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CHAPTER VIII.
Of Pleasure Grounds-'Flower Gardens, Example BULSTRODE-
VALLEY FiELD-NUNEHAM- Greenhouse and Conservatory
belong to a Flower Garden- Various Modes of attaching them
to a House-D&culty-Objection-Attempt to make them
Gothic.
IN the execution of my profession I have often experienced
great difficulty and, opposition in attempting to correct the
false and mistaken taste for placing a large house in a naked
grass field, without any apparent line of separation between the
ground exposed to cattle and the ground annexed to the house,
which I consider as peculiarly under the management of art.
This line of separation being admitted, advantage may be
easily taken to ornament the lawn with flowers and shrubs, and
to attach to the mansion that scene of " embellished neatness,"
usually called a Pleasure Ground.
The quantity of this dressed ground was formerly very consi-
derable. The royal gardens of Versailles, or those of Kensington
palace, when filled with company, want no other animation;
but a large extent of ground without moving objects, however
neatly kept, is but a melancholy scene. If solitude delight,
we seek it rather in the covert of a wood, or the sequestered
alcove of a flower garden, than in the open lawn of an exten-
sive pleasure ground.