CHAP. XCIX.

Emnormif'CEM. bu'xus.

1337

to an adequate pressure.” (Ibid.) Formerly, a great deal of care was required,in printing woodcuts, in “ the adjustment of a number of small pieces of paperbetween the stretched parchment and blanket that covered the block, duringthe impression from the common hand-press, in order to give a greater forceto the bearing upon shadows, while the lights were, of course, equally relievedfrom the presure;” but a mode is now discovered of lowering the lights bythe wood-engraver; and the blocks are now introduced with the type, andprinted from with the same facility, by the revolving cylinder of a printing-machine.

In the geometncalcmd architectural Style of Gardening, the box was extensivelyemployed, both as a tree and as a shrub, throughout Europe , from the earliesttimes. As a tree, it formed,, when dipped into shape, hedges, arcades, arbours,and, above all, figures of men and animals. As a shrub, it was used to borderbeds and walks, and to execute numerous curious devices; such as letters, coatsof arms, &c., on the ground ; but of all the uses of the dwarf box, the most im-portant, in the ancient style of gardening, was that of forming parterres of em-broidery ; it being the only evergreen shrub susceptible of forming the delicatelines winch that style of parterre required, and of being kept within the narrowlimits of these lines for a number of years. In those days, when the flowers usedin ornamenting gardens were few, the great art of the gardener was to distin-guish his parterres by beautiful and curious artificial forms of evergreenplants. These forms may be described generally as belonging to that styleot ornament known as the taste of Louis Quatorze. Fig. 1216. is a small

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portion of the ground plan of a parterre laid out in this manner; all thelines and dark parts of the figure being formed of box, in no part allowedto grow higher than 3 in. from the ground, and the finer lines being about 2 in.wide. The space between the lines, in the more common designs, was co-hered with sand all of one colour; but in the more choice parterres, differentcoloured sands, earths, shells, powdered glass or potsherds, and other articles,were used, so as to produce red, white, and black grounds, on which the greenot the box appeared to advantage at all seasons. This variety of colours gaveoccasion to Lord Bacon ’s remark : “ As for the making of knots and figureswith divers coloured earths, they be but toys : you may see as good sightsmany times in tarts.” The beauty of these parterres was most conspicuous,when they were seen as a whole from the windows of the house, or froma surrounding terrace-walk. Sometimes, however, they were placed on asloping bank, to be seen from below; an instance of which may be found int ie view of the Palazzo del N. H. Venier, on the Brenta, as given in Volka-mer s Continuation der Niirembergischen Hespeiidum, published in 1714, aportion of which is represented in perspective in fig. 1217. In a view of