Flowers And Flower-Gardens Part 26

Indian scenery has not been so much the subject of description in either prose or verse as it deserves, but some two or three of our Anglo-Indian authors have touched upon it. Here is a pleasant and truthful pa.s.sage from an article ent.i.tled "_A Morning Walk in India_," written by the late Mr. Lawson, the Missionary, a truly good and a highly gifted man:--

"The rounded clumps that afford the deepest shade, are formed by the mangoe, the banian, and the cotton trees. At the verge of this deep-green forest are to be seen the long and slender hosts of the betle and cocoanut trees; and the grey bark of their trunks, as they catch the light of the morning, is in clear relief from the richness of the back-ground. These as they wave their feathery tops, add much to the picturesque interest of the straw-built hovels beneath them, which are variegated with every tinge to be found amongst the browns and yellows, according to the respective periods of their construction. Some of them are enveloped in blue smoke, which oozes through every interstice of the thatch, and spreads itself, like a cloud hovering over these frail habitations, or moves slowly along, like a strata of vapour not far from the ground, as though too heavy to ascend, and loses itself in the thin air, so inspiring to all who have courage to leave their beds and enjoy it. The champa tree forms a beautiful object in this jungle. It may be recognized immediately from the surrounding scenery. It has always been a favourite with me. I suppose most persons, at times, have been unaccountably attracted by an object comparatively trifling in itself.

There are also particular seasons, when the mind is susceptible of peculiar impressions, and the moments of happy, careless youth, rush upon the imagination with a thousand tender feelings. There are few that do not recollect with what pleasure they have grasped a bunch of wild flowers, when, in the days of their childhood, the languor of a lingering fever has prevented them for some weary months from enjoying that chief of all the pleasures of a robust English boy, a ramble through the fields, where every tree, and bush, and hillock, and blossom, are endeared to him, because, next to a mother's caresses, they were the first things in the world upon which he opened his eyes, and, doubtless, the first which gave him those indescribable feelings of fairy pleasure, which even in his dreams were excited; while the coloured clouds of heaven, the golden suns.h.i.+ne of a landscape, the fresh nosegay of dog-roses and early daisies, and the sounds of busy whispering trees and tinkling brooks presented to the sleeping child all the pure pleasure of his waking moments. And who is there here that does not sometimes recal some of those feelings which were his solace perhaps thirty years ago? Should I be wrong, were I to say that even, at his desk, amid all the excitements and anxieties of commercial pursuits, the weary Calcutta merchant has been lulled into a sort of pensive reminiscence of the past, and, with his pen placed between his lips and his fevered forehead leaning upon his hand, has felt his heart bound at some vivid picture rising upon his imagination. The forms of a fond mother, and an almost angel-looking sister, have been so strongly conjured up with the scenes of his boyish days, that the pen has been unceremoniously dashed to the ground, and 'I will go home' was the sigh that heaved from a bosom full of kindness and English feeling; while, as the dream vanished, plain truth told its tale, and the man of commerce is still to be seen at his desk, pale, and getting into years and perhaps less desirous than ever of winding up his concern. No wonder!

because the dearest ties of his heart have been broken, and those who were the charm of home have gone down to the cold grave, the home of all. Why then should he revisit his native place? What is the cottage of his birth to him? What charms has the village now for the gentleman just arrived from India? Every well remembered object of nature, seen after a lapse of twenty years, would only serve to renew a host of buried, painful feelings. Every visit to the house of a surviving neighbour would but bring to mind some melancholy incident; for into what house could he enter, to idle away an hour, without seeing some wreck of his own family, such as a venerable clock, once so loved for the painted moon that waxed and waned to the astonishment of the gazer, or some favorite ancient chair, edged so n.o.bly with rows of bra.s.s nails,

--but perforated sore, and dull'd in holes By worms voracious, eating through and through.

These are little things, but they are objects which will live in his memory to the latest day of his life, and with which are a.s.sociated in his mind the dearest feelings and thoughts of his happiest hours."

Here is an attempt at a description in verse of some of the most common

TREES AND FLOWERS OF BENGAL

This land is not my father land, And yet I love it--for the hand Of G.o.d hath left its mark sublime On nature's face in every clime--

Though from home and friends we part, Nature and the human heart Still may soothe the wanderer's care-- And his G.o.d is every where

Beneath BENGALA'S azure skies, No vallies sink, no green hills rise, Like those the vast sea billows make-- The land is level as a lake[111]

But, oh, what giants of the wood Wave their wide arms, or calmly brood Each o'er his own deep rounded shade When noon's fierce sun the breeze hath laid, And all is still. On every plain How green the sward, or rich the grain!

In jungle wild and garden trim, And open lawn and covert dim, What glorious shrubs and flowerets gay, Bright buds, and lordly beasts of prey!

How prodigally Gunga pours Her wealth of waves through verdant sh.o.r.es O'er which the sacred peepul bends, And oft its skeleton lines extends Of twisted root, well laved and bare, Half in water, half in air!

Fair scenes! where breeze and sun diffuse The sweetest odours, fairest hues-- Where brightest the bright day G.o.d shows, And where his gentle sister throws Her softest spell on silent plain, And stirless wood, and slumbering main-- Where the lucid starry sky Opens most to mortal eye The wide and mystic dome serene Meant for visitants unseen, A dream like temple, air built hall, Where spirits pure hold festival!

Fair scenes! whence envious Art might steal More charms than fancy's realms reveal-- Where the tall palm to the sky Lifts its wreath triumphantly-- And the bambu's tapering bough Loves its flexile arch to throw-- Where sleeps the favored lotus white, On the still lake's bosom bright-- Where the champac's[112] blossoms s.h.i.+ne, Offerings meet for Brahma's shrine, While the fragrance floateth wide O'er velvet lawn and gla.s.sy tide-- Where the mangoe tope bestows Night at noon day--cool repose, Neath burning heavens--a hush profound Breathing o'er the shaded ground-- Where the medicinal neem, Of palest foliage, softest gleam, And the small leafed tamarind Tremble at each whispering wind-- And the long plumed cocoas stand Like the princes of the land, Near the betel's pillar slim, With capital richly wrought and trim-- And the neglected wild sonail Drops her yellow ringlets pale-- And light airs summer odours throw From the bala's breast of snow-- Where the Briarean banyan shades The crowded ghat, while Indian maids, Untouched by noon tide's scorching rays, Lave the sleek limb, or fill the vase With liquid life, or on the head Replace it, and with graceful tread And form erect, and movement slow, Back to their simple dwellings go-- [Walls of earth, that stoutly stand, Neatly smoothed with wetted hand-- Straw roofs, yellow once and gay, Turned by time and tempest gray--]

Where the merry minahs crowd Unbrageous haunts, and chirrup loud-- And shrilly talk the parrots green 'Midst the thick leaves dimly seen-- And through the quivering foliage play, Light as buds, the squirrels gay, Quickly as the noontide beams Dance upon the rippled streams-- Where the pariah[113] howls with fear, If the white man pa.s.seth near-- Where the beast that mocks our race With taper finger, solemn face, In the cool shade sits at ease Calm and grave as Socrates-- Where the sluggish buffaloe Wallows in mud--and huge and slow, Like ma.s.sive cloud of sombre van, Moves the land leviathan--[114]

Where beneath the jungle's screen Close enwoven, lurks unseen The couchant tiger--and the snake His sly and sinuous way doth make Through the rich mead's gra.s.sy net, Like a miniature rivulet-- Where small white cattle, scattered wide, Browse, from dawn to even tide-- Where the river watered soil Scarce demands the ryot's toil-- And the rice field's emerald light Out vies Italian meadows bright,-- Where leaves of every shape and dye, And blossoms varied as the sky, The fancy kindle,--fingers fair That never closed on aught but air-- Hearts, that never heaved a sigh-- Wings, that never learned to fly-- Cups, that ne'er went table round-- Bells, that never rang with sound-- Golden crowns, of little worth-- Silver stars, that strew the earth-- Filagree fine and curious braid, Breathed, not labored, grown, not made-- Tresses like the beams of morn Without a thought of triumph worn-- Tongues that prate not--many an eye Untaught midst hidden things to pry-- Brazen trumpets, long and bright, That never summoned to the fight-- Shafts, that never pierced a side-- And plumes that never waved with pride;-- Scarcely Art a shape may know But Nature here that shape can show.

Through this soft air, o'er this warm sod, Stern deadly Winter never trod; The woods their pride for centuries wear, And not a living branch is bare; Each field for ever boasts its bowers, And every season brings its flowers.

D.L.R.

We all "uphold Adam's profession": we are all gardeners, either practically or theoretically. The love of trees and flowers, and shrubs and the green sward, with a summer sky above them, is an almost universal sentiment. It may be smothered for a time by some one or other of the innumerable chances and occupations of busy life; but a painting in oils by Claude or Gainsborough, or a picture in words by Spenser or Shakespeare that shall for ever

Live in description and look green in song,

or the sight of a few flowers on a window-sill in the city, can fill the eye with tears of tenderness, or make the secret pa.s.sion for nature burst out again in sudden gusts of tumultuous pleasure and lighten up the soul with images of rural beauty. There are few, indeed, who, when they have the good fortune to escape on a summer holiday from the crowded and smoky city and find themselves in the heart of a delicious garden, have not a secret consciousness within them that the scene affords them a glimpse of a true paradise below. Rich foliage and gay flowers and rural quiet and seclusion and a smiling sun are ever a.s.sociated with ideas of earthly felicity.

And oh, if there be an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this!

The princely merchant and the petty trader, the soldier and the sailor, the politician and the lawyer, the artist and the artisan, when they pause for a moment in the midst of their career, and dream of the happiness of some future day, almost invariably fix their imaginary palace or cottage of delight in a garden, amidst embowering trees and fragrant flowers. This disposition, even in the busiest men, to indulge occasionally in fond antic.i.p.ations of rural bliss--

In visions so profuse of pleasantness--

shows that G.o.d meant us to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of his works.

The taste for a garden is the one common feeling that unites us all.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

There is this much of poetical sensibility--of a sense of natural beauty--at the core of almost every human heart. The monarch shares it with the peasant, and Nature takes care that as the thirst for her society is the universal pa.s.sion, the power of gratifying it shall be more or less within the reach of all.[115]

Our present Chief Justice, Sir Lawrence Peel, who has set so excellent an example to his countrymen here in respect to Horticultural pursuits and the tasteful embellishment of what we call our "_compounds_" and who, like Sir William Jones and Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, sees no reason why Themis should be hostile to the Muses, has obliged me with the following stanzas on the moral or rather religious influence of a garden. They form a highly appropriate and acceptable contribution to this volume.

I HEARD THY VOICE IN THE GARDEN.

That voice yet speaketh, heed it well-- But not in tones of wrath it chideth, The moss rose, and the lily smell Of G.o.d--in them his voice abideth.

There is a blessing on the spot The poor man decks--the sun delighteth To smile upon each homely plot, And why? The voice of G.o.d inviteth.

G.o.d knows that he is wors.h.i.+pped there, The chaliced cowslip's graceful bending Is mute devotion, and the air Is sweet with incense of her lending.

The primrose, aye the children's pet, Pale bride, yet proud of its uprooting, The crocus, snowdrop, violet And sweet-briar with its soft leaves shooting.

There nestles each--a Preacher each-- (Oh heart of man! be slow to harden) Each cottage flower in sooth doth teach G.o.d walketh with us in the garden.

I am surprized that in this city (of Calcutta) where so many kinds of experiments in education have been proposed, the directors of public instruction have never thought of attaching tasteful Gardens to the Government Colleges--especially where Botany is in the regular course of Collegiate studies. The Company's Botanic Garden being on the other side of the river and at an inconvenient distance from the city cannot be much resorted to by any one whose time is precious. An attempt was made not long ago to have the Garden of the Horticultural Society (now forming part of the Company's Botanic Garden) on this side of the river, but the public subscriptions that were called for to meet the necessary expenses were so inadequate to the purpose that the money realized was returned to the subscribers, and the idea relinquished, to the great regret of many of the inhabitants of Calcutta who would have been delighted to possess such a place of recreation and instruction within a few minutes' drive.

Hindu students, unlike English boys in general, remind us of Beattie's Minstrel:--

The exploit of strength, dexterity and speed To him nor vanity, nor joy could bring.

A sort of Garden Academy, therefore, full of pleasant shades, would be peculiarly suited to the tastes and habits of our Indian Collegians.

They are not fond of cricket or leap-frog. They would rejoice to devote a leisure hour to pensive letterings in a pleasure-garden, and on an occasional holiday would gladly pursue even their severest studies, book in hand, amidst verdant bowers. A stranger from Europe beholding them, in their half-Grecian garments, thus wandering amidst the trees, would be reminded of the disciples of Plato.

"It is not easy," observes Lord Kames, "to suppress a degree of enthusiasm, when we reflect on the advantages of gardening with respect to virtuous education. In the beginning of life the deepest impressions are made; and it is a sad truth, that the young student, familiarized to the dirtiness and disorder of many colleges pent within narrow bounds in populous cities, is rendered in a measure insensible to the elegant beauties of art and nature. It seems to me far from an exaggeration, that good professors are not more essential to a college, than a s.p.a.cious garden, sweetly ornamented, but without any thing glaring or fantastic, is upon the whole to inspire our youth with a taste no less for simplicity than for elegance. In this respect the University of Oxford may justly be deemed a model."

It may be expected that I should offer a few hints on the laying out of gardens. Much has been said (by writers on ornamental and landscape gardening) on _art_ and _nature_, and almost always has it been implied that these must necessarily be in direct opposition. I am far from being of this opinion. If art and nature be not in some points of view almost identical, they are at least very good friends, or may easily be made so. They are not necessarily hostile. They admit of the most harmonious combinations. In no place are such combinations more easy or more proper than in a garden. Walter Scott very truly calls a garden the child of Art. But is it not also the child of Nature?--of Nature and Art together? To attempt to exclude art--or even, the appearance of art--from a small garden enclosure, is idle and absurd. He who objects to all art in the arrangement of a flower-bed, ought, if consistent with himself, to turn away with an expression of disgust from a well arranged nosegay in a rich porcelain vase. But who would not loathe or laugh at such manifest affectation or such thoroughly bad taste? As there is a time for every thing, so also is there a place for every thing. No man of true judgment would desire to trace the hand of human art on the form of nature in remote and gigantic forests, and amidst vast mountains, as irregular as the billows of a troubled sea. In such scenery there is a sublime grace in wildness,--_there_ "the very weeds are beautiful." But what true judgment would be enchanted with weeds and wildness in the small parterre. As Pope rightly says, we must

Consult the genius of the place in all.

It is pleasant to enter a rural lane overgrown with field-flowers, or to behold an extensive common irregularly decorated with p.r.i.c.kly gorse or fern and thistle, but surely no man of taste would admire nature in this wild and dishevelled state in a little suburban garden. Symmetry, elegance and beauty, (--no _sublimity_ or _grandeur_--) trimness, snugness, privacy, cleanliness, comfort, and convenience--the results of a happy conjunction of art and nature--are all that we can aim at within a limited extent of ground. In a small parterre we either trace with pleasure the marks of the gardener's attention or are disgusted with his negligence. In a mere patch of earth around a domestic dwelling nature ought not to be left entirely to herself.

What is agreeable in one sphere of life is offensive in another. A dirty smock frock and a soiled face in a ploughman's child who has been swinging on rustic gates a long summer morning or rolling down the slopes of hills, or grubbing in the soil of his small garden, may remind us, not unpleasantly, of one of Gainsborough's pictures; but we look for a different sort of nature on the canvas of Sir Joshua Reynolds or Sir Thomas Lawrence, or in the brilliant drawing-rooms of the n.o.bility; and yet an Earl's child looks and moves at least as _naturally_ as a peasant's.

There is nature every where--in the palace as well as in the hut, in the cultivated garden as well as in the wild wood. Civilized life is, after all, as natural as savage life. All our faculties are natural, and civilized man cultivates his mental powers and studies the arts of life by as true an instinct as that which leads the savage to make the most of his mud hut, and to improve himself or his child as a hunter, a fisherman, or a warrior. The mind of man is the n.o.blest work of its Maker (--in this world--) and the movements of man's mind may be quite as natural, and quite as poetical too, as the life that rises from the ground. It is as natural for the mind, as it is for a tree or flower to advance towards perfection. Nature suggests art, and art again imitates and approximates to nature, and this principle of action and reaction brings man by degrees towards that point of comparative excellence for which G.o.d seems to have intended him. The mind of a Milton or a Shakespeare is surely not in a more unnatural condition than that of an ignorant rustic. We ought not then to decry refinement nor deem all connection of art with nature an offensive incongruity. A n.o.ble mansion in a s.p.a.cious and well kept park is an object which even an observer who has no share himself in the property may look upon with pleasure. It makes him proud of his race.[116] We cannot witness so harmonious a conjunction of art and nature without feeling that man is something better than a mere beast of the field or forest. We see him turn both art and nature to his service, and we cannot contemplate the lordly dwelling and the richly decorated land around it--and the neatness and security and order of the whole scene--without a.s.sociating them with the high accomplishments and refined tastes that in all probability distinguish the proprietor and his family. It is a strange mistake to suppose that nothing is natural beyond savage ignorance--that all refinement is unnatural--that there is only one sort of simplicity. For the mind elevated by civilization is in a more natural state than a mind that has scarcely pa.s.sed the boundary of brutal instinct, and the simplicity of a savage's hut, does not prevent there being a n.o.bler simplicity in a Grecian temple.

Kent[117] the famous landscape gardener, tells us that _nature_ _abhors a straight line_. And so she does--in some cases--but not in all. A ray of light is a straight line, and so also is a Grecian nose, and so also is the stem of the betel-nut tree. It must, indeed, be admitted that he who should now lay out a large park or pleasure-ground on strictly geometrical principles or in the old topiary style would exhibit a deplorable want of taste and judgment. But the provinces of the landscape gardener and the parterre gardener are perfectly distinct. The landscape gardener demands a wide canvas. All his operations are on a large scale. In a small garden we have chiefly to aim at the _gardenesque_ and in an extensive park at the _picturesque_. Even in the latter case, however, though

'Tis Nature still, 'tis nature methodized:

Or in other words:

Nature to advantage dressed.

for even in the largest parks or pleasure-grounds, an observer of true taste is offended by an air of negligence or the absence of all traces of human art or care. Such places ought to indicate the presence of civilized life and security and order. We are not pleased to see weeds and jungle--or litter of any sort--even dry leaves--upon the princely domain, which should look like a portion of nature set apart or devoted to the especial care and enjoyment of the owner and his friends:--a strictly private property. The gra.s.s carpet should be trimly shorn and well swept. The trees should be tastefully separated from each other at irregular but judicious distances. They should have fine round heads of foliage, clean stems, and no weeds or underwood below, nor a single dead branch above. When we visit the finest estates of the n.o.bility and gentry in England it is impossible not to perceive in every case a marked distinction between the wild nature of a wood and the civilized nature of a park. In the latter you cannot overlook the fact that every thing injurious to the health and growth and beauty of each individual tree has been studiously removed, while on the other hand, light, air, s.p.a.ce, all things in fact that, if sentient, the tree could itself be supposed to desire, are most liberally supplied. There is as great a difference between the general aspect of the trees in a n.o.bleman's pleasure ground and those in a jungle, as between the rustics of a village and the well bred gentry of a great city. Park trees have generally a fine air of aristocracy about them.

A Gainsborough or a Morland would seek his subjects in remote villages and a Watteau or a Stothard in the well kept pleasure ground. The ruder nature of woods and villages, of st.u.r.dy ploughmen and the healthy though soiled and ragged children in rural neighbourhoods, affords a by no means unpleasing contrast and introduction to the trim trees and smoothly undulating lawns, and curved walks, and gay parterres, and fine ladies and well dressed and graceful children on some old ancestral estate. We look for rusticity in the village, and for elegance in the park. The sleek and n.o.ble air of patrician trees, standing proudly on the rich velvet sward, the order and grace and beauty of all that meets the eye, lead us, as I have said already, to form a high opinion of the owner. In this we may of course be sometimes disappointed; but a man's character is generally to be traced in almost every object around him over which he has the power of a proprietor, and in few things are a man's taste and habits more distinctly marked than in his park and garden. If we find the owner of a neatly kept garden and an elegant mansion slovenly, rude and vulgar in appearance and manners, we inevitably experience that shock of surprize which is excited by every thing that is incongruous or out of keeping. On the other hand if the garden be neglected and overgrown with weeds, or if every thing in its arrangement indicate a want of taste, and a disregard of neatness and order, we feel no astonishment whatever in discovering that the proprietor is as negligent of his mind and person as of his shrubberies and his lawns.

A civilized country ought not to look like a savage one. We need not have wild nature in front of our neatly finished porticos. Nothing can be more strictly artificial than all architecture. It would be absurd to erect an elegantly finished residence in the heart of a jungle. There should be an harmonious gradation from the house to the grounds, and true taste ought not to object to terraces of elegant design and graceful urns and fine statues in the immediate neighbourhood of a n.o.ble dwelling.