Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/335

 1868.] Landscape, Decorative, and Economic Gardening. Tib produced by this chance arrangement, so delighted the celebrated architect, Callimachns, that he adopted the form, as a capital to his pillars. Gardens are of the most remote an- tiquity. Our first parents were placed in a garden ; and the writings of the oldest historians and poets contain various traditions and descriptions, relative to the extraordinary beauty of gardens. Cyrus, the j'ounger, was cele- brated for his pleasure-grounds at Lydia, two thousand years before the Christian era ; and they were reckoned at that day amongst the wonders of the world. The hanging-gardens of Babvlon seem to have been a grand combination of wealth and skill. The gardens of Jeru- salem have been elaborate^' described. King Solomon's contained the hyssop "which springeth out of the wall," odoriferous and showy flowers, as the rose, and the lily of the valley, the cala- mus, camphor, spikenard, saffron and cinnamon ; timber trees, as the cedar, the pine and the fir. ' Solomon says : " I made me gardens and paradises ; and I planted in them all kinds of frui' trees. I made me pools of water, i water with them the groves flourishing with trees." The Greeks copied their gardening, as they did their architecture, from the Persians. Epicurus delighted in the pleasures of the garden ; and made choice of one as a spot for teaching his philosophy. Plutarch informs us, that Cimon, the Athenian general, planted the Academus or public garden at Athens ; conveyed streams of water to it ; and laid it out in shady groves, planted with the olive, the plane and the elm ; and provided it with gymnasia, or places for exercise and philosophic walks. At the entrance was the first altar dedicated to Love. The Romans, also, paid great atten- tion to the embellishment of their grounds. Lucullus had sumptuous villas in many parts of Italy, so that by changing from one to the other, which he boasted of doing " with storks and cranes," lie enjoyed an agreeable climate every month in the year. Cicero expatiates upon the beauty of the groves he had formed at his Arpinum villa ; on the streams that passed through them ; and of the absence of all appearance of art and of all false ornament. Sallust, after making his fortune in the Govern- ment of Numidia, laid out an extensive garden at Rome, highly ornamented with sculpture, parterres of flowers, and murmuring streams, which was, for a long period, the pride of the city. The villa Laurentina of Pliny, the Consul, was, according to his letters, a charming spot. He gives a glowing description of the beauty of his woods, his rich meadows covered with cattle, the bay of Ostea, the scattered villas upon its shore, the blue distance of the mountains, his porticos and seats for different views, and his favorite little cabinet, with his couch where he reposed, and from which he had one view of the luxurious landscape at the head, another at the foot, and a third at the back. The progress of architecture among the Romans was much greater than that of gardening. Their authors only men- tion gardens in a general manner ; and approbation is bestowed on their fer- tility and beauty, while their buildings are described with elaborate minuteness of detail. They appear to have directed their attention, more particularly, to every thing that bore the impression of grandeur and magnificence ; and had a great passion for erecting baths, cir- cuses, colonades, statues, reservoirs and other objects that were striking to the eye. These produced an immediate im- pression ; and did not require so much time to mature, or so much patient waiting for ultimate effect, as is the case with beauties derived from the compara- tively slow development of artificial groves and plantations. Cicero refers to the delight the Romans had in dis- playing their wealth in the architecture of their country villas, a delight which