Persian Gardens

After what I have said of the number and beauty of the flowers in Persia, one might easily imagine that the most beautiful gardens in the world are to be found there; but this is not at all the case. ***The Gardens of the Persians consist commonly of a grand alley or straight avenue in the centre, planted with plane *** which divides the garden into two parts. There is a basin of water in the middle, proportionate to the garden, and two other lesser ones on the two sides. The space between them is sown with a mixture of flowers in natural confusion, and planted with fruit trees and roses; and this is the whole of the plan and execution. They know nothing of parterres and cabinets of verdure, labyrinths, terraces and such other ornaments of our gardens. The reason of which is, that the Persians do not walk in their gardens, as we do; but content themselves with having the view of them, and breathing the fresh air.

Sir John Chardin.

Exclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.

Alfred Austin.

Dutch Gardens

The Dutch style of laying out gardens, introduced into England by William III and Mary, is not unlike the French, but everything is on a smaller, almost too minute a scale; and much care is expended upon isolated details and ornaments (often trivial), such as glass balls, coloured sands and earths, flower-pots innumerable, and painted perspectives; and the garden is usually intersected with canals degenerating into ditches. Grassy slopes, green terraces and straight canals are more common in Holland than

in any other country of the Continent, and these verdant slopes and mounds may be said to form, with their oblong canals, the characteristics of the Dutch style. John Claudius London.

I asked an old gardener whether he could tell me anything about Dutch Gardens, and he made answer, "They be bits o' beds with edgings o' box, and gravel walks, and four sloping banks forming a square outside, and they be pratty toys for children, and very snug for varmint.'

S. Reynolds Hole.

Love has made many lovers foolish; but it took flower-love to drive a nation crazy, and of all nations it was the sober-minded Dutchmen! Once in Holland they grew ecstatic over tulips; so crazily fond of tulips that two thousand dollars was cheap for a single bulb. All ranks high and low were carried off their understandings into tulip-speculations; the towns had their tulip-exchange; the public notary became the tulip-notary, and when the bubble burst, fortunes vanished; the panic was national, and the country did not get over the shock to its commerce for several years.

William C. Gannett.

Gold and crimson tulips
Lift your bright heads up,
Catch the shining dewdrops
In your dainty cups.
If the birdies see you

When they're flying by,

They will think a sunset
Dropped from out the sky.

Alice C. D. Riley.

German Gardens

Gardens are almost as beautiful in some parts of Germany as in England; the luxury of gardens always implies a love of the Country. In England simple mansions are often built in the middle of the most magnificent parks; the proprietor neglects his dwelling to attend to the ornament of nature. This magnificence and simplicity united do not, it is true, exist in the same degree in Germany; yet, in spite of the want of wealth, and the pride of feudal dignity, there is everywhere to be remarked a certain love of the beautiful, which sooner or later must be followed by taste and elegance, of which it is the only real source. Often in the midst of the superb gardens of the German princes are placed olian harps close by grottos, encircled with flowers, that the wind may waft the sound and the perfume together.

Madame De Staël.

Germany has been in the main a follower rather than a leader in garden design; but she has played an important part in spreading knowledge upon the theory, and in producing tasteful and skilful designers in the modern "national" style. *** Hamburg has always been a garden-city, and maintained its reputation in this respect by the great GartenAusstellung held there in 1897. Selected.

Italian Gardens

The old Italian garden was meant to be lived in-a use to which, at least in America, the modern garden is seldom put.

***The cult of the Italian garden has spread from England to America, and there is a general feeling that by placing a marble bench here and a sun-dial there, Italian "effects" may be achieved. The results

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produced, even where much money and thought have been expended, are not altogether satisfactory; and some critics have thence inferred that the Italian garden is, so to speak, untranslatable, that it cannot be adequately rendered in another landscape and another age.

*** It is, of course, an exaggeration to say that there are no flowers in Italian gardens; but, to enjoy and appreciate the Italian garden-craft, one must understand at the outset that it is almost independent of floriculture.

The Italian garden does not exist for its flowers; such flowers as it contains exist for it.

Edith Wharton.

An Englishwoman's Italian Garden

I am really as fond of my garden as a young author of his first play, when it has been well received by the town. *** I have made two little terasses, raised twelve steps each, at the end of my great walk; they are just finished, and a great addition to the beauty of my garden. *** I have mixed in my espaliers as many rose and jessamin trees as I can cram in; and in the squares designed for the use of the kitchen, have avoided putting anything disagreeable either to sight or smell, having another garden below for cabbage, onions, garlic. All the walks are garnished with beds of flowers, besides the parterres, which are for a more distinguished sort. I have neither brick nor stone walls: all my fence is a high hedge, mingled with trees; but fruit is so plenty in this country, nobody thinks it worth stealing. Gardening is certainly the next amusement to reading; and as my sight will now permit me little of that, I am glad to form a taste that can give me so much employment and be the plaything of my age, now my pen and needle are almost useless to me.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

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.

Walter Savage Landor.

Spanish Gardens

The earliest Spanish gardens were the creation of the Moors, and bear the Arabian stamp of their origin, half Asiatic, half African. Perhaps their design has the strongest affinity to the gardens of Persia, with their shallow water running down the centre over coloured tiles, and their innumerable fountains, for water in one form or another is the predominant feature.

Selected.

And in Spain, like a scene in the Arabian Nights, comes back to us the old Moorish garden of Granada, with marble-lined canal and lofty arcades of trimmed yew, tipped with crescents, pyramids and crowns.

"E. V. B." (Hon. Mrs. Boyle.)

The garden beneath my window, before wrapped in gloom, was gently lighted up, the orange and citron trees were tipped with silver; the fountain sparkled in the moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was faintly visible. I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic description on the walls (The Alhambra):

"How beautiful is this garden, where the flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven! What can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? Nothing but the moon in her fulness, shining in the midst of an unclouded sky!" Washington Irving.

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