Temple Gardens

“ A temple of Roses, planted in the same way, has a beautiful appearance in a flower garden--that is, eight, ten, or twelve stout peeled Larch poles, well painted, set in the ground, with a light iron rafter from each, meeting at the top and forming a dome. An old cable, or other old rope, twisted round the pillar and iron, gives an additional beauty to the whole. ”

“ TEMPLE GARDENS Of all the gardens in Japan, and surely in no other country are there so many different forms of gardening, the temple garden, or often the garden surrounding some mouldering Buddhist monastery, remains a peaceful, secluded spot, recalling the Old Japan and days gone by. Unluckily many of them are fast falling into decay, like the buildings they surround ”

“ Here are fine pavilions, shady groves, and most delightful walks, illuminated by above one thousand lamps, so disposed that they all take fire together, almost as quick as lightning, and dart such a sudden blaze as is perfectly surprising. Here are among others, two curious statues of Apollo the god, and Mr. Handel the master of musick; and in the centre of the area, where the walks terminate, is erected the temple for the musicians, which is encompassed all round with handsome seats, decorated with pleasant paintings, on subjects most happily adapted to the season, place and company. ”

“ The Flora Tea Gardens (or Mount Gardens) , were on the right hand side of the Westminster Bridge Road going towards the Obelisk, and opposite the Temple of Flora. They were in existence about 1796–7. The gardens were well kept and contained “genteel paintings.” They were open on week-days and on Sundays till about 11 p.m., and the admission was sixpence.
Among the frequenters were democratic shopmen, who might be heard railing against King and Church, and a good many ladies respectable and the reverse. ”

“ It is wholly devoted to a description of this magnificent garden, [020] in which, amongst other architectural ornaments, was a temple dedicated to British worthies, where the busts of Pope and Congreve held conspicuous places. I may as well give a specimen of the lines of poor Boyse. Here is his description of that part of Lord Cobham's grounds in which is erected to the Goddess of Love, a Temple containing a statue of the Venus de Medicis. ”

“ Derry declared. "There's such a moon."
It was the kind of moon that whitened the world; one swam in a sea of light. Derry's runabout was a fairy car. Jean's hair was molten gold, her lover's pale silver—as with bare heads, having passed the city limits, they took the open road.
It was as warm as summer, and there were fragrances which seemed to wash over them in waves as they passed old gardens and old orchards. There was bridal-wreath billowing above stone fences, snow-balls, pale globes among the green, beds of iris, purple-black beneath the moon. ”

“ The shrubbery and landscape gardening here are great curiosities; long, straight avenues are laid out, with the trees on each side trimmed like hedges to the height of thirty or forty feet, presenting a perspective of an avenue as smooth and unbroken as if sliced out of a solid mass of green, with a keen blade; then the masses of foliage are trimmed into niches for marble statues, graceful curves, and columns, and curious walks. The flower-gardens of the palace were beautiful, and the hot-houses rich in great palms and other tropical wonders ”

“ They go to the divorce trials and the murder trials; they rush in crowds to see a horror in the streets. Yet once upon a time, when they were children, they remembered that everything was beautiful. Then they played in their garden with hoops and with skipping ropes—you'll see them in Kensington Gardens now—and every day they woke to was a joy to live in. After a time came the phase when they tried not to see the placards of the newspapers in the streets, when they began to hear that the world was ugly, and then, they tried to forget. ”

“ Very few steps past the dazzling new cathedral, that rises snow white above the quiet streets, lead you by a short turn into those strange gardens, that are really enchanted woods of olive, palm, and pine, with glorious flowers for undergrowth, cresting the sheer, sea-fronting steep of rock, down the face of which flowers, gorgeous creepers and hanging plants overflow to the white-combed breakers beneath. ”

“ Let us move on now up the clean stone street, up, and up, and up, passing many a walled recess where sparkling jets of water fill the jars brought to the fountain by barefooted girls,—up and on, on and up, past votive shrines—les chapelles—and high-walled gardens, coming finally to the broad avenue leading to the Botanical Garden,—the same road from which we were so glad to escape the night before. ”

“ It stands a little off to itself in a kind of glade. You approach it by a garden with raised terraces; a garden with grottos, fountains, and dwarf-trees with violet, yellow, or reddish foliage.
The vast temple is entirely red, and blood-red; an enormous black and gold roof, turned up at the corners, seems to crush it with its weight. From it comes a kind of religious music, soft and slow, interrupted from time to time by a heavy and horrible blow.
It is wide open, open so that its entire façade with columns is visible; but the interior is hidden by an immense white velum. ”

“ The deeper it descends, the ranker and denser grows the vegetation, which, sprouting from the crannies and fissures of the rocks, spreads a green veil over the roaring or murmuring stream in the tremendous chasm below. There is something delicious, almost intoxicating, in the freshness of these tumbling waters, in the sweetness and purity of the mountain air, in the vivid green of the vegetation. The temple, of which some massive hewn blocks and a fine column of Syenite granite still mark the site, occupied a terrace facing the source of the river and commanding a magnificent prospect. ”

“ Nothing is more striking about these temples than the delightful harmony between their natural surroundings and the buildings themselves. They blend so perfectly that one loses sight of the meeting between nature and art. From the steps onward all seems a harmonious part of the sanctified whole. Trees, creepers, and natural flowers peep in and almost entwine themselves with the marvellously painted or carved foliage of the temple itself. The rich lichens and mosses of the tree-trunks vie in depth and beauty of colour with the inlaid traceries of the columns. ”

“ All the architectural details are beautiful, especially a well in the court, set in the wall between Ionic columns, and a charming garden-house at the end of the upper garden, in the form of an open archway faced with Doric pilasters, before a semicircular recess with a marble seat. The descending walled gardens, with their different levels, give opportunity for many charming architectural effects—busts in niches, curving steps, and well-placed vases and statues ”

“ The old-fashioned garden, whatever its failings in the eyes of the modern landscape-gardener (great is the poverty of his invention) , represents one of the pleasures of England, one of the charms of that quiet beautiful life of bygone times that I, for one, would fain see revived. And judged even as pieces of handicraft, apart from their poetic interest, these gardens are worthy of careful study. They embody ideas of ancient worth; they evidence fine aims and heroic efforts; they exemplify traditions that are the net result of a long probation. ”

“ The temples are not imposing structures, and have no beauty except that of position. They generally stand on a hill, and are approached by an avenue or a long flight of steps, and the grounds are set out with trees, which are left to grow till they sometimes attain a majestic height and breadth. In front of this temple stands a tree, which we recognized by its foliage as the Salisburia adiantifolia—a specimen of which we had in America on our own lawn, but there it was a shrub brought from the nursery, while here it was like a cedar of Lebanon. ”

“ In the centre of the garden is an artificial hill, crowned with a temple, from which you enjoy a view of the city, and may aid your sight with a spy glass, by paying a trifle to a man who owns it and generally sits there, for the purpose of hiring it, and indicating to strangers the names of the public edifices visible in the perspective. ”

“ In another part of the city the Victoria Gardens are set out like a Botanical Garden, with all manner of plants and trees, especially with an endless variety of palms, under which crowds saunter along the avenues, admiring the wonders of tropical vegetation, and listening to the music that fills the evening air. ”

“ High over head, eighty feet at least, was a vivid green canopy of leaves, extending on all sides as far as the eye could penetrate, varied here and there by the twinkling of some lustrous star that peeped through from the dark sky without, and supported by the straight trunks and arching branches of innumerable trees—the rustic pillars of this superb natural temple. ”

“ The garden of the Inner Temple is not only a most happy situation, but is laid out with great taste, and kept [249] in perfect order. It is chiefly covered with green sward,, which is pleasing to the eye, especially in a city, and is most agreeable to walk on. It lies, as you perceive, along the river, is of great extent, and has a spacious gravel walk, or terrace, on the bank of the Thames. It forms a crowded promenade in summer, and at such times is an interesting spot. ”

“ There was a great crowd outside the Palace gates, where we were received by many men in scarlet. The private gardens are immense, and beautifully laid out, in a more formal style than I have hitherto seen, with straight, hard gravel walks, and straight avenues of trees. The effect of the clear running water in the immense tanks lined with blue tiles is most agreeable and cool. Continuous rows of orange trees in tubs, and beds of narcissus, irises, and tulips, with a wealth of trellised roses just coming into leaf, are full of the promise of beauty. ”

“ The foliage had been trained into rectangular cloisters, carefully kept, with regular arcades cut in yew- and box-hedges. A miniature garden was laid out in this space, the very home of silence and tranquillity. Here also were wall-flowers and pansies and hyacinths. And four paths, coming from four corners of the cloisters, met round a central space, where stood the five columns of a small, open temple, rudely constructed of pebbles and unmortared building-stones. ”

“ The courtyards and cloisters are admirable, and are adorned with fountains, orange-trees, and flowers.
How excellently are such places adapted for reverie, meditation, and study, and what a pity is it that convents were ever inhabited by monks, and not by poets! The gardens, left to themselves, have assumed a wild, savage aspect; luxuriant vegetation has invaded the walks, and Nature has regained possession of her own, planting a tuft of flowers or grass in the place of every stone that has fallen out. ”

“ A light cloud of Clematis Flammula peeps over the bushes through the balusters. Stonework so good as this can just bear such a degree of clothing with graceful flowery growth; no doubt it is watched and not allowed to hide too much with an excess of overgrowth. Where garden architecture is beautiful in proportion and detail it is not treating it fairly to smother it with vegetation. ”

“ This garden is at a considerable distance from the palace, a circumstance not unusual with the opulent of India; places of this description, which may be truly called pleasure gardens, are generally large, intersected by straight paved walks, bordered with shrubs and flowers, and contain a variety of the most delicate fruits; they are embellished with several very elegant pavilions, where the master occasionally seats himself to enjoy his hooka, singing, dancing, &c. ”

“ Even the opposite hillside must have been included in the original scheme of this vast garden, for it still shows, on the central axis between the pavilions, a tapis vert between cypresses, doubtless intended to lead up to some great stone Hercules under a crowning arch.
But it is not the size of the Campi gardens which makes them so remarkable; it is the subtle beauty of their planning, to which time and neglect have added the requisite touch of poetry. ”

“ The garden is very neatly laid out in our English style, with alleys of brick and statues and pavilions, not like most of the gardens here, which are sad untidy places, and Mr Freyne and I explore the entire extent of it every morning, in order to admire the ingenious manner in which the gardener has contrived to disobey his orders of the day before. ”

“ Paul’s Cathedral, to see the fresh green of the trees and the indescribable beauty of the rustling, swaying boughs, so strangely sweet in such a spot.
Not the least good done by our City gardens is the welcome given by them to bird and butterfly; even the seagulls did not come to London till after we had planted trees on the Embankment and laid down turf. The more gardens we make, the more country visitors will come to them, gladdening the Londoner with rural sounds. ”

“ Except where the ridge ran up behind the house into a little crest topped by dark green pines glowing vividly on the vivid sky, and then plunged on into the mountains' heart, the garden stood isolated on the edge of the sheer ridge that fell from the sun-facing front in steep terraces of lemon orchard, vineyard, and garden down to the torrent bed, crawling slowly, slowly, among houses and gardens half hidden in trees, to the mass of clean, red-brown roofs, that lay with never a smoke-stain among trees by the sea, like an estuary of masonry. ”