GROUNDS: O R, ORNAMENTAL PLANTATIONS. ANKIND no fooner find themfelves in faft MP poffeffion of the neceffaries of life, than they begin to feel a want of its conveniencies; and thefe obtained, feldom fail of indulging in one or more of its various refinements. Some men delight in the luxuries of the imagination; others in thofe of the fenfes. One man finds his wants fupplied in the delicacies of the table, whilft another flies to perfumes and effences for relief: few men are infenfible to the gratifications of the ear; and men in general are fufceptible of thofe of the eye. The imitative arts of painting and fculpture have been the ftudy and delight of civilized nations in all ages; but the art of embellishing Nature herself has been referved for this age, and for this nation! as A fact the more aftonishing, as ornamented Nature is as much fuperior to a Painting or a Statue, as a "Reality is to a Reprefentation;" the Man himself is to his Portrait. That the ftriking features-the beauties-of Nature, when ever they have been seen, have always been admired by men of sense and refinement, is undoubtedly true; but why the good offices of art, in difclofing these beauties, and fetting off those features to advantage, fhould have been fo long confined to the human perfon alone, is, of all other facts in the History of Arts and Sciences, the most extraordinary. The Tranflator of D'Ermenonville's Effay on Landscape has attempted to prove, in an introductory discourse, that the art is nothing new, for that it was known to the Antients, though not practifed. But the evidences he produces go no farther than to fhew, that the Antients were admirers of Nature in a ftate of wildness; for, whenever they attempted to embellish Nature, they appear to have been guided by a kind of Otaheitean tafte; as the gardens of the Greeks and Romans, like thofe of the modern nations (until of late years in this country), convey to us no other idea than that of Nature tatoo'd *. Mr. Burgh, in a Note to his ingenious Commentary upon Mr. Mafon's beautiful poem The English Garden, confirms us in thefe ideas; and, by a quotation from the Younger Pliny, fhews the just notions the Antients entertained of the powers of The inhabitants of Otaheitee, an ifland in the Southern hemifphere, ornament their bodies by making punctures in the fkin with a fharp-pointed inftrument, and call it tatorwing. The African Negroes are ftill groffer in their ideas of ornament, gafhing their cheeks and temples in a manner fimilar to that practifed by the English Butcher in ornamenting a thoulder of mutton, or a Dutch gardener in embellishing the environs of a manfion. human human invention, in affociating and polishing the rougher fcenes of Nature: for, after giving us a beautiful description of the natural scenery round his Tuscan villa, upon the banks of the Tiber, he acknowledges "the view before him to refemble a picture beautifully compofed, rather than a work " of Nature accidentally delivered." 66 We have been told that the English Garden is but a copy of the Gardens of the Chinese: this, however, is founded in Gallic envy rather than in truth; for though their ftyle of Gardening may not admit of tatooings and topiary works*, it has as little to do with natural scenery as the garden of an antient Roman, or a modern Frenchman:--THE ART OF afifting NATURE is, undoubtedly, all our own. It cannot fail of proving highly interefting to our Readers, to trace the rife of this delightful Art. Mr. Walpole, in his Anecdotes of Painting in England, has favoured the Public with The Hiftory of modern Tafte in Gardening. A pen guided by fo masterly a hand muft ever be productive of information and entertainment when employed upon a fubject fo truly interefting as that which is now before us. Defirous of conveying to our Readers all the information which we can compress with propriety within the limits of our plan, we wished to have given the fubftance of this valuable paper; * Trees carved by a Topiarius, into the form of beafts, birds, &c. but but finding it already in the language of fimplicity, and being aware of the mischiefs which generally enfue in meddling with the productions of genius, we had only one alternative; either wholly to tranfcribe, or wholly to reject. This we could not do, in ftrict juftice to our Readers; for, befides giving us, in detail, the advancement of the art, it throws confiderable light upon the art itself; and being only a fmall part of a work upon a different subject, it is the less likely to fall into the hands of those to whom it cannot fail of proving highly interesting. We are, therefore, induced to exceed our intended limits in this refpect, by making a literal tranfcript; and hope, in the liberality of the Author, to be pardoned for fo doing. GARDENING was probably one of the first arts that fucceeded to that of building houfes, and naturally attended property and individual poffeffion. Culinary, and afterwards medicinal herbs were the objects of every head of a family: it became convenient to have them within reach, without feeking them at random in woods, in meadows, and on mountains, as often as they were wanted. When the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously all these primitive luxuries, and culture became requifite, feparate inclofures for rearing herbs grew expedient. Fruits were in the fame predicament, and those most in use or that demand attention, must have entered into and extended the domeftic inclosure. The good man Noah, we are told, planted a vineyard, drank of the wine, and was drunken, and every body knows the confequences. Thus we acquired kitchen-gardens, orchards, and vineyards. I am apprized that the prototype of all these forts was the garden of Eden; but as that Paradife was a good deal larger than any we read of afterwards, being inclofed by the rivers Pifon, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, as every tree that was pleasant to the fight and good for food grew in it, and as two other trees were likewise found there, of which not a flip or fucker remains, it does not belong to the prefent difcuffion, After the Fall, no man living |