I might also add another argument against invisible fences in general (except in short glades), viz. that when they divide a park from a garden, they separate two things which the mind knows cannot be united. In modern gardening it has been deemed a principle to exclude all view of fences; but there are a certain class of flowering plants which require support, and these should be amply provided for in all ornamental gardens. The open trellis-fence, and the hoops on poles, over which creeping and climbing plants are gracefully spread, give a richness to garden scenery that no painting can adequately represent. The novelty of this attempt to collect a number of gardens, differing from each other, may, perhaps, excite the critic's censure; but I will hope there is no more absurdity in collecting gardens of different styles, dates, characters, and dimensions, in the same inclosure, than in placing the works of a Raphael and a Teniers in the same cabinet, or books sacred and profane in the same library. Perhaps, after all, the pleasure derived from a garden has some relative association with its evanescent nature and produce: we view with more delight a wreath of short-lived roses, than a crown of amaranth, or everlasting flowers. However this may be, it is certain, that the good and wise of all ages have enjoyed their purest and most innocent pleasures in a garden, from the beginning of time, when the father of mankind was created in a garden, till the fulness of time, when HE, who often delighted in a garden, was at last buried in one.
