The royal gardens at the Haga, near Stockholm, form the earliest and the chief example of the English style in Sw (den. They were begun by Gustavus 111. with the as sistance of Masrctier, a Swedish artist, and subsequently varied and extended, so that they now present a mixture of picturesque, with some formal beauty. They are surround ed and interspersed with rocks, covered with Scotch and spume hrs, and abound in winding walks, Chinese, and other buildings. There are some confined spots laid out in the English taste, chiefly by British merchants, in the neighbourhood of Gottenburg, as there are also near Chris tiansatid in Norway ; but it may be remarked, that this style is not likely to be generally adopted in either country, be cause they already possess much greater beauties of the same kind, which it is our aim to create, and with which those created would not bear a comparison.
A distinguished example of the English style exists in Denmark, at the residence of an eminent Danish merchant, De Conninck, about sixteen miles from Copenhagen. The grounds are situated on an extensive declivity, which descends to a natural lake of great extent, whose circuitous shores are verged with rich woody scene ry and country houses. The soil here approaches more to a loam than is general on the continent ; the turf is, there fore, happily of a deep tone of green, and close texture. The oak and beech abound in these grounds, as well as firs, and a number of exotics. Buildings are not too frequent ; but there are several, and among them a hermitage, to which it is stated one of the family actually retired, on oc casion of a matrimonial disappointment, and lived there for several years, till called forth by some military arrange ments. There are numbers of small spots round Copenha gen of considerable beauty, in which something of the English style has been imitated ; but in none of the gardens of the court has it been avowedly introduced.
We are not aware that the English style has been intro duced into Spain, unless on a vet y small scale, in the neigh bourhood of Seville, or other maritime towns, by the Bri tish residents, though Mr. Repton mentions one instance, in which he was called on to give a design in the modern style, for a very small spot near Lisbon. These are not coun tries for change of ideas, or refinement of taste.
Very little more has been done in Italy than in Spain and Portugal as to English gardening, and in a great measure from the same causes—the general stagnation of mind, and the abundance of picturesque scenery. The vil
la Borghese is universally allowed to be the first of Ro man villas. " The gardens," Mr. Eustace informs us, " are laid out with sonic regard, both for the new and for the old system ; for though symmetry prevails in general, and long alleys appear intersecting each other, lined with sta tues and refreshed by cascades, yet here and there a wind ing path allures you into a wilderness formed of plants, abandoned to their native luxuriancy, and watered by streamlets murmuring through their own artless channels." Of Italian gardens in general, the same author observes, " howsoever they may differ in extent and magnificence, their principal features are nearly the same ; the sante with regard to artificial ornaments, as well as natural graces. Sonic ancient remains are to be found in all, and several in roost, and they are all adorned with the same evergreens, and present upon a greater or less scale the same Italian and ancient scenery. They are in general, it is true, much neglected, but for that reason the more rural. The plants, now abandoned to their native forms, corer the walks with a luxuriant shade, break the long straight vistas by their fantastic branches, and turn the alleys and quincunxes into devious paths and tangled thickets." (Classical Tour, vol. i. ch. 18.) The modern Asiatic gardens appear, from the accounts of travellers, to be exactly' the same as described in the ear liest accounts of gardening in the east, The guidons in Africa partake of the Tut kish manner, which has nothing in it differing materially from the Asiatic. Those of the grand Sultan remain the same as in Lady Montague's time.
Small specimens of the English style, we believe, are to be found near almost every great commercial city in the world ; and undoubtedly in the chief towns of the British colonies. The governor's gardens at Calcutta are highly spoken of, as are others in Madras, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in Jamaica ; and slight efforts have been made in the neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Ayres. In North America, the late General Washington's Fermi Ornee, at Vermont, was perhaps the most elegant country residence in that part of the world ; but there are occasion al English gardens to be seen near New York, Baltimore, and other elder cities ; and Montesquieu mentions several country residences in the interior, in which some attention to ornament was not deemed incompatible with agricultu ral improvement.