To instance the Gardens of France; they are, I will allow, sufficiently extravagant: you hear of nothing but islands of love, or halls of festivity; every recess is the retreat of a God, every prospect a scene of enchantment: like their petit maitres, they are all out of nature, all affectation; yet it is an affectation often delightful, and absurdity generally overflowing with taste and fancy: in their best works there is such a mysterious, pleasing intricacy in the disposition, such variety in the objects, so much splendour and animation in the scenery, and so much skill apparent in the execution of every part, that the attention of the spectator never flags; the succession is so rapid, that he is hurried on from one exhibition to another, with his mind constantly upon the stretch: he has only time to be pleased; there is no leisure to reflect, none to be disgusted with the extravagance of what he sees. If their Gardens are less rational than yours, they are certainly much more entertaining; and though, upon the whole, they can by no means be proposed as models for imitation, yet are there many things to be borrowed from them, which might be adopted by you with considerable advantage.
I may say the same with regard to the Italian Gardens, of which the style is less affected, less extravagant than in those of France: the heat of the climate obliges the inhabitants to seek for shade; the walks are sheltered, the plantations close, whence their compositions have a gloom, and an air of solitude that are exceedingly awful. There is a grandeur of manner in all their works, seldom to be met with elsewhere; which, about Rome, and in some other parts of Italy, is greatly heightened by the majestick face of Nature, framed upon a larger scale, and broken into nobler forms, than in most other countries. Their vegetation too is uncommonly picturesque; the abundance of water with which they are every where supplied, enables them to form a thousand pleasing combinations; and the venerable vestiges of ancient structures, which rear their decaying heads above the plantations, add surprizingly to the dignity of the scenery.
At every step, the admiration of the spectator is excited by statues, therms, bas-reliefs, sarcophagi urns, vases, and other remains of ancient splendour; or he is delighted with the productions of modern artists, ingeniously imagined, well executed, and skilfully disposed. It is not easy to conceive any thing more entertaining, to a man of taste, than an Italian Garden; in which, amidst a profusion of pleasing objects, the same elegance of choice, the same elevation of style so conspicuous in the sculpture and painting of the great Italian schools, is every where prevalent.
To branch out into farther descriptions of your continental Gardens, is perhaps superfluous, and may be thought foreign to the present purpose; as some of them differ very little from those just mentioned; and others are too trifling, or imperfect, to deserve any notice: yet permit me, before I finish, to give a slight sketch of the Dutch Gardening; from which I am apt to believe your ideas of the artificial style are chiefly collected, and your extraordinary aversion to it principally owing.
In Holland, parterres, embroidered in box, brick-dust, sea-coal, and broken porcelain, are every where admired. No Garden is perfect, that is not surrounded with a wet ditch, and many lusthouses hanging over it, for smoking tobacco; nor is there any elegance, without some tons of lead, transformed into skating Dutchmen, Harlequins, and fluting Shepherdesses, all richly painted, in proper colours: azure flower-pots, with gilt handles, are seen in every corner; and golden mercury are perched, like birds, upon every pinnacle: every pass is guarded by pasteboard Grenadiers; and Fame, straddling over the entrance, displays a Dutch label to the passenger, telling the name and beauties of the place, the virtues and moral opinions of the proprietor. These particularities, with all the formal absurd parts of the French Gardening, make an Eden in Holland; a thing too ridiculous to be out of humour with any where; 'tis a pity it has had so serious an effect upon you. You are a wise people; yet, in the reformation of Gardening, you have followed the beaten road of ignorance: to avoid one fault, you have run headlong into another, its opposite: because, in the Old Gardening, art, order and variety, were carried to an extravagant excess, you have, in the New, almost totally excluded them all three: to mend an exuberant, fantastick dress, you have stripped stark naked: and, to heal a distempered limb, you have, like some famous surgeons of our day, chopped it entirely off.
All connoisseurs amongst you, and even amongst us, agree in despising our enchanted, or supernatural scenery; which, they say, is trifling, absurd, extravagant, abounding in conceits and boyish tricks; that operating chiefly by surprize, it has little or no effect, after a first or second inspection, and consequently can afford no pleasure to the owner: yet our best Artists, who have no excessive reverence for the decrees of connoisseurs[29], and who think the owner is not the only person to be entertained, often introduce it; either where the plan is extensive, and admits of many changes; or, where the ground is barren of natural varieties: saying, in their vindication, that it serves as an interlude between more serious expositions; that, at a treat, there should be meats for every palate; in a shop of general resort, goods for every fancy; in a Garden, designed for publick inspection, exhibitions of every kind; that all may find something to their liking, and none go away disappointed or dissatisfied: and, as at a feast, men eat of what they best relish, without mumbling the rest of the dishes, but leave them untainted for others to feed upon, so, in a Garden, if a man be too wise to laugh, or be pleased with trifles, he may pass them over unnoticed: amongst the multitude, there are many fancies to gratify; children, old women, eunuchs, and pleasure-misses, ought to be diverted, as well as sages, mandarines, or connoisseurs. It is not every one, say they, that enjoys the force or fierceness of grand compositions; to some they are even terrifying: weak minds delight in little objects, which are easiest adapted to their confined comprehensions; as children are better pleased with a puppet-show, than with more serious or noble performances.
Thus they reason; and say moreover, that, as the principal parts of this supernatural Gardening consists in a display of many surprizing phenomena, and extraordinary effects, produced by air, fire, water, motion, light, and gravitation, they may be considered at a collection of philosophical experiments, exhibited in a better manner, upon a larger scale, and more forcibly than is common: in that light they think, even men of sense may venture to look at them, without impeachment of their understanding; to admire what is ingenious, new or extraordinary; and stare at what they do not comprehend. Whether the connoisseurs or the artists are most in the wrong, I will not decide; you, Gentlemen, must determine for yourselves.
Some free expressions, relative to your Gardeners, constitute a heavy part of the charge exhibited against me: it seems therefore necessary, in alleviation of this high offence, to declare, that whatever has been said on that subject, was with an eye to the general character of the fraternity; and by no means levelled at yon stately gentleman in the black perriwig, as he has been pleased to maintain. It could not be my business to mark out individuals, either by excessive praise, which was perhaps expected, or by more poignant censure: such conduct must have been fawning in one in instance, invidious in both; for there is no exalting one phœnomenon, without proportionably degrading the rest: as in a draw-well, one bucket can never rise, but when the other sinks. If a man far outstrips his brothers, he will of course be distinguished; if only a little, his safest station is in the croud. And really it is odd that any one should officiously have stepped out of the ranks, insisting, like master Dogberry in the play, upon his exclusive title; where nothing partial was even distantly hinted at, no names mentioned, nor any thing said, that was not full as applicable to the brotherhood in general, as to the sagacious claimant in particular: but
Man lup jao kai
Tai kup tao baï.
There is reason to believe, from various hints which have been dropped by Gentlemen here present, that the veracity of Chet-qua's description is doubted; nay, that the Gardens described, are supposed to have no existence but in Chet-qua's brain: be it so, my friends; I shall not seek to refute what you seem so strongly disposed to believe; it is not at present material: for the end of all that I have said, was rather as an Artist, to set before you a new style of Gardening; than as a Traveller, to relate what I have really seen: and, notwithstanding your strictures, you all seemed satisfied, even entertained with the description: there is no doubt, but the reality, like all other realities, would affect you still more strongly than the picture. I have endeavoured to shew, how that may be obtained: the rest is left to those it most concerns; the ingenious, the wealthy, and the great; who have power and inclinations to execute what I attempt to plan: my part is done, as far as I am able to do it; theirs may begin when they think fit.