But when we who are her devotees wish to build a Temple for her worship, we don't consult Æsculapius: he is a physician, not an architect, and Mr. Robinson has been trying to convince us for over twenty years that an architect is not the person to consult, for he knows nothing about the matter. Æsculapius is on the side of Nature, we are told, and he has been assuring us that the architect is not; but in spite of all its opponents, the garden of form and finish is the garden of to-day. Every one who wishes to have a garden worth talking about--a garden to look out upon from a house asks for a garden of form and finish. I am constantly feeing that I am protesting too much in its favour, considering that it needs no apologist at this time of day, when, as I have just said, opinion on its desirability is not divided, so I will hasten to relieve myself of the charge of accusation by apology. Only let me say that the beautiful illustrations to Mr. Robinson's volume entitled _Garden Design and Architects' Gardens_--they are by Alfred Parsons--go far, in my opinion, to prove exactly the opposite to what they are designed to prove. We have pictures of stately houses and of comparatively humble houses, in which we are shown the buildings starting up straight out of the landscape, with a shaggy tree or group of trees cutting off at a distance of only a few yards from the walls, some of the most interesting architectural features; we have pictures of mansions with a woodland behind them and a river flowing in front, and of mansions in the very midst of trees, and looking at every one of them we are conscious of that element of incongruity which takes away from every sense of beauty. In fact, looking at the woodcuts, finely executed as they are, we are forced to limit our observation to the architecture of the houses only; for there is nothing else to observe. We feel as if we were asked to admire an unfinished work--as if the owner of the mansion had spent all his money on the building and so was compelled to break off suddenly before the picture that he hoped to make of the “place” was complete or approaching completeness.