigie of the antient and famous
garden heroes, but a society of the paradisi cultores persons of
antient simplicity, Paradisean and Hortulan saints, to be a society of
learned and ingenuous men, such as Dr. Browne, by whome we might hope to
redeeme the tyme that has bin lost, in pursuing Vulgar Errours, and
still propagating them, as so many bold men do yet presume to do."
The English style of landscape-gardening being founded on natural
principles must be recognized by true taste in all countries. Even in
Rome, when art was most allowed to predominate over nature, there were
occasional instances of that correct feeling for rural beauty which the
English during the last century and a half have exhibited more
conspicuously than other nations. Atticus preferred Tully's villa at
Arpinum to all his other villas; because at Arpinum, Nature predominated
over art. Our Kents and Browns[031] never expressed a greater contempt,
than was expressed by Atticus, for all formal and artificial decorations
of natural scenery.
The spot where Cicero's villa stood, was, in the time of Middleton,
possessed by a convent of monks and was called the Villa of St. Dominic.
It was built, observes Mr. Dunlop, in the year 1030, from the fragments
of the Arpine Villa!
Art, glory, Freedom, fail--but Nature still is fair.
"Nothing," says Mr. Kelsall, "can be imagined finer than the surrounding
landscape. The deep azure of the sky, unvaried by a single cloud--Sora
on a rock at the foot of the precipitous Appennines--both banks of the
Garigliano covered with vineyards--the fragor aquarum, alluded to by
Atticus in his work De Legibus--the coolness, the rapidity and
ultramarine hue of the Fibrenus--the noise of its cataracts--the rich
turquoise color of the Liris--the minor Appennines round Arpino, crowned
with umbrageous oaks to the very summits--present scenery hardly
elsewhere to be equalled, certainly not to be surpassed, even in Italy."
This description of an Italian landscape can hardly fail to charm the
imagination of the coldest reader; but after all, I cannot help
confessing to so inveterate a partiality for dear old England as to be
delighted with the compliment which Gray, the poet, pays to English
scenery when he prefers it to the scenery of Italy. "Mr. Walpole,"
writes the poet from Italy, "says, our memory sees more than our eyes
in this country. This is extremely true, since for realities WINDSOR
or RICHMOND HILL is infinitely preferable to ALBANO or FRESCATI."
Sir Walter Scott, with all his patriotic love for his own romantic land,
could not withhold his tribute to the loveliness of Richmond Hill,--its
"unrivalled landscape" its "sea of verdure."
"They" (The Duke of Argyle and Jeanie Deans) "paused for a
moment on the brow of a hill, to gaze on the unrivalled
landscape it presented. A huge sea of verdure, with crossing and
intersecting promontories of massive and tufted groves was
tenanted by numberless flocks and herds which seemed to wander
unrestrained and unbounded through the rich pastures. The
Thames, here turreted with villas, and there garlanded with
forests, moved on slowly and placidly, like the mighty monarch
of the scene, to whom all its other beauties were but
accessaries, and bore on its bosom an hundred barks and skiffs
whose white sails and gaily fluttering pennons gave life to the
whole." The Heart of Mid-Lothian.
It must of course be admitted that there are grander, more sublime, more
varied and extensive prospects in other countries, but it would be
difficult to persuade me that the richness of English verdure could be
surpassed or even equalled, or that any part of the world can exhibit
landscapes more truly lovely and loveable, than those of England, or
more calculated to leave a deep and enduring impression upon the heart.
Mr. Kelsall speaks of an Italian sky "uncovered by a single cloud,"
but every painter and poet knows how much variety and beauty of effect
are bestowed upon hill and plain and grove and river by passing clouds;
and even our over-hanging vapours remind us of the veil upon the cheek
of beauty; and ever as the sun uplifts the darkness the glory of the
landscape seems renewed and freshened. It would cheer the saddest heart
and send the blood dancing through the veins, to behold after a dull
misty dawn, the sun break out over Richmond Hill, and with one broad
light make the whole landscape smile; but I have been still more
interested in the prospect when on a cloudy day the whole "sea of
verdure" has been swayed to and fro into fresher life by the fitful
breeze, while the lights and shadows amidst the foliage and on the lawns
have been almost momentarily varied by the varying sky. These changes
fascinate the eye, keep the soul awake, and save the scenery from the
comparatively monotonous character of landscapes in less varying climes.
And for my own part, I cordially echo the sentiment of Wordsworth, who
when conversing with Mrs. Hemans about the scenery of the Lakes in the
North of England, observed: "I would not give up the mists that
spiritualize our mountains for all the blue skies of Italy."
Though Mrs. Stowe, the American authoress already quoted as one of the
admirers of England, duly appreciates the natural grandeur of her own
land, she was struck with admiration and delight at the aspect of our
English landscapes. Our trees, she observes, "are of an order of
nobility and they wear their crowns right kingly." "Leaving out of
account," she adds, "our mammoth arboria, the English Parks have trees
as fine and effective as ours, and when I say their trees are of an
order of nobility, I mean that they (the English) pay a reverence to
them such as their magnificence deserves."
Walter Savage Landor, one of the most accomplished and most highly
endowed both by nature and by fortune of our living men of letters, has
done, or rather has tried to do, almost as much for his country in the
way of enriching its collection of noble trees as Evelyn himself. He
laid out £70,000 on the improvement of an estate in Monmouthshire, where
he planted and fenced half a million of trees, and had a million more
ready to plant, when the conduct of some of his tenants, who spitefully
uprooted them and destroyed the whole plantation, so disgusted him with
the place, that he razed to the ground the house which had cost him
£8,000, and left the country. He then purchased a beautiful estate in
Italy, which is still in possession of his family. He himself has long
since returned to his native land. Landor loves Italy, but he loves
England better. In one of his Imaginary Conversations he tells an
Italian nobleman:
"The English are more zealous of introducing new fruits, shrubs and
plants, than other nations; you Italians are less so than any civilized
one. Better fruit is eaten in Scotland than in the most fertile and
cultivated parts of your peninsula. As for flowers, there is a greater
variety in the worst of our fields than in the best of your gardens. As
for shrubs, I have rarely seen a lilac, a laburnum, a mezereon, in any
of them, and yet they flourish before almost every cottage in our
poorest villages."
"We wonder in England, when we hear it related by travellers, that
peaches in Italy are left under the trees for swine; but, when we
ourselves come into the country, our wonder is rather that the swine do
not leave them for animals less nice."
Landor acknowledges that he has eaten better pears and cherries in Italy
than in England, but that all the other kinds of fruitage in Italy
appeared to him unfit for dessert.
The most celebrated of the private estates of the present day in England
is Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire. The mansion, called
the Palace of the Peak, is considered one of the most splendid
residences in the land. The grounds are truly beautiful and most
carefully attended to. The elaborate waterworks are perhaps not in the
severest taste. Some of them are but costly puerilities. There is a
water-work in the form of a tree that sends a shower from every branch
on the unwary visitor, and there are snakes that spit forth jets upon
him as he retires. This is silly trifling: but ill adapted to interest
those who have passed their teens; and not at all an agreeable sort of
hospitality in a climate like that of England. It is in the style of the
water-works at Versailles, where wooden soldiers shoot from their
muskets vollies of water at the spectators.[032]
It was an old English custom on certain occasions to sprinkle water over
the company at a grand entertainment. Bacon, in his Essay on Masques,
seems to object to getting drenched, when he observes that "some sweet
odours suddenly coming forth, without any drops falling, are in such
a company as there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and
refreshment." It was a custom also of the ancient Greeks and Romans to
sprinkle their guests with fragrant waters. The Gascons had once the
same taste: "At times," says Montaigne, "from the bottom of the stage,
they caused sweet-scented waters to spout upwards and dart their thread
to such a prodigious height, as to sprinkle and perfume the vast
multitudes of spectators." The Native gentry of India always slightly
sprinkle their visitors with rose-water. It is flung from a small silver
utensil tapering off into a sort of upright spout with a pierced top in
the fashion of that part of a watering pot which English gardeners call
the rose.
The finest of the water-works at Chatsworth is one called the Emperor
Fountain which throws up a jet 267 feet high. This height exceeds that
of any fountain in Europe. There is a vast Conservatory on the estate,
built of glass by Sir Joseph Paxton, who designed and constructed the
Crystal Palace. His experience in the building of conservatories no
doubt suggested to him the idea of the splendid glass edifice in Hyde
Park. The conservatory at Chatsworth required 70,000 square feet of
glass. Four miles of iron tubing are used in heating the building. There
is a broad carriage way running right through the centre of the
conservatory.[033] This conservatory is peculiarly rich in exotic plants
of all kinds, collected at an enormous cost. This most princely estate,
contrasted with the little cottages and cottage-gardens in the
neighbourhood, suggested to Wordsworth the following sonnet.
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