tower; Monzie, and the large larches; Culteque; Abercarney House and gardens; Millearn House, with its gardens and greenhouses; Gask House, garden, and large Spanish chestnut and other trees; Balgowan House, parks, and large cedar of Lebanon; Methven Castle, garden, &c.; Lyendoch Cottage garden; scenery on the river Amond, Bessy Bell's and Mary Gray's graves; Perth nurseries; Hill of Kinnoul; Hill of Moncrieff; Moncrieff House and gardens; Duplin Castle, garden, and large trees. After leaving Duplin, I will cross the Earn by the bridge of Forteviot to Invermay; then along the south side of the Earn to Duncrub; Auchterarder House; Strathallan Castle; Culdees Castle, and Drummond Castle; from Drummond Castle along the Crieff and Stirling road to Ardoch, and then from Ardoch to Stirling, &c. &c.

This route will, of course, occupy a series of letters; but having visited all the places above mentioned, and lived at, and in the neighbourhood of, some of them, and having measurements of a great many of the trees, and other notes regarding all or most of them, I shall, as the evenings are now getting long, have ample leisure and opportunity to engage in this delightful task. If you consider that my letters may be of any benefit to any of your readers, and worthy of a place in the Gardener's Magazine, their insertion will be ample compensation for my labour. I will take notice of the habitats of some of the most interesting of our Scottish plants as I go along. My next, if well, will be a visit to Keir Gardens.

Blair-Drummond Gardens, by Doune, Oct. 19. 1843.

ART. V. A Classical Garden of the Mason School of Design, prevalent about the Middle of the last Century, exemplified in the Grounds of Stoke Park, near Windsor, the Seat of John Penn, Esq. Communicated by ROBERT OSBORN.

[The following communication has been in our possession since 1833; see our Vol. for that year, p. 529. We owe many apologies to Mr. Osborn for not having before published it. We have not engraved the very beautifully drawn map which accompanied the MS., because, to reduce it so as to come within our page, would render it of little use. We consider the description of great interest, as showing the style of laying out flower-gardens, and ornamenting them with statues, busts, inscriptions, &c., so strongly approved of by Mason the poet, and exemplified by him at Newnham-Courtnay, near Oxford, between 1770 and 1780. The present possessor of Stoke Park is Granville Penn, Esq., and under his direction the place has undergone some alterations, which are decided improvements. At this time, 1843, it is in excellent keeping.

IN compliance with your request, I send you a little plan of Stoke Park (drawn by my son William), the seat of J. Penn, Esq., grandson of the celebrated Wm. Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and original proprietor of that province; but I am apprehensive that, being upon so small a scale, it will be of little use to you.

The park contains about 300 acres within the paling. It lies nearly due north from Windsor, and is distant from it four miles. To render this park what it is, the skill of artists of the first celebrity (Richmond, Brown, Repton, Wyatt, &c. &c.,) has been called in to aid in beautifying and adorning, and generally, it is allowed, with the happiest success; the architectural struc tures, the artificial rivers, and sylvans cenery, forming most picturesque and pleasing combinations.

The house is a large modern building composed of Grecian and Roman architecture, having four fronts. The south one, or garden front, commands a magnificent view of Windsor Castle; the forest, with St. Leonard's on the right, and the Surrey hills on the left. In this view (and the like may be said of all the rest), the boundary of the park is perfectly concealed, and the grouping of the trees so judiciously contrived, and made to blend so well with the intermediate and distant country, as to give these grounds the effect of indefinite extent.

The view from the east front (though not of that bold character as the former) is a much-admired vista, terminated by a swelling wood of dark pines at a distance of three miles, called Black Park, belonging to R. Harvey, Esq., giving fine relief to the monument erected in memory of Gray, a handsome stone sarcophagus on a lofty pedestal, with inscriptions in the panels of its four sides. In three of these are quotations from his works, and in the fourth the following memento :—

THIS MONUMENT,

IN HONOUR OF THOMAS GRAY,
WAS ERECTED A.D. 1799,

AMONG THE SCENES CELEBRATED BY THAT GREAT LYRIC AND ELEGIAC

POET.

HE DIED JULY 30. 1771,

AND LIES UNNOTICED IN THE CHURCHYARD ADJOINING, UNDER THE TOMBSTONE ON WHICH HE PIOUSLY AND PATHETICALLY RECORDED THE INTERMENT OF HIS AUNT

AND LAMENTED MOTHER.

This spot is much resorted to by persons of taste, both on account of its beauty, as well as to contemplate those scenes which are supposed to have inspired the muse of Gray to compose some of the most beautiful of his poems. From here may be seen, at the east end of the church, under the window, the gravestone under which the mortal remains of the poet are "for ever laid." The picturesque chimneys, and a remnant of the old manorhouse, the subject of Gray's" Long Story," is also seen a little to the right of the church. When seated on the plinth of this monument, and looking westward, the eye takes in, in beautiful succession, over beds of flowers in the foreground, the noble mansion at a distance; fine forms and masses of wood, producing great variety of light and shade; the church and churchyard; at a distance, in an opening in the park, a lofty column supporting the statue of Sir E. Coke; and the picturesque old mansion; the harmonising effect of these objects composing a finished picture. But to go back to the east front of the house; the bridge is a great ornament to this view, both from its position and its form, which is a small segment of a circle, with balustrades and three semicircular arches, the whole built of stone. The spire of the church, too, is an important object in this view, seen rising out of a mass of wood that "crowns the watery glade."

The north front, being that of approach, has but little to recommend it to notice, the whole space on this side the pales being very flat; and, although it is well wooded, yet there are a heaviness and formal squareness in the outlines ill adapted, in my opinion, to gratify the eye accustomed to view these things with taste and discrimination. The monotony, however, is somewhat relieved by a high wood at a distance, and also by the lofty Doric column (before noticed) supporting the statue of that great lawyer Sir Edward Coke, who died, at an advanced age, in the old manor-house.

Mr. Penn, some years ago, had designed to attempt an improvement in this part of his grounds, by excavating and raising mounds of earth, making breaks into the woods, &c. &c.; but the uncertainty of producing an effect commensurate with the magnitude and expense of the undertaking deterred him for the time from putting his plan in execution.

The flower-garden lies to the westward of the house, and is formed upon the plan presented to the reader of poetry by Mason, in the fourth book of his English Garden. A number of busts, upon terms of antique shape, are interspersed among trees and shrubs, each having an inscription upon a tablet in front, selected by Mr. Penn, mostly from the works of the author to which it is affixed; those of Latin, Greek, and Italian having, for the benefit of the unlearned in these languages, a translation upon a movable panel at the back, which lifts into view.

Upon first entering the garden, a walk of a considerable length, of an easy sweep, presents itself to view, leading out of which, a little way along to the right, is a recess containing about a quarter of an acre, ornamented by clumps of shrubs and flowers upon a fine turf, surrounded by a gravel walk, by the verge of which, appropriately placed, are the busts of Dante, Tasso, and Ariosto; and, centrally, a plain green-pedimented summer-house, in which are placed miniature busts of Montesquieu, Molière, Racine, Boileau, Corneille, Fénélon, Voltaire, and Rousseau; all, with the exception of the two last, being tastefully embraced by branches of palm in basso relievo. Returning again to the principal walk, the eye is directed to the busts of Horace and Mæcenas; and, next, to that of Mason, conspicuously placed; retiring behind which, by narrow walks through a thicket of shrubs, you are brought into a broad walk, which Mr. Penn has classically designated the "Peripatetic's walk." Bordering upon this, and other winding branches from it, are placed the busts of Cicero, Seneca, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno. Turning back, and proceeding along the principal walk, you are brought to the broad part of the garden, facing which, and commanding a view of Windsor Castle, is the Temple of Fancy, a Doric structure after the plan of the temple dedicated to the Muses on the banks of the Ilissus, containing a bust of Shakespeare. From here may be seen the busts of Anacreon, Pope, and Gray. A little further on, beneath the branches of a magnificent oak, Petrarch is placed.

We are now brought to the termination of the principal walk, meeting another at right angles, which, pursued a little to the right, brings us to a bust of Waller (appropriate to the inscription taken from Akenside), opposite an opening to the park. In a small recess we next come to an elegant urn of Bath stone, dedicated to the Right Hon. Lady Juliana Penn, whereon Mr. Penn, with a "filial respect and love," has attempted to record some of the virtues of his amiable mother. The walk leads now, through a thick shrubbery, to the termination of the dressed part of the grounds and a bust of Thomson, opening to the view a scene admirably contrasted by its wildness with the one we have just left, and carrying the eye over to Windsor Castle and Eton College. You may either pass on through a wicket-gate, and reenter opposite the bust of Virgil, or return a little and approach the same spot by a walk within the boundary of the garden. From a seat here, surrounding the base of an oak, is seen, in rather a romantic situation, overhung by a "spreading beech," the ice-house, disguised by a wall of artificial rockwork, presenting a cave-like appearance; over one of the openings of which is inscribed the word "Tityri," associating it with the bust of Virgil, which is near this spot; the classic reader will readily enter into the spirit and meaning of this. There is a pleasing variety and effect of seclusion from the delllike appearance of this part of the ground. The next object we come to is a fine youthful head of Milton, modelled by Chenie from an original portrait. After passing a glade commanding an angular view of the house, together with an extent of park, we are brought to another portion of flower-garden, situated, as it were, in the centre of a wood enriched with rare shrubs and flowers;

a gravel walk surrounds it, by the side of which, at about equal distances, are placed_Newton, Locke, and Bacon; pursuing the walk from this last, you suddenly come upon Spenser and Chaucer; and, lastly, a handsome stone urn, dedicated by Mr. Penn to his cousin, the Honourable Richard Thomas Dawson, son of the late Viscount Cremorne.

Having now perambulated the flower-garden, there is little more to interest the attention. The walk to the church and shrubbery adjacent to the churchyard deserves, however, some little notice. The walk leads through a wilder ness of thorns, and, crossing an artificial waterfall by a wooden bridge, shortly after enters the park; by crossing which, either upon the grass or by following the carriage road, at a distance of about 200 yards, we come to what is called the church shrubbery, which commands a private entrance to the church through a neat small cloister ornamented with painted glass. The shrubbery has several chairs, interspersed with inscriptions from the "Long Story," illustrated by vignette views painted upon the backs. One of these, upon an artificial mound, commands a very picturesque view of the church and churchyard, immediately over the graves of Groom and Tyacke, the two domestics made mention of by Gray in his "Long Story." It is but a short distance hence to the kitchen-garden, one of the remaining appendages to the old manor-house; but, though of considerable antiquity, it is very productive, and has a good pinery, vinery, &c., with small fish-ponds in it. Stoke Park, Oct. 1833.

ART. VI. Hints for the Improvement of the Town of Southampton, with a short Notice of the Vineyard at Shirley. By the CON

DUCTOR.

THE business which took us to Southampton was our being employed by the town council to make a plan for a General Cemetery; and being rather poorly, and finding the air of the town agree with us better than that of the Isle of Wight, which we had previously tried, we remained there a month.

Southampton is a town rapidly increasing in houses and population, but, unfortunately, it seems to have been badly managed; the town council consisting of two political factions, the object of one of which was to defeat the measures of the other. A better feeling now prevails, and both parties are uniting for the general good. The corruption of the citizens who are electors is well known to all who read the newspapers. A citizen observed to us on this subject, that "the devil is not so black as he is painted, nor are the citizens so corrupt as attempted to be shown before the election committees for party purposes, and as appeared by the newspapers at the time.' As a proof of the influence of the radical faction, we may state that above a year ago the other party had fixed on a situation for a cemetery, high, dry, and with the soil of gravel to an unknown depth; but, under the pretence of its being half a mile too far from town, the bill in parliament for authorising it was defeated by a sort of trick, notwithstanding the horrors which, as is proved in the Report on the Health of Towns, were then daily taking place in the

churchyard of St. Mary's. This burying-ground, which is the largest in Southampton, so long as it continues to be buried in, cannot fail both to contaminate the air of the locality and the wells of the vicinity. The consequence of the defeat of the bill alluded to is, that the council have been compelled either to do without a cemetery, or to fix upon a spot by no means so eligible for the purpose to which it is to be applied, as could be wished; it is, however, nearer town.

The alternate System of Burying. In our design for this cemetery, we introduced a new principle, viz. that of providing in perpetuity for the superfluous earth dug out of the graves. Thus, suppose four coffins deposited in one grave, either at once or at different times, it is obvious that there must be a quantity of superfluous soil equal to the space occupied by the coffins; and somewhat more, from the soil taken out being broken into small pieces, and thus taking up more space than it did when it was in one mass. In country churchyards, where seldom more than one coffin is deposited in a grave, very little inconvenience arises from the earth that cannot be returned to the excavation, it being generally raised over the grave in the form of a mound; but in cemeteries got up on speculation, where, in order to make the most of the ground, a dozen coffins or more are sometimes deposited in the same grave, and where there are also many brick graves and vaults, the quantity of superfluous earth is enormous, as may be seen by the immense heap which has accumulated in the course of seven years in the Kensal Green Cemetery, and which the directors are now advertising to be given away; because, being consecrated soil, it cannot be sold. The principle which we have introduced into the cemetery at Southampton is, to divide the ground to be buried in into regular spaces; say into beds 16 ft. wide, with paths 4 ft. wide. Only every alternate bed is to be buried in at first, till that bed is completely full; and a calculation having been made of the quantity of superfluous earth that will be produced, the bed not to be buried in is to be excavated to such a depth (say from 18 in. to 3 ft., according to the number of coffins it is calculated will be placed in a grave) as will contain all the superfluous soil, without being raised more than a few inches above the general surface. The soil thrown out is to be laid on the surface of the bed that is to be buried in; and the intervening paths, the surrounding borders, and, in short, the whole surface of the cemetery, is to be adjusted in conformity with this arrangement. When the bed or compartment to be buried in is completely filled, then begin to bury in the adjoining bed or compartment in which the superfluous soil was put, and place the superfluous soil from this bed on the surface of that which has just been filled with coffins. It will raise this surface by the time the