Loudon's most interesting and valuable work entitled
_Arboretum et Fruticetum Britanicum_.

[015] All the rules of gardening are reducible to three heads: the
contrasts, the management of surprises and the concealment of the
bounds. "Pray, what is it you mean by the contrasts?" "The disposition
of the lights and shades."--"'Tis the colouring then?"--"Just
that."--"Should not variety be one of the rules?"--"Certainly, one of
the chief; but that is included mostly in the contrasts." I have
expressed them all in two verses[140] (after my manner, in very little
compass), which are in imitation of Horace's--_Omne tulit punctum.
Pope.--Spence's Anecdotes_.

[016] In laying out a garden, the chief thing to be considered is the
genius of the place. Thus at Tiskins, for example, Lord Bathurst should
have raised two or three mounts, because his situation is _all_ plain,
and nothing can please without variety. _Pope--Spence's Anecdotes_.

[017] The seat and gardens of the Lord Viscount Cobham, in
Buckinghamshire. Pope concludes the first Epistle of his Moral Essays
with a compliment to the patriotism of this nobleman.

And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death:
Such in those moments as in all the past
"Oh, save my country, Heaven!" shall be your last.

[018] Two hundred acres and two hundred millions of francs were made
over to Le Notre by Louis XIV. to complete these geometrical gardens.
One author tells us that in 1816 the ordinary cost of putting a certain
portion of the waterworks in play was at the rate of 200 L. per hour,
and another still later authority states that when the whole were set in
motion once a year on some Royal fete, the cost of the half hour during
which the main part of the exhibition lasted was not less than 3,000 L.
This is surely a most senseless expenditure. It seems, indeed, almost
incredible. I take the statements from _Loudon's_ excellent
_Encyclopaedia of Gardening_. The name of one of the original reporters
is Neill; the name of the other is not given. The gardens formerly were
and perhaps still are full of the vilest specimens of verdant sculpture
in every variety of form. Lord Kames gives a ludicrous account of the
vomiting stone statues there;--"A lifeless statue of an animal pouring
out water may be endured" he observes, "without much disgust: but here
the lions and wolves are put in violent action; each has seized its
prey,