ORNAMENTAL GARDENING.


ALTHOUGH        the love of rural scenery and the capacity
to enjoy it, are universal and common to man, there seems
to have existed from very early times, as general a desire,
to controul the operations of nature when near the vicinity
of his dwelling, and a zeal to apply the pictures of his fancy in
substitution for its simple excellencies. The ancient records of
gardening bespeak that its principles were not then sought in
nature herself, nor was it the practice to assemble for its crea-
tion the chaster beauties of landscape, but rather, constraining
them to assume fantastic arrangements, forms and effects, to
treat nature as subservient to art, and so as to constitute features
wholly unlike the surrounding scenery of the country. The
gardens alluded to by classic authors were of this kind-and
such of the ancients as prided themselves on excelling in the
business of the garden, although not insensible to the beauties
of nature when seated beyond the confines of their abodes, rather
founded their claims to admiration on the evidences of their
geometrical skill in ornamenting their grounds, and in the labour
and expense of perfecting them, than in cultivating the genuine
materials of rural beauty; as if the profusion of graces with
which nature had surrounded them had created satiety, and that
they were therefore no longer capable of estimating her charms.
Amongst the Romans this abandonment of nature for these
offsprings of fancy was carried to great excess, and with them,
c