Elements of Criticism, Volume III.

by Lord Henry Home Kames

Flowers worthy of paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots; but Nature boon
Pour’d forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain;
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierc’d shade
Imbrown’d the noontide-bow’rs.
Paradise Lost, b. 4.

In the manner of planting a wood or thicket, much art may be display’d. A common centre of walks, termed a star, from whence are seen a number of remarkable objects, appears too artificial to be agreeable. The crowding withal so many objects together, lessens the pleasure that would be felt in a slower succession. Abandoning therefore the star, being stiff and formal, let us try to substitute some form more natural, that will lay open all the remarkable objects in the neighbourhood. This may be done by openings in the wood at various distances, which, in walking, bring successively under the eye every object as by accident. Some openings display single objects, some a plurality in a line, and some a rapid succession of them. In this plan, the mind at intervals is roused and cheared by agreeable objects; and the scene is greatly heightened by the surprise it occasions when we stumble, as it were, upon objects of which we had no expectation.

As gardening is not an inventive art, but an imitation of nature, or rather nature itself ornamented; it follows necessarily, that every thing unnatural ought to be rejected with disdain. Statues of wild beasts vomiting water, a common ornament in gardens, prevails in those of Versailles. Is this ornament in a good taste? A jet d’eau, being purely artificial, may, without disgust, be tortured into a thousand shapes: but a representation of what really exists in nature, admits not any unnatural circumstance. These statues therefore in the gardens of Versailles must be condemned: and yet so insensible has the artist been to just imitation, as to have display’d his vicious taste without the least colour or disguise. A lifeless statue of an animal pouring out water, may be endured without much disgust. But here the lions and wolves are put in violent action: each has seized its prey, a deer or a lamb, in act to devour. And yet, instead of extended claws and open mouth, the whole, as by a hocus-pocus trick, is converted into a different scene: the lion, forgetting his prey, pours out water plentifully; and the deer, forgetting its danger, performs the same operation; a representation not less absurd than that in the opera, where Alexander the Great, after mounting the wall of a town besieged, turns about and entertains his army with a song.

In gardening, every lively exhibition of what is beautiful in nature has a fine effect: on the other hand, distant and faint imitations are displeasing to every one of taste. The cutting evergreens in the shape of animals, is a very ancient practice; as appears from the epistles of Pliny, who seems to be a great admirer of this puerile conceit. The propensity to imitation gave birth to this practice; and has supported it wonderfully long, considering how faint and insipid the imitation is. But the vulgar, great and small, devoid of taste, are entertained with the oddness and singularity of a resemblance, however distant, betwixt a tree and an animal. An attempt, in the gardens of Versailles, to imitate a grove of trees by a group of jets d’eau, appears, for the same reason, not less ridiculous.

In laying out a garden, every thing trivial or whimsical ought to be avoided. Is a labyrinth then to be justified? It is a mere conceit, like that of composing verses in the shape of an axe or an egg. The walks and hedges may be agreeable; but in the form of a labyrinth, they serve to no end but to puzzle. A riddle is a conceit not so mean; because the solution is a proof of sagacity, which affords no aid in tracing a labyrinth.

The gardens of Versailles, executed with infinite expence by men at that time in high repute, are a lasting monument of a taste the most vicious and depraved. The faults above mentioned, instead of being avoided, are chosen as beauties, and multiplied without end. Nature, it would seem, was deemed too vulgar to be imitated in the works of a magnificent monarch; and for that reason preference was given to things unnatural, which probably were mistaken for supernatural. I have often amused myself with a fanciful resemblance betwixt these gardens and the Arabian tales. Each of them is a performance intended for the amusement of a great king: in the sixteen gardens of Versailles there is no unity of design, more than in the thousand and one Arabian tales: and, lastly, they are equally unnatural; groves of jets d’eau, statues of animals conversing in the manner of Æsop, water issuing out of the mouths of wild beasts, give an impression of fairy-land and witchcraft, not less than diamond-palaces, invisible rings, spells and incantations.

A straight road is the most agreeable, because it shortens the journey. But in an embellished field, a straight walk has an air of stiffness and confinement: and at any rate is less agreeable than a winding or waving walk; for in surveying the beauties of a fine field, we love to roam from place to place at freedom. Winding walks have another advantage: at every step they open new views. In short, the walks in a field intended for entertainment, ought not to have any appearance of a road. My intention is not to make a journey, but to feast my eye with the beauties of art and nature. This rule excludes not long straight openings terminating upon distant objects. These, beside variety, never fail to raise an emotion of grandeur, by extending in appearance the size of the field. An opening without a terminating object, soon closes upon the eye: but an object, at whatever distance, continues the opening; and deludes the spectator into a conviction, that the trees which confine the view are continued till they join the object. Straight walks also in recesses do extremely well: they vary the scenery, and are favourable to meditation.

An avenue ought not to be directed in a straight line upon a dwelling-house: better far an oblique approach in a waving line, with single trees and other scattered objects interposed. In a direct approach, the first appearance continues the same to the end: we see a house at a distance, and we see it all along in the same spot without any variety. In an oblique approach, the intervening objects put the house seemingly in motion: it moves with the passenger, and appears to direct its course so as hospitably to intercept him. An oblique approach contributes also to variety: the house being seen successively in different directions, takes on at every step a new figure.

A garden on a flat ought to be highly and variously ornamented, in order to occupy the mind and prevent its regretting the insipidity of an uniform plain. Artificial mounts in this view are common: but no person has thought of an artificial walk elevated high above the plain. Such a walk is airy, and tends to elevate the mind: it extends and varies the prospect: and it makes the plain, seen from a height, appear more agreeable.

Whether should a ruin be in the Gothic or Grecian form? In the former, I say; because it exhibits the triumph of time over strength, a melancholy but not unpleasant thought. A Grecian ruin suggests rather the triumph of barbarity over taste, a gloomy and discouraging thought.