ONE of our most eminent writers on gardens, Repton, remarked that “gardening and architecture, like all the fine arts, have much in common; and the department of architecture which belongs more exclusively to gardens has especially a great affinity to gardening in its broadest principles.” In fact, there is much more relation between the two than is usually admitted—a matter already alluded to in the Introductory Essay. Architectural forms and decorations, temples and rustic bowers, seats, &c., are not, as many have observed, unfit for our climate. In western counties they certainly can be indulged in to a large extent; and the fine evergreens and the beautiful grass of this country will, in association with ornamental terraces and sculpture, impart sufficient warmth of tone to render them agreeable. The garden of Mon-plaisir at Elvaston, in Derbyshire, and the Alhambra Gardens there; those at Castle Coombe, Trentham, Alton Towers, and Bowood, sufficiently prove how attractive gardens can be architecturally made. In former years gardens were almost universal through every part of England, as is proved by the bird’s-eye view, engraved by Kipp, from drawings by Knyff in the book, “Britannia Illustrata,” and those of the gardens given in Loggan’s “Oxonia Restituta,” and the similar work on Cambridge. But gardens, like all other mundane matters, have their periods of change or retrogression; the natural style having almost obliterated the architectural garden of William and Mary. This might have been too precise, as
Ground plan of villa.
copied from the Dutch model: they were satirized by Pope, thus—
“Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.”
They were called King William’s style of fortifications, surrounded with yew hedges, cut in variety of forms; those which have been suffered to outlive their original shape are really beautiful. Queen Anne’s Garden, now part of Kensington Gardens, is an example. But these gardens were very inferior to those of Italy and France, or even those in England of the Elizabethan age. It is to Italy, the garden of Europe, that we must look for the finest specimens of garden architecture. The Villa Pamphilia or de Belrespiro, situated half a mile out of Rome beyond the Gate of San Pancrazio, is celebrated for its gardens; from them could be observed the whole city of Rome, and surrounding suburbs. The gardens are nearly five miles in circumference, and occupy the site of those of the Emperor Galba. Their arrangement is varied and agreeable; being picturesque without disorder, symmetrical without monotony; and we here observe the art with which the arrangement of a regular garden is made to agree with the rural nature of which it forms a part, and the noble structure it surrounds. It is doubtless the work of the architect of the villa L’Algardi, about the year 1646. They have been ascribed to the French artist, Le Notre, but there is very little of the French style about them; they are wholly Italian, following the lines of the villa, and in the same style or spirit. These are, or were admirable; while the fountains,
Ground plan of garden and villa.