He who objects to
all art in the arrangement of a flower-bed, ought, if consistent with
himself, to turn away with an expression of disgust from a well arranged
nosegay in a rich porcelain vase. But who would not loathe or laugh at
such manifest affectation or such thoroughly bad taste? As there is a
time for every thing, so also is there a place for every thing. No man
of true judgment would desire to trace the hand of human art on the form
of nature in remote and gigantic forests, and amidst vast mountains, as
irregular as the billows of a troubled sea. In such scenery there is a
sublime grace in wildness,--_there_ "the very weeds are beautiful." But
what true judgment would be enchanted with weeds and wildness in the
small parterre. As Pope rightly says, we must
Consult the genius of the place in all.
It is pleasant to enter a rural lane overgrown with field-flowers, or to
behold an extensive common irregularly decorated with prickly gorse or
fern and thistle, but surely no man of taste would admire nature in this
wild and dishevelled state in a little suburban garden. Symmetry,
elegance and beauty, (--no _sublimity_ or _grandeur_--) trimness,
snugness, privacy, cleanliness, comfort, and convenience--the results of
a happy conjunction of art and nature--are all that we can aim at within
a limited extent of ground.
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