IN A TUSCAN GARDEN.
In a Tuscan Garden. (John Lane. 5s.)—This is a delightful, because delightfully personal yet not unpleasantly egotistic, book. The author tells, in the first instance, how, after a long and rather dreary search for a house in Tuscany, she (?) literally stumbled on what she wanted in the shape of a " vilitto" with enchanting views. "Towards the north we looked up to the highest point of the old Etruscan mother city, eastward were the Vallombrosa hills, and lying down below, veiled in the misty light of the hot July sun, were the domes and spires of Florence, with the blue Apennines rising beyond towards the far south." The heart of the writer warmed to the " vilino " because she found the English arms over the portico, a fact attributable to the circumstance that it had been the country residence of the English Minister at the Court of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The book consists largely, of course, of details in connection with the development of the garden attached to the house. The writer is not enamoured of the most modern gardening. On the contrary, "with all due admiration for the scientific garden culture of which the last twenty years have witnessed a remarkable development in England, it is a question whether this boom in gardening
matters is not being pushed too far Of the writing and the reading of garden books there is, indeed, no end; and in mine it will be seen that I can lay no claim to botanical know- ledge, and am not even much of a practical gardener, only, in fact, an out-of-door decorator and colourist." When, therefore, the writer of the book comes to enter into details of the "developments" of her own garden and of the characteristics of Italian gardening, ancient and modern, she shows that she is no friend to " fancy" gardening. The interest of the book is not confined to gardening. It contains what can only be termed most graceful prattle about Tuscan servants, treatment of animals in Italy, British tourists, and the various seasons of the year in Tuscany. The writer indulges, too, in many "asides" on contemporary history, British national characteristics, and a host of other things, which are invariably shrewd and never malicious.
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