eesti ct ee eee aera e ot Sues viii ime =n een ¥ + rt he SS 4 :. ay % z = - a THE GARDENS OF ENGLAND IN THE SOUTHERN & WESTERN COUNTIES EDITED BY CHARLES HOLME MCMVII OFFICES OF . THE STUDIO” LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK PREFATORY NOTE Tue Editor desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the owners, whose names appear under the illustrations, for the valuable assistance they have rendered him by allowing their gardens to be represented in this volume. Special facilities have been accorded Mr. W. J. Day, the photographer—whose excellent work is familiar to readers of Tue Stupio—whereby he has been enabled to obtain, exclusively for this work, the extensive and unique series of garden subjects here illustrated. The Editor also wishes to acknowledge the help given to Mr. Day by the head gardeners. To Her Grace The Duchess of Bedford, Miss E. H. Adie, Mr. George S. Elgood, R.I., Mr. E. Arthur Rowe, Mr. H. G. Seaman and Miss Lilian Stannard the Editor tenders his cordial thanks for the loan of the drawings reproduced in colour. it gee = iM Ms ARTICLES The History of Garden-making ; ; : page i The Principles of Garden-making agit Notes on the Illustrations : : ; ; , XXXI 95 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR PLATE SUBJECT ARTIST 1. The Forecourt, Great Tangley after George S. Elgood, Manor, Surrey KE: xx. Yew Arch at Brickwall, Sussex _,, Ri ye xxxv. ‘Early Autumn Tints”. : i Lilian Stannard tiv. Grass Walk at Hampton Court ,, E. H. Adie txix. ‘A Summer Evening”. :. Gs Lilian Stannard Ltxxxvi. ‘The Long Water, Hampton ‘4 E. H. Adie Court cv. Penshurst, Kent . : : cA E. Arthur Rowe exx. ‘An Old Garden” : ‘ a Lilian Stannard LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS PLATE II. XIV, XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV, XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII, XXIX, XXX. XXXI, XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX, XL. XLI. XLII. UL SUBJECT The Water Garden at Abbotsbury Castle, Dorset ” ” ”» ” Garden Gates at Ammerdown Park, Somerset Ammerdown Park, Somerset Sheltered Seat at Ammerdown Park, Somerset Ammerdown Park, Somerset ” ” ” The Water Garden at Ashridge Park, Herts The Rockery Walk at Ashridge Park, Herts Gardener’s Cottage at Ashridge Park, Herts The Monk’s Walk, Ashridge Park, Herts Italian Garden and Orangery at Ashridge Park, Herts The Garden Entrance at Beaulieu Palace, Hants Blenheim Palace, Oxon The Rose Garden at Blenheim Palace, Oxon Bronze Fountain at Blenheim Palace, Oxon The Lion Fountain at Blenheim Palace, Oxon The “ Rose of Sharon’? Bank at Blenheim Palace, Oxon Cascade at Bowood Park, Wilts The Terrace Steps at Bowood Park, Wilts The Hall, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts Pergola at The Hall, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts Portugal Laurel at Broadlands, Hants Entrance to the Orangery at Broadlands, Hants The Wall Garden at Brockenhurst Park, Hants The Dutch Garden at Brockenhurst Park, Hants Brockenhurst Park, Hants ”» ” ” Brympton House, Somerset Terrace Steps at Brympton House, Somerset Canford Manor, Dorset ” ” ” Swiss Cottage at Chaddlewood, Devon Ivy-clad Summer-house at Chaddlewood, Devon Summer-house at Clevedon Court, Somerset The Terrace at Clevedon Court, Somerset Below the Terrace at Clevedon Court, Somerset The Park Entrance at Corsham Court, Wilts The Rose Garden at Corsham Court, Wilts OwneER Mary,Countess of Ilchester ”» »” ” Lord Hylton »” ” »” ” » ” ” ” The Earl Brownlow ” ” ”» ”? »” »”» ” ” Lord Montagu of Beau- lieu The Duke of Marlborough »” PP] »” ” ” ”» ” ” » ” ” ” The Marquis of Lans- downe ”» ” ” J. Moulton, Esq. »” ” ” Rt. Hon. Evelyn Ashley »” ” ” E. J. Morant, Esq. ”» ” ” ”» 3%”) ” ” ” ” Sir 8, C. B. Ponsonby-Fane ” ”» ” Lord Wimborne »” ” G. Soltau-Symons, Esq. ” > ” Sir Edmund Elton, Bart. ” >”? »” ” General Lord Methuen ”» ”? Se ee ee + LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS PLATE XLIItT. XLIV. XLV. XLVI, XLVII. XLVIII. XLIX. LXI. LXII. LXIII. LXIV. LXV. LXVI. LXVII. LXVIII. LXX. LxXxI. LXXxII. LXXIIlI. LXXIV. LXXV. LXXVI. LXXVII, LXXVIII. LXXIX. LXXxX. LXXXI,. SUBJECT Corsham Court, Wilts Garden Entrance at Daw’s Hill Lodge, Bucks The Garden Front at Daw’s Hill Lodge, Bucks Loggia at Dropmore, Bucks Alcove Seat at Dropmore, Bucks Lily Pool at Dropmore, Bucks Garden Pensioner’s Cottage at Eggesford House, Devon Ancient Cross at Eggesford House, Devon Cromwell’s Seat at Embley Park, Hants The Cedar Walk at Embley Park, Hants Embley Park, Hants Garden Gateway at Eridge Castle, Sussex Eridge Castle, Sussex The Cedars of Lebanon at Farnham Castle, Surrey Great Tangley Manor, Surrey The Sundial Garden at Great Tangley Manor, Surrey Gardener’s Cottage at Greenway House, Devon Greenway House, Devon Groombridge House, Sussex The Lower Garden at Groombridge ice Sussex The Upper Garden at Groombridge House, Sussex The Garden Front at Ham House, Surrey The Old Orangery at Ham House, Surrey The New Water Garden at Hartham Park, Wilts The Water Garden at Hartham Park, Wilts Entrance Gate at Hatfield House, Herts A Cornerof the Forecourt at Hatfield House, Herts The Maze at Hatfield House, Herts Old Garden Wall at Hatfield House, Herts. Seat on the Terrace at Hinton Admiral, Hants Rock Garden at Hinton Admiral, Hants Pampas Walk at Hinton Admiral, Hants The Fountain Garden at Holland House, Ken- sington Entrance to the Flower Garden at Holland House, Kensington The Terrace Garden at Holland House, Ken- sington The Orangery at Holland House, Kensington Terra Cotta Group at Holland House, Kensington OwneER General Lord Methuen The Earl Carrington ” » J. B. Fortescue, Esq. ” ” »” »” The Earl of Portsmouth ” ” Major Chichester ” »” ” ” The Marquis of Aber- gavenny ” ” ”» The Bishop of Winchester Colonel E. H. Kennard » ” ” T. B. Bolitho, Esq. »”» ” ” The Misses Saint ” ” »” ” The Earl of Dysart ” »”» »” Sir John Dickson-Poyn- der, Bart. » 2) »” The Marquis of Salisbury ”» ” ”» ” ” »” ” ” ”» Sir George Meyrick, Bart. ” ” »” ” ”» ” Mary, Countess of IIches- ter ” »” »” »” ”? »” ” ” ” ” ” »” VIL PLATE LXXXII, LXXXIII, LXXXIV. LXXXV. LXXXVII, LXXXVIII LXXXIX. xc; XCI, XCII. XCIII. XCIV. XCV. XCVI. XCVII. XCVIII, XCIX,. C. CI, Cit. CIII, CIV. CVI. CVIl. CVIIl. CIX. CX. CXI. CxII. CXIII. CXIV. CXV. CXVI, CXVII. CXVIII, CXIX. CxXXI, CXXII. UVI1t LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS SUBJECT Sundial at Inwood House, Dorset Killerton, Devon The Rock Garden at Killerton, Devon Great Spanish Chestnut at Killerton, Devon Sundial at Kingston Lacy, Dorset The Formal Garden at Longford Castle, Wilts ” ”» ” ” The President’s Garden at Magdalen College, Oxford Montacute House, Somerset The Upper Garden at Moor Park, Herts The Formal Garden at Moor Park, Herts Old Place, Lindfield, Sussex The Garden House from the Lime Avenue at Old Place, Lindfield, Sussex Grass Path at Old Place, Lindfield, Sussex The Topiary Walk at Old Place, Lindfield, Sussex View from the Terrace at Orchardleigh Park, Somerset The Garden Front at Orchardleigh Park, Somerset Herbaceous Flower Border at Orchardleigh Park, Somerset The Terrace at Orchardleigh Park, Somerset The River Garden at Paulton’s Park, Romsey, Hants Old Venetian Well-head at Paulton’s Park, Rom- sey, Hants Penshurst Place, Kent The Garden Entrance at Penshurst Place, Kent Diana’s Pool at Penshurst Place, Kent The “Old Dial’ Garden at Penshurst Place, Kent The Formal Garden at Penshurst Place, Kent Garden Entrance at Pentillie Castle, Cornwall Pentillie Castle, Cornwall Window at St. John’s College, Oxford The Palace, Salisbury, Wilts The Water Garden at Sedgwick Park, Sussex ” ” PP) ”» Stratton Park, Hants ” ”» ” PP) e The Upper Pond at Swaylands House, Kent The Formal Garden at Taplow Court, Bucks Taplow Court, Bucks OwneER Lady Theodora Guest Sir Charles Acland, Bart. ” ” ” > ” ” > Mrs. Ralph Bankes The Earl of Radnor > ” ”» b) The President W. Phelips, Esq. Lord Ebury ”» ” W. E. Tower, Esq. >” bP] ”» bP) > ee bP) ” ” ” Rev. W. A. Duckworth ”? ae >» ”? ” >”? ” ” ” Capt. R. C. H. Sloane- Stanley ” ” ” Lord de L’Isle and Dudley > PP > ” PP >? >”? ” ”» ”» PP] ” William Coryton, Esq. ” ”° ” The Warden The Bishop of Salisbury Mrs. Henderson ” ” : The Earl of Northbrook ” 39 PP %” ”»> ” G. J. Drummond, Esq. Lord Desborough ” > LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS PLATE CXXITIl, CXXIV. CXXV. CxXxVI. CXXVII. CXXVIII. CXXIXx. CXXX. CxxxI,. CXxXXII. CXXXITI, CXXXIV. CXXXV. CXXXVI. SUBJECT Group of Topiary Work at Tring Park, Herts The Lily Pond at Tring Park, Herts The Lily Pond and Grass Steps at Tring Park, Herts Entrance to Garden Subway at Tring Park, Herts The Lady Rothschild’s Almshouses at Tring Herts Steps to the Park at Ven Hall, Somerset Ven Hall, Somerset Rose Garden at Ven Hall, Somerset Wadham College, Oxford Ilex Trees at Walhampton Park, Hants The Holbein Walk at Wilton House, Wilts The Italian Garden at Wilton House, Wilts The River Path at Wilton House, Wilts Wilton House, Wilts OwneER Lord Rothschild >»? ” » »”» ” »” Hon. Mrs. A. Ker ” » >”? ” >>) 33 The Warden J. P. Heseltine, Esq. The Earl of Pembroke bP] ” 2”? > >” ” ix Pye i oe TY ‘GOOD13 ‘S 3ADYOaD As DNIMVEG YNOI00-"a_LYM V WOUS "ASYYNS “YONVW ASZTISNVL LV3SYD ‘LYNOOSYHOS FHL ("Paojpag JO ssayong Syl edeuH vay Aq jUE] A\puly) THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING ry{N attempting any detailed history of gardening and garden-making, the chief difficulty would be to decide where to begin. It is practicall impossible to say where and at what date the idea first sprang up in the human mind that pleasure was to be derived from an ordered and deliberately planned surrounding of trees and flowers, or how the progression was made from cultivation of the ground for strictly utilitarian purposes to the planting of spaces in which leisure moments could be spent in frank enjoyment of nature. Probably, if material were available, such a history could be started at that remote period when man ceased to be merely a nomad, wandering here and there with his flocks and herds, and when, instead, he adopted some sort of permanent habitation. His first thought would be, when he had settled in the country he had chosen, to provide for his wants by growing those plants which were necessary for food, and by a natural process he would change from the purely pastoral life to that of the agriculturist. Next, he would seek to supply himself with those herbs and trees which, if not exactly necessities of existence, can be counted as more or less indispensable for human enjoyment ; and to satisfy this desire he would add to his possessions the vineyard, the orchard, and the herb garden. Out - of the wish to increase his material luxuries would grow, by an obvious sequence of ideas, the further wish to develop what esthetic instincts he might possess, and to use these instincts for self- gratification. The garden, then, in its earliest form can be regarded as the result of an attempt to make a piece of cultivated ground pleasant to look at and agreeable to rest in. It was the shady place where the man who had laboured came for relaxation, where he turned for bodil comfort and the pleasure of the eye. In the East, the cradle of ancient civilisations, climatic conditions had to be considered, and the cool shadow beneath the fig-tree or the vine was a necessity to the jaded worker. So he planted his trees and trained his vines to ive him shelter from the heat of the sun, he planned quiet nooks to which he could retire ; and bit by bit he built up a garden which was frankly intended to be a place apart, set aside for repose and recreation. When he had once accepted the principle that this corner of the land he tilled should be recognised as a refuge in which i THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING he could forget the cares of his daily existence he sought to. give it a charm of its own, to beautify it by flowers, to embellish it by cunning devices, and to make it by all the means at his disposal a kind of little shrine where he could offer incense to the goddess, Nature. The first records of gardens systematically arranged and laid out on fixed principles are to be found in the works of Eastern writers. a Assyria, Persia and Egypt, the science of gardening was closely studied, and the principles « on which the pleasure ground should be designed to fulfil its particular purpose were well understood. In India, too, the value of a garden setting to enhance the dignity of the palace or the temple was fully appreciated ; the Indian: rulers even in remote ages were garden lovers, and turned to full account the opportunities they enjoyed of shaping the luxuriance of tropical nature into ordered forms, and of adding to nature’s beauties by bringing her into relation with architecture. But the ancient history of gardening is by no means confined to the East ; in the West the Greeks and the Romans did much to de’ the the art, , and the Romans especially carried it to a very high degree of co completeness. The account written by Pliny the younger of his winter garden on the Bay of Ostia, and of his other garden at his Tusculan villa in the Apennines, gives an admirable suggestion of the way in which the wealthy and cultured Roman citizen surrounded himself with fantastic contrivances, and used all the resources of the gardener’s craft to increase the attractiveness of the place in which he lived. The winter villa with its hedges of rosemary and box, its terraces, its vines, fig-trees, and mulberries, and its porticos and seats from which charming views could be obtained over land and sea, must have been a delightful retreat, and it is easy to understand the joy of ownership which is so apparent in _ Pliny’s descriptions of his house by the sea. But it was the Tusculan villa upon which he lavished his attention, and to the adornment of which he devoted so much care and ingenuity. The garden of this villa must indeed have been a marvel, so full was it of quaint and curious features, and so inventively were all its details devised. From the terrace before the house stretched a lawn ornamented with box-trees clipped into the shapes of various animals, and round this lawn ran a walk shut in by evergreens. Next came a circular enclosure with a group of clipped box-trees in the centre ; and near by was another enclosure in the form of a hippodrome with sides of alternate box and plane trees connected by ivy, and curved ends of cypress backed by bay-trees. The paths il THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING were bordered with roses and edged with box, and in the spaces between were all sorts of devices cut in box, and here and there obelisks or fruit-trees. Besides the trees and plants the garden abounded in architectural features—here an alcove of white marble draped with vines, there a summer-house with fountains and marble seats, and all about basins and streams of water, partly for ornament and partly for purposes of irrigation. Nothing was forgotten which could add to its beauty or increase its interest to the lover of nature. Yet it may be questioned whether Pliny’s gardens were not equalled, or perhaps surpassed, by those of other Romans who shared his tastes. The representations which have been preserved of gardens of this date, and the descriptions which have been left by post-Augustan writers, prove that the formal planning of pleasure grounds, adorned with fountains, vases, statues, and other architec- tural additions, was extensively carried out wherever space permitted, and that in addition to formal planning a very definite formality was observed in the treatment of accessory details. The sopiarius, who clipped trees into fantastic shapes, was much in request, and his work found ready acceptance among the Romans who had a mind to possess gardens which would be in the fashion of the period. A set and deliberate ordering of all the parts of the garden plan and a careful observance of accepted principles of design were recognised as essential, while within the limits which fashion imposed there was ample scope for the exercise of very pleasant fancy and very varied contrivance. _ These Roman gardens are of particular interest because to them can be partly traced the origin of garden-making~on formal lines in England. The gardeners of the Italian Renaissance modelled themselves upon their Roman predecessors, and re-introduced the clipped trees and the other architectural and semi-architectural features which had been so much in vogue centuries before. They sought to revive the dignity and classic grace of the earlier work, and to link up, by a certain continuity of methods, their practice with that of the past. The atmosphere they desired to create was that of studied elegance, severely perfect, and at the same time sumptuous and restrained, the atmosphere which makes itself felt in Hawthorne’s description of the Medici Gardens :—“ They are laid out in the old fashion of straight paths, with borders of box, which form hedges of great height and density, and are shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall of stone at the top and sides. There are green alleys with long vistas, overshadowed by ilex trees ; and at each intersection of the paths the visitor finds seats of lichen- iii THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING covered stone to repose on, and marble statues that look forlornly at him. In the more open portions of the gardens, before the sculptured front of the villa, you see fountains and flower beds ; and in their season a profusion of roses, from which the genial sun of Italy distils a fragrance to be scattered abroad by the no less genial breeze.” | The Renaissance influence began to be active in England during the earlier years of the sixteenth century, and though it was modified to some extent by the traditions already existing here it_ about some marked changes in English _garden-making. What was the character of the work done by the earlier gardeners in this country cannot now be very exactly stated, in the absence of detailed records; but from some of the medieval manuscripts in which illuminations of garden scenes are inserted it would appear that pleasure grounds laid out with a good deal of consideration for effect, and possessing many interesting features, were by no means uncommon. Hedges and shaded walks, fountains and little runnels of water, flower-beds planted in intricate patterns, arbours and seats, trellises covered with flowers, all set out within a space surrounded by a high wall, were the various parts which were welded together by the designers of the medieval garden, and the result of this combination was apparently quite persuasive. As a word-picture of a garden of this character the lines written by James I. of Scotland, when he was a captive at Windsor, in the early years of the fifteenth century, are worth quoting :— | ““Now was there made, fast by the Tower’s wall, A garden fair, and in corneris set Ane herbere green with wandes long and small, Railit about, and so with treeis set, Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet, Thet lyf was non, walking there forbye, That might therein scarce any wight espye— So thick the boughis and the leaves green Beshaded all the alleys that there were— And myddis every herbere might be seene The sharp, green, sweete junipere.” In this description there is implied a quite complete system of planning and the use of a regular pattern in the laying out of the ground occupied by the garden. Formality was evidently recognised as essential, alleys “beshaded” with closely grown foliage were contrasted with open spaces, and the different parts of the garden were defined and marked out one from the other by hedges and fences. Clearly there was nothing haphazard in the mediaeval iv THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING methods, and no idea of leaving Nature to work her will unassisted by human ingenuity. It can be imagined that the introduction of Italian devices into a country which possessed already a sufficiently definite conviction about the principles of garden-making did not cause a mere destruc- tion of a system which had been followed probably for some centuries. What resulted was rather in the nature of a compromise : new ideas were acquired from Italy, but in working out these ideas much that had served well the designers in the past was retained. At first the novelty of the Italian style gave it an amount of popu- larity which promised to make it all-pervading, and even its more extravagant peculiarities were generally adopted ; as time went on, however, many of these extravagances were corrected, and by the welding together of the new methods and the old, a better way was found of satisfying the English taste. The Italian sumptuousness was accepted, but the quaintness of the medieval work and its homeliness of manner were allowed to modify this sumptuousness into something not unduly artificial, and not excessively unnatural. The full effects of this alliance were not seen until the seventeenth century. During the sixteenth the Renaissance garden, the Roman type revived, was made fashionable by the preference shown for it by Henry VIII., who not only employed Italians to lay out the grounds of his palace of Nonsuch, in Surrey, commenced in 1539, but also, in 1530, brought many Italian features into the gardens at Hampton Court, which had been treated by Wolsey in the medieval - English manner. One of the most notable gardens of this period was that at Theobald’s, for Lord Burleigh. It was begun in 1560, and from the description of it, written by the German traveller, Hentzner, who published in 1598 an account of his visit to England, it seems to have been designed quite closely on the Italian lines. “* Close to the palace,” he writes, “is a garden surrounded on all sides by water, so that anyone in a boat may wander to and fro among the fruit-groves with great pleasure to himself. There you will find various trees and herbs, labyrinths made with great pains, a fountain of springing water, of white marble ; columns, too, and pyramids placed about the garden—some of wood, some of stone. We were afterwards taken to the garden-house by the gardener, and saw in the ground floor, which is circular in shape, twelve figures of Roman Emperors in white marble, and a table of Lydian stone.” And further on he mentions a banqueting-room adjoining this garden-house and connected with it by a little bridge. There is proof enough in such records that sixteenth-century Vv THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING gardening was made the subject of serious study, and that it was carried out on elaborate lines. How great was the attention it received can be judged from the number of books on garden-making written at this period. There was Dr. Andrew Borde’s “ Boke for to lerne a man to be wyse in buyldyng of his house for the health of his body, e to hold quyetnes for the helth of his soule and body”; there was Thomas Hill’s “ A most briefe and pleasaunt treatyse teachynge how to dress, sowe, and set a garden, gathered out of the principallest authors in this art”; there was Bacon’s. * Essay on Gardens”; and there was ‘“ The Gardener’s Labyrinth,” by Didymus Mountaine, which last seems to have been chiefly derived from one of the many editions of Hill’s book. Borde and Hill were little more than compilers who drew their material from earlier works by Italian writers, and Bacon’s “ Essay ” was merely a gathering of theories set forth with all the charm of a scholarly style. But all these books are interesting, because they provide evidence.that the subject with which they deal was one which made an appeal to many readers. Bacon’s theoretical garden inclines decidedly towards what may be called the extreme development of the Renaissance manner. He_ accepts, certainly, much of the medieval tradition, but he prescribes all sorts of additions which are clearly suggested by his sympathy with the importations from Italy—the fountains and statues, the clipped trees, the arcades, and the fantastic ornaments of coloured glass “gilt for the sunne to play upon.” In Hill’s book, and in “The Gardener’s Labyrinth,” the bulk of the information oferel is openly taken from Roman authorities, whose works are either quoted directly or freely referred to; but, besides, there are some hints given about garden-making, as it was understood at that time, which are not without value to the student of garden history, because they refer to a somewhat less ambitious type of design than Bacon had in mind. Hill and Bacon were both theorists, but the former addressed himself to average people who wanted but a modest pleasure ground, the latter offered advice to the few men who could afford to do things on a large scale. One famous garden is supposed to have been laid out in accordance with the prescriptions in Bacon’s essay—that | at Moor Park for the Countess of Bedford. Of this” place an account exists written by Sir William Temple, who evidently admired it unreservedly :—“ The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hertfordshire. I will describe it for a model to those that meet with such a situation, and are above the vi THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING regards of common expense. It lies at the side of a hill, upon which the house stands, but not very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of most use and pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden; the great parlour opens into the midst of a terrace gravel-walk that lies even with it, and which may be about three hundred paces long and broad in proportion ; the border set with standard laurels, which have the beauty of orange-trees out ot flower and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many stone steps, in the middle and at each end, with a very large parterre. This is divided into quarters by gravel-walks, and adorned with two fountains and eight statues at the several quarters. At the end of the terrace walks are two summer-houses, and the sides of the parterre are ranged with two large cloisters open to the garden. Over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and fenced with balusters ; and the passage into these airy walks is out of the two summer-houses at the end of the first terrace walk. The cloister facing the south is covered with vines. From the middle of the parterre is a descent by many steps into the lower garden, which is all fruit-trees, ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness, which is very shady ; the walks here are all green, and there is a grotto embellished with figures of shell, rockwork, fountains, and waterworks.” As Sir William Temple can be counted among the advocates of the formal style, his praise of the Moor Park garden as it was when he Brae ake character of the place has since been radically altered— is certainly significant. The arrangement he describes must have been admirably effective, and excellent both in its stateliness of planning and its richness of detail ; and the garden must have pro- vided a quite satisfactory illustration of the Italian manner. How far its beauties can be referred to Bacon’s suggestions cannot now be said, but it is quite possible that the real designer was inspired by the theories so pleasantly set forth in the “ Essay on Gardens,” and that he found in the fancies of a cultivated and intelligent literary man much which was capable of being put into actual practice. The first books of English writers in which the art of garden de- signing was treated from the standpoint of personal knowledge appeared early in the seventeenth century. They were by Gervase Markham and William Lawson, both of whom had tested by many years of practical experience the principles which they advocated. Markham, though he wrote for the man of ordinary means rather than for the few wealthy personages, was a strong believer_in_the need for orderly formality in even the least ambitious garden; and b Rien Vii ne oe Af 4 THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING the rules he laid down for the planning of both pleasure grounds and herb gardens show how much importance he attached to careful consideration of even the smaller details of the design. He divided his space into squares, each of which was to be surrounded by a path and subdivided into four quarters by other paths, and at the intersec- tion of these paths there was to be placed a sundial, a pyramid, a fountain, or some other architectural feature. If the squares | could be arranged on different levels, flights of steps, “ staires of state,” were to be built connecting them. He retained the high wall, or quickset hedge, as a surrounding to the entire garden, in this adhering to the medieval fashion ; and he also retained that other medieval feature, “the knot or border planted with flowers in an elaborately formal pattern. ‘These Knots were to occupy each of the subdivisions of the square. Lawson, in the same way, advocated regularity, and his books, “The Countrie Housewife’s Garden SRR New Orchard and Garden,” recognise formality as a matter of course. He, too, directs that the garden should be a square enclosed within a wall, and that it should be ornamented with knots; and, like Markham, he expects the same care to be bestowed upon the planning of the part intended for use as upon that intended for show and enjoyment. His idea of an orchard is a place with walks and seats, beds of flowers, clipped trees, mazes, and other ornamentations; and the kitchen garden is to be made gay with flowers—nature’s charm is not to be sacrificed for the sake of mere utilitarianism. Indeed, the love of nature is very apparent in Lawson’s way of treating his subject; he was an idealist, although the purpose of his books was deliberately ‘practical, and “the gard fen he place” where all the senses could be. gratified. ‘He expresses this idea” admirably in such words as these :—‘‘ What can your eye desire to see, your eare to heare, your mouth to taste, or your nose to snivell’ that is not to be had in an orchard with abundance and beauty? What more delightsome than an infinite varietie of sweet-smelling flowers? decking with sundrye colours the greene mantle of the earth, the universal mother of us all, so by them bespotted, so dyed, that all the world cannot sample them, and wherein it is more fit to admire the Dyer than imitate his workmanship, colouring not only the earth but decking the ayre, and sweetening every breath and spirit. “The rose red, damaske, velvet, and double, double province rose, the sweet muske rose double and single, the double and single white rose, the faire and sweet-scenting woodbind double and single ; Viii THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING purple cowslips and double cowslips, primrose double and single, the violet nothing behind the best for smelling sweetly, and a thousand more will provoke your contente, and all these by the skill of your Gardener _so_ comely and orderly placed in your borders and o All this illustrates the spirit in which the art of gardening was carried on by the men who were to a large extent free from _the Italian influence, or who had the acuteness to perceive how the earlier traditions could be used as a kind of stock upon which the Italian methods could be grafted ; and such books as Lawson’s are the more interesting because they were written by a gardener who, as he says in the Preface to his ‘“‘ New Garden and Orchard,” was able to draw upon the knowledge he had acquired by “the labours of forty-eight years.” In working out the sequence of events in the history of garden-making, the writings of Markham and Lawson are of special value, for they not only throw light upon the way in which the surroundings of most country houses of any pretension were treated at the end of the sixteenth century, and for a large part of the seventeenth, but they also provide many hints_of what must have been the ordi ractice at an earlier period before the novel artificialities of the Renaissance manner began to unsettle the beliefs based upon the medieval tradition. It would certainly appear that even at the beginning of the seventeenth century such gardens as those at the Palaces of Nonsuch and Hampton Court, or the “‘perfectest figure of a garden” at Moor Park, were as exceptional in style as they were in extent, and represented little enough the general practice. Of seventeenth-century gardening in the traditional manner, but on a large scale, probably no better example could be quoted than that at Wilton. For the laying out of this garden the Earl of Pembroke secured the services of the German architect, Isaac de Caux, of whose work an ample record exists, for he issued a series of engravings of the place, with a detailed explanation of its particular characteristics :—‘*‘ This Garden, within the enclosure of the new wall, is a thowsand foote long and about foure hundred in breadthe, divided in its length into” three“ tong squares” or parallelograms, the first of which divisions next the building heth foure Platts, embroy- dered ; in the midst of which are foure fountaynes with statues of marble in their midle, and on the sides of those Platts are the Platts of flowers, and beyond them is the little Terrass rased for the more advantage of beholding those Platts, this for the Femi In the second are two Groves or woods all with divers walkes, and ix THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING through those Groves passeth the river Nader having of breadth in this place 44 foote, upon which is built the bridge of the breadth of the orekté walke. In the midst of the aforesayd Groves are two great statues of white marble, of Sent foote high, the one of Bacchus and the other of Flora, and on the sides ranging with the Platts of flowers are two covered Arbors of 300 foote long and diverse allies. Att the beginning of the third and last division are, on either side of the great walke, two Ponds with Fountaynes and two Collumnes in the midle, casting water all their height which causeth the moveing and turning of two crownes att the top of the same, and beyond is a Compartment of greene with diverse walkes planted with cherrie trees and in the midle is the Great Oval with the Gladiator of brass; the most famous Statue of all that antiquity hath left. On the sydes of this compartiment and answering the Platts of flowers and long arbours are three arbours of either side with twining Galleryes communicating themselves one into another. Att the end of the greate walke is a Portico of stone cutt and adorned with Pilasters and Nyches, within which are 4_ figures of white marble of 5 foote high. Of either side of the sayd portico is an assent leading up to the terrasse, upon the steps whereof instead of Ballasters are sea monsters casting water from one and the other from the top to the bottome, and above the sayd portico is a great reserve of water for the grotto.” But within a very few years an extensive revision of the work done by de Caux was carried out at Wilton. A new designer appeared, In Inigo Jones, who had studied the neo-classic style in Italy, and had given special attention to the productions of Palladio. The know- ledge he had acquired abroad of the Renaissance methods he turned to such excellent account when he came home that he was able to set a fashion which, if not actually new, was at all events sufficiently novel to become widely popular. He gave a great impetus to the Italian revival, which had made a beginniig” in England a centur ry before; “and he “exercised a ‘very real influence upon house and garden architecture. The modifications and additions for which he was responsible at Wilton—among them the beautifully proportioned Palladian bridge over the river—were typical of the changes which he and his followers made in many other gardens, and had no little significance as evidences of the alterations which were being brought about in the public taste by the introduction of a new architectural sentiment. The Italian villa surrounded by appro- priate gardens became quite common in this country, and many of the examples of the earlier garden-making which had been preserved tale vraeeiluaa ek a THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING through the sixteenth century were now destroyed or drastically fea hereestemwearenc>,$ eae i abe EA eee ae : fore the Inigo Jones fashion was not destined to be long-lived, for the disturbances of the Civil War put a stop for a while to the cultivation of the arts, andthe dealings of the Puritans withthe pleasure grounds of the great houses were directed rather to the effacement of existing beauties than fo the development of new and _attractive-features. What John Evelyn wrote about the condition of the gardens of Nonsuch Palace in the reign of Charles II.— ‘** There stand in the garden two handsome stone pyramids, and the avenue planted with rowes of faire elmes; but the rest of these goodly trees, both of this and Worcester Park adjoyning, were felled by those destructive and avaricious rebels in the late war, which defaced one of the stateliest seats his Majesty had”—could have been written about many other places which had previously been worthy to rank as notable illustrations of the gardener’s craft. It is no doubt true that the Puritans have been blamed unjustly for many sins against good taste which were committed by other people, but they certainly diminished rather than increased the number of gardens which deserve to be included in the list of historical examples. The accession of Charles II. gave the garden designers once more opportunities-of distinguishing-themselves, but it did not quite put_ things back to where they were before the Civil War. Instead, it brought into this country another fashion derived not from Italy, oe \ " like that for which Inigo Jones was responsible, but from France, 2 spre where very remarkable advances had been made in the art of garden Fr on 114 planning. The chief of the French exponents of the art was Le Notre, a_man of brilliant ability and judicious originality, and a designer who was~able to build on what had gone before a style definitely personal. His conceptions were on the largest” possible scale, and there was a sumptuous vastness in his work which no one else had ever attempted. The gardens he planned did not cover “merely a few acres, they occupied enormous spaces of ground, and, Gee socom ee ey ae eet when possible, were combined with avenues which extended often for miles beyond the boundaries of the garden proper, Whether Le Notre actually executed any work in England is dis- puted, but he is reputed to have laid out gardens at Hampton Court and Greenwich, as well as that which at one time surrounded St. James’s Palace. If, however, there is some doubt whether or not he visited this country, there can be : no question diol the eater eee influence he exercised over some English” gardeners who had todo itis xi rie % on he 4 THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING with places that called for fey sa on a large scale. net system of arranging avenues _radiating from a centre, his use of broad and dipaifer feriees oath formal Eee were frankly adopted pted in England, andi What remains of the garden work done at this period the signs of his inspiration are not to be mistaken. As an example of the results arrived at by following Le Nétre’s methods, the laying-out of the park and gardens at Badminton can be particularly noted. A description of this place, as it was about the end of the seventeenth century, is given in the admirable book n “ The Formal Garden in England,” by Mr. Reginald Blomfield and Mr. F. Inigo Thomas:—‘‘The approach to the house was formed by a triple avenue, the centre avenue 200 feet wide, the two side avenues 80 feet wide. The entrance gates to this avenue were placed in the centre of a great semicircular wall. The distance from this gateway to the house was 2} miles. After passing through two more gateways, the avenue opened on to a great oblong open space forming part of the deer park, with avenues on either side, and the entrance gate to the forecourt of the house opposite the end of the main avenue. A broad gravelled path, with grass plots and fountains on either side, led from the entrance gate of the forecourt to a flight of four steps leading to the pavement in front of the house. To the right hand was the base court, with stables and outhouses ; at the back of the house the figstead and fruit gardens ‘d and the pigeon-house. To the left of the house and forecourt were the bowling green and pleasure gardens, with the grove beyond. ¢The latter was divided into four plots, with sour-way paths sad—2 ay circular space and fountain in the centre. Each of the plots was | planted” “with Close-growing trees laid out as mazes, and trimmed ' close and square for a height apparently of some 15 to 20 feet from the ground. Opposite the centre alley was a semicircular bay divided into quadrants, each guadrant with a basin and fountain, and great square hedges. trimmed to the same height as. as the rest-of the grove. The whole of these immense gardens were walled in, with the exception of a fence round the grove. Wide gates were set at the ends of all the main paths, and from these, as points of departure, avenues were laid out in straight lines, radiating and intersecting each other in alldirections??—————— cil Some e of these avenues at Badminton are said to have been as much ate poe xil REERRNIGHANTOIIIVENS THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING was but the centre and _ starting-point of a great decorative scheme. Le Notre undoubtedly induced English gardeners to enlarge their idéas of garden-making, and taught them some things which they did not know before; though naturally they had not many oppor- tunities such as were offered at Badminton of showing how ready they were to accept his principles of design. As a matter of fact the great gardens in the French fashion were not numerous, and the ordinary country gentleman continued during the seventeenth century, and part of the eighteenth, to use most of | the earlier devices and most of the traditional formalities. He did his laying-out, perhaps, on a somewhat more generous scale and with a view to more sumptuous effects; he adopted, not always discreetly, some of the novelties of the French method; but if occasionally he inclined rather too readily towards fountains and statues and pretentious avenues, he more often remained _ faithful to the knots and wildernesses, the rectangular divisions, the evenly- spaced paths, and the architécttiral” embellishments which had pleased _his ancestors. ‘I’he ideas imported from abroad had not destroyed the influence of such writers as Gervase Markham, and even in such a book as the “Systema Horticiltire;—or Art Gardening,” written by John Worlidge, and published in 1677, LW iy IS AT when the Le Notre fashion was in the ascendant, the formal manner sanctioned by long custom is advocated with scarcely any alteration. In the reigns of William and Mary and Anne some modifications were introduced into the art of gardening, but they changed details rather than main principles. From Holland there came with Willia d_Mary that variation of the Renaissance manner which is_known_as.Dutch gardening, "a very evident descent from the expansiveness_of.Le—Nétre,.and in many respects a parody of the Italian work. The Dutch love of quaintness had brought about an exaggeration of the ancient device of clipping trees into purely artificial forms, and as a result of this exaggeration a practice which had been sanctified by centuries of use in England and abroad was reduced to an absurdity. ‘The topiary work which was executed in English gardens in the earlier years of the eighteenth century was too often without dignity or taste—merely extravagant and ridiculous. _ It showed the degeneration of the gardener’s art, and marked a definite decay in the feeling for restful simplicity which had, governed the layitig-out of so many_o But this degenerate art did not lack appreciation: there was a wide demand for fantastic additions to the garden, and this demand was supplied by many firms, like that‘of London and” Wise “at Chelsea, ~ ai Xiii nat naar ~ THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING which did their utmost to satisfy the new taste. ‘The clipped trees, which had been previously not without a certain architectural appro- > priateness, became utterly unnatural and unmeaning incongruities, “which did not fit in well with any properly considered scheme of design, They introduced a touch of comicality into formal garden- ing, and brought upon it a measure of discredit. There was, indeed, a change coming over the spirit of the gardener’s art, and the misuse of topiary work was at the same time one of the ‘effects and one of the causes of this change. The influence of “Le Nétre had done something” to unsettle English gardeners, inas- much as it had induced many of them to extend their boundaries and to consider the possibility of going outside the four walls within which the older gardens. had been.confined. They began to have ambitions to direct and discipline nature, and out of these ambitions soon grew the idea that what their predecessors had done was too much according to rule, and therefore too narrowly conventional to be accepted by reformers who aspired to solve nature’s secrets. As a_protest, conscious or unconscious, against these new notions, the followers of the earlier school were led into topiary extravagances, and-theréby gave themselves over to the enemy. The advocates of what was called progress were provided with many a text for attacks upon the principles of design which they were trying to destroy by the men who were theoretically most anxious to see these principles strictly upheld. ee aa tas —- Many able writers, Pope and Addison at their head, threw themselves into the struggle between the opposing schools of gardening, and for the most_part advocated the ideas_of the new school. An article which appeared in “ The Guardian” in 1712 is worth quoting as an example of the support given to the believers in change :—“* How contrary to simplicity is the modern practice of gardening! We seem to make it our study to recede from nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most regular and formal shapes, but even in monstrous attempts beyond the reach of art itself; we run into sculpture, and are yet better pleased to have our trees in the most awkward figures of men and animals than in the most regular of their own. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants like those at Guildhall. I know an eminent cook who beautified his country seat with a coronation dinner in greens, where you see the champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in. perpetual youth at the other. “For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of this curious taste, XIV § a » THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING I shall here publish a catalogue of greens to be disposed of by an eminent town gardener, who has lately applied to me on this head. My correspondent is arrived at such perfection that he cuts family pieces of men, women, or children. Any ladies that please may have their own effigies in myrtle, or their husbands in hornbeam. I shall proceed to his catalogue as he sent it for my recom- mendation. *‘ Adam and Eve in yew ; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the Serpent very flourishing ; the Tower of Babel not yet finished ; St. George in box, his arm scarce long enough, but will be in condition to strike the dragon by next April; a Queen Elizabeth in phylyrea, a little inclining to the green-sickness, but of full growth ; an old maid-of- honour in wormwood ; divers eminent poets in bays, somewhat blighted, to be disposed of a pennyworth ; a quickset hog shot up into a porcupine by its being forgot a week in rainy weather.” Against attacks such as this the old formality was unable to make any effective resistance, and gradually, but none the less surely, it “had to give way to the new fashion. It died hard, and throughout the eighteenth century it continued to find adherents, but in steadily diminishing numbers. Meanwhile the men of the landscape gar- dening sc oal were busy in all directions obliterating the work which had survived from past generations and creating gardens which, with all their professed naturalism, were in a different. way just as formal as anything that had existed before; only the formality _ was less honest and less logical, and hardly more in sympathy with nature's real spirit. What were the methods employed can be judged from the account given by Horace Walpole :—‘‘ No succeeding generation in an opulent and luxurious country contents itself with the perfection established by its ancestors; more perfect perfection was still sought, and improvements had gone on till London and Wise had stocked all our gardens with giants, animals, monsters, coats-of-arms, and mottoes in yew, box and holly. Bridgman, the next fashionable designer_of gardens, was far more chaste; he banished verdant sculpture, and did not even revert to the square precision of the ‘ e enlarged his plans, disdaining to make every division tally to its opposite ; and though he still adhered _much_to straight walks with high clipped hedges, they were only his great lines ; the rest he diversified with wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges. As his reformation gained footing, he ventured to introduce cultivated fields and even XV Ot THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING morsels_of forest appearance by the sides of those endless _and tiresome walks. | “ But the capital stroke, the leading step to all that followed, was the destruction of walls for boundaries and the invention of fossés : an attempt then deemed so astonishing that the common people called them ‘Ha! ha’s!’ to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk. No sooner was this simple enchantment made than levelling, mowing, and_ rolling followed. The contiguous ground of the park without the sunk fence was to be harmonised with the lawn within; and the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prim regularity, that it might assort with the wilder country without. At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays.” The men referred to in this extract, Bridgman and Kent, played a considerable part in the development of the new fashion. Bridgman was gardener to George I., and was entrusted with the laying-out of several important places, among them Stowe, in Buckinghamshire. His methods were not excessively advanced, for he had some respect for the old style and did not try to break away too abruptly from everything which had been accepted in the past. He abandoned, however, the more extravagant form of tree-clipping,and therefore _ must be counted among the reformers who desired to make a_practi- cal protest against the abuse of a time-honoured practice ; and~by — his disinclination..to.‘‘ revert to the square precision of the foregoin age,” at least prepared the way for the great changes which were immunent. William Kent was much more ambitious and broke far more definitely with the past. He was in many ways a remarkable man, following several professions, though in none of them did he rise to real eminence. In his youth he was apprenticed to a coach-builder, but soon after the beginning of the eighteenth century he came from Yorkshire, where he was born, to London to follow the profession of a portrait and historical painter. There he found many patrons and achieved so large a measure of success, that in 1710 he was able to go to Italy to study. In 1719 he returned to England with Lord. Burlington, in whose house he resided till his death, in 1748, and by whose influence he obtained several court appointments, and a con- siderable amount of private work. As an architect he was not unsuccessful, for in this branch of art he showed more real capacity Xvi THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING than appears in his productions as a painter and sculptor, and some of the buildings he designed are by no means unworthy of com- mendation. But in his garden work his point of view was that of the painter rather than the architect. He tried to produce pictorial effects, and to re-arrange nature on the lines of the pictures by the painters of classical landscape, whose canvases he had presumably learned to admire while he was abroad. The principles he affected are summed up by Horace Walpole :—“ Selecting favourite objects, and veiling deformities by screens of plantations, he realised the composition of the greatest masters in painting. The living landscape was chastened and_ polished, not transformed.” Walpole was of the naturalistic faction, so his praise was not without bias, and his estimate of Kent’s Tarity of line, and, like Bridgman, would have nothing to do with Mrgnais tpaeclsion 7< DUE weverticless, We” cNansaed Native With Waeece ete gud etc ner iy a Wiad of penieeneal shece which Cloaked most of her true beauties. His “ hina bi ” Was a piece of artificiality, and was, perhaps, best described™by Scott, who said of im, that “his style is not simplicity, but affectation labouring to seem simple.” His planted pictures lacked breadth and distinction, _and instead of the dignified quaintness of the old arrangements, had a quite unnecessary restlessness and want of harmony. He com- give a touch of realism to the little patches of sham forest which he cone i ens es DIE ee tip Oe TAT ARIS ES EAS pany s esigned—a trick which was ado meen ur by his contemporaries. Walpole was not the only writer who hailed him asa genius ; there was a chorus of praise headed by Mason, the poet, who exhausted the resources of the English language in eulogy of Kent and his methods. During the first half of the eighteenth ) century a spurious nature-worship had become fashionable—spurious because it was based not ipon true sympathy with nature's inherent } charm, but upon a fancy for those scéniclandscapecomrpositions in | which such painters as Claudéor Poussin travestied reality. How XVii THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING little sense there was in the adulation of landscape gardening, as it was then understood, can be judged from a sentence of Walpole’s, that “Kent leapt the fence and saw that all nature was a garden.” Yet Kent, despite his destruction of many interesting examples of the work of his predecessors, and despite, also, the unsoundness ot his artistic principle, must be ranked as a most conservative person and as a most enlightened designer beside the designers who suc- ceeded him. The art of gardening fell into the hands of such men as Martin Brown—nicknamed “ Capability ” Brown—Humphrey Repton, Wright, and Thomas Wheatly, who was responsible for the up-rooting of what was left of the formal gardens at Nonsuch Palace ; and all of these had even less sympathy than Kent with the old ideas and less capacity to conceive new ones. All they could do was to o on_ obliterating the relics of the past_and wreckin which could claim consideration on the score of respectable antiquity until they had provided ample justification for the plaintive Jament of Sir William Chambers, that “Our virtuosi_have scarcely left_an acre of shade, or three trees growing in a line, from the Land’s End to the. Tweed.” } [eros The most notable of this group of gardeners was /* Capability iy Brown. | He was not, like Kent, a trained artist who worked mistakenly under the impression that he was following strict esthetic rules, he was not even a man of culture or educated conviction. Ignorant and untrained, he was by interest advanced from the charge of Lord Cobham’s kitchen garden to be gardener at Hampton Court and Windsor, and on the strength of this appointment he was able to pose as an authority on garden designing in the new style. His services were widely in request; everyone who was bitten with the craze for improvement came to him for advice and assistance, and he had endless opportunities of putting into practice his crude theories of naturalistic design. As a consequence he did an incalculable amount of harm, destroying right and left what remained of the old pleasure grounds, and replacing them by arrangements of his own.devising. ‘As he knew practically nothing of his subject, and as, moreover, he prided himself on knowing nothing, he adopted a set formula which expressed his conception of nature, and to this formula he almost always adhered. His stock materials were a belt of plantation round the space he had to Tay out, a few clumps of trees “ playfully,” as he— called it, dotted about the ground, and a lake or stretch of river brought in, as often as not, with hardly any reference to its sur- roundings. "That such narrow conventionality should ever have “Xvi THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING been accepted as in accordance with the spirit of nature seems to us now almost incredible, and it is difficult to understand how anyone of intelligence could have believed that this sort of empty formality was worthy to be described as landscape gardening. But though Brown’s methods were ridiculed by some people and but faintly praised by others—Daines Barrington, for instance, said of him that “he had undoubtedly great merit in laying out pleasure grounds ; but I conceive that in some of his plans I see more traces of the kitchen gardener of old Stowe than of Poussin or Claude Lorraine ” —the fact remains that the royal gardener was for many years a kind of dictator in matters of taste, and at his death, in 1783, left a large fortune, the accumulation of the fees paid to him by grateful clients. The other members of the group were not more scrupulous and hardly more intelligent; they rivalled “Capability” Brown in destructiveness, and they had no better understanding of the subtleties of the art which they misused. But so strong was the influence of the fashion which dominated gardening during t Tatter half of the eighteenth century that these men were able to do anything they pleased, and were given an absolutely free hand by the people who employed them. Wheatly wrote a book, * Observa- tions on Modern Gardening,” which, with Walpole’s “ Essay on Modern Gardening,” published a few years later, became the accepted authority on the new type of design not only in England, but on the Continent as well. The rage for destruction spread - widely, indeed, and the English influence was powerful ene e opposed to the trim formality of the earlier school, was too strong to _be stemmed by the protests of the few thinkers who realised what was being lost. The formal garden had become discredited, partly because its decorative characteristics had been allowed to get beyond reasonable bounds into sheer extravagance, and” partly be- catiseits“ particular features had_grown too familiar to the public, and had in consequence lost the charm of freshness. “Its associations were forgotten, and its claims to consideration were overlooked. Hardly anyone paused to think whether, after all, the price that"was being paid for novelty was not too high. Yet in the wilderness of xix THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING landscape gardening a voice was to be heard here and there lamenting the excesses of the new school, and begging for less haste and less reckless concessions to fashion. Sir Uvedale Price wrote a treatise on “ The Decorations near the House,” in which he tells the story of his dealings with his own old garden, and grieves over the changes he had brought about. by. re-arranging it on the new. lines. Sir Walter Scott in 1827 championed t the cause_ of the formal g: _ garden against the inventions of the landscape “gardener, and pointed_his argiiment_ by. ‘reference toa place in Scotland which, once hghetul in its antique__quaintness, had become, when remodilod common. and. vulgar as may be’ ; and other writers followed a time to time on the same lines. ; It was’ not, however, till the latter half of the nineteenth century that any consistent effort was made to revive the old type of garden design. Within the last fifty years there has sprung up a quite considerable school of garden-makers, including many architects of distinction, who treat the earlier traditions with intelligence and discretion, and in applying them show a large measure of originality. The work of these men is something more than a mere reconstruction of what was customary two or three hundred years ago, and is free from those fantastic excesses which brought the formal garden into disrepute. It is frankly architectural in the sense that it is planned with due regard for precision of line and balance of masses ; and the effects at which it aims depend not upon happy accidents more or less shrewdly led up to, but upon well-judged construction which prepares exactly for what is to come, The main purpose of it all is ADIN B INL cre oy to reintroduce into modern gardens the quiet dignity | and_ the sober re richness of the seventeenth _century 5 Sesig without c closing the-uay their eo At the same time this revival of formal planning is not by any means affecting the popularity of landscape gardening. The two types of work flourish now side by side, and as the modern formality is freer and less restricted than the old, so the modern landscape design is less conventional and narrow in application than that of “Capability” Brown and his followers. The landscape gardeners of to-day are not afflicted with the delusion that they can or should model themselves upon popular painters, and plant compositions which will reproduce pictures shown at the National Gallery or the Academy. ‘They do not merely refuse to draw inspiration from the canvases of Claude or Poussin, they seek suggestions from nature XX THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING direct, and try to keep in their work something of her spontaneity and charming irregularity. In both types of garden-making there is evidence that the lessons of the past have been thoughtfully studied, and that the need for reticence, for avoidance of any extravagance of manner, is generally appreciated. As a proof of the increase of the popular interest in gardening to- day, it is sufficient to point to the great growth which has taken place in the literature on the subject. In the many periodicals devoted to the horticultural side of garden work, artistic questions receive much attention, and articles discussing these questions are plentiful enough in the magazines which deal with topics attractive to the general reader. But in recent years there have also appeared several important books like ‘The Formal Garden in England,” by Mr. Reginald Blomfield and Mr. F. Inigo Thomas, which has been already referred to, and “The Art and Craft of Garden Making,” by Mr. Thomas H. Mawson, books from which the student of the art can obtain much useful information about what he should do and many valuable hints as to what he should avoid. Indeed, a quite consider- able library on gardening is now at the disposal of everyone whose love of nature is great enough to make him anxious to use in the right way the treasures she puts within his reach. The reign of the faddists may fairly be said to be over at last, and the different schools of gardeners are now wisely tolerant of one another. There is ample room for individual effort, so we may fairly hope to see in the near future a strong and healthy development of the man possibilities of an art which has the greatest imaginable claims to serious encouragement. XXI THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN- MAKING. 24(T may fairly be laid down as the first essential in the planning of a garden that there should be some sort of direct connection between the kind of surrounding which is given to a house and the architectural character of the house itself. To treat the garden as an entirely separate affair, unre- lated in any way to the building to which it is intended to serve as a setting, is neither judicious nor artistically expedient. Such a separation would inevitably produce an unpleasant effect, and would suggest a lack of intelligence on the part of the garden designer. In a rightly conceived plan it is not only the outlook on to the garden from the house that is taken into account; at least as much considera- tion is given to the views which are to be obtained in different directions from the garden itself, and obviously the house must be reckoned as a vitally important feature in any scheme which is devised to make these views fully effective. A thatched cottage surrounded by an elaborate Italian garden with terraces, statues, and fountains, would look absurdly out of place, and there would be no less incongruity in putting a palace in the middle of a wild and uncultivated field; either arrangement would be opposed to both good taste and common sense. But if the garden is made, as it should be, an appropriate adjunct to the house, and is designed in a style that is consistent with the architectural characteristics of the building, the result is agreeably harmonious, and has that air of completeness which makes convincing all-round artistic achievement. If the importance of this connection is recognised by the garden designer he can reasonably be allowed a free hand in the carrying out of the work entrusted to him, for he will have a sufficiently sound knowledge of his subject to prevent him from lapsing into any fanatical preference for one particular type of garden-making. Much of the harm done in the past by the men who destroyed the work of the earlier gardeners, and replaced it with what they imagined to be modern and up-to-date, was due to the fact that these iconoclasts did not realise that there was any necessity to bring the house and garden into strict relation. ‘They adopted a fashion merely, a fashion which was supposed to be capable of XXii THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING general application, and they could not see that there were many occasions when adherence to a set formula was not only inexpe- dient but actually at variance with sound artistic principles. To understand when the old work was perfectly fulfilling its decorative function, and was worthy of preservation because it filled its place admirably, was quite beyond them ; they had chosen a new conven- tion, and everything which did not come within the limits of this convention they condemned as unfit to exist. Few people to-day would be disposed to question the absurdity of narrowing down the practice of an adaptable and expressive art in a manner so utterly unreasonable. We can see now that there is a place for both the formal garden and for the efforts of the landscape gardener, and that each, under the proper conditions, is worthy of attention. Conformity to a dominating convention is neither expected nor tolerated ; indeed, the more frankly personal the designer’s methods the more likely is he to gain appreciation, and the more plainly he shows that he has profited by the lessons and the warnings of the past the better are his chances of success in his profession. Concerning the modern treatment of the formal garden it can be safely said that much good has resulted from the entry of the architect into the ranks of the garden designers. To secure the right kind of formality in the laying out of the surroundings of any house the whole thing must be planned with due regard for architectural effect. In the stricter type of formal garden, enclosed frankly and definitely within boundary walls, there can be nothing left to happy accidents and there must be no mistakes for nature to correct. Every line, every mass, must be rightly placed and properly accounted for, every detail must be in obvious relation to the general scheme of which it forms an essential part. And the balancing and relating of lines, masses, and accessory details must be carried out with just the same care and in just the same spirit that are required in the construction of a judiciously elaborated piece of architecture. It must also be remembered that the garden laid out on such precisely architectural lines is intended to be, as it were, a frame to the house, to cut it off from the country beyond and to enhance its charm by a particular setting. Therefore to allow the garden to gradually merge in the more distant landscape is inexpedient, for by such a device much of the meaning and strength of a formal design must necessarily be lost. In the framing of a picture what is aimed at is to provide a surrounding which will be in keeping c | XXiil THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING with the character of the picture itself, but will serve especially as a neutral zone to separate the painting sharply from the wall on which it hangs; any idea of gradually connecting the picture with the wall-paper by means of the frame would be voted absurd, and would be treated as a fad unworthy to be taken seriously. The real purpose of the formal garden is to create this kind of neutral zone round the house, and therefore its boundaries must be as distinct as those of the picture frame. Yet many of the earlier designers seem to have been unable to appreciate the artistic significance of this limitation. After the movement began in the direction of landscape gardening the men who still professed to support the formal tradition made a sort of compromise, and while they kept the formality immediately round the house they slid by gradations into wild nature as they got further away. Sir Uvedale Price, for instance, recommended a division into compartments. A formal garden first, a landscape garden next, and a park beyond allowed to grow as it pleased; and much the same arrangement was advocated by Repton, the suc- cessor and follower of “ Capability” Brown. Like all compromises, these attempts to combine divergent styles of gardening in a limited space could hardly fail to be anything but unsatisfactory ; such a collection of examples of different schools of garden design could be successfully made only in some large place where there would be room to treat each section as an entirely separate specimen of technical practice. Certainly it is better, in the ordinary way, to make the formal garden as absolutely as possible a distinct creation, and to relate it clearly to the house rather than to attempt futilely to bring it even remotely into touch with untutored nature. There is, of course, no need to carry formality into excess or extravagance, or to re-intro- duce any of those topiary absurdities which in the past brought discredit upon this form of garden-making ; and on the whole there is little danger of any such departures from good taste while the designing of the formal garden remains in the hands of men who are properly conscious of the value of architectural refinement. In our modern efforts to revive an art which, partly by its own fault and partly by misuse, has fallen into a bad con- dition we can base our practice upon what is best in the ancient tradition, and can refer to well-established records for guidance as to what we should avoid. We have a clearer view of what is desirable than the men who, a couple of centuries ago, mistook a mere departure from custom for judicious and progressive originality ; XXIV THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING and by the aid of this clearer view we ought to make the English formal garden once again a really living thing. At the same time it would be very undesirable to have in existence again a formal convention ; fashion has done so much harm to the gardener’s art that the avoidance of stereotyped methods of practice, which are followed simply because they chance to be popular, is urgently necessary. The formal garden has its place in domestic decoration, and a place that is important and definite enough ; but, as has been already said, there is ample room for the landscape arden also. But the modern landscape garden must not be a studied and narrow preconception like Kent’s planted pictures or Brown’s belt, clump, and lake combinations. The landscape gar- dener must be a student of nature at first hand, and must be fitted by the thoroughness of his study to adapt realities to the purposes of his design. For him, too, there are many warnings in the mistakes of his predecessors; he can see plainly enough, if he chooses, how ignorantly and arrogantly men of Brown’s type set about the re- arrangement of nature to suit themselves, and how deficient they were in that refinement of taste which alone would have justified their pretensions. But he can obtain also many hints as to the direction in which his own development should tend from the precepts of some of the designers who were in the thick of the conflict which resulted in the destruction of the formal garden. Repton, though he committed himself in his work on “‘ Landscape Gardening”’ to such an absurd statement as this:—‘‘’The motley appearance of red bricks with white stone, by breaking the unity of effect, will often destroy the magnificence of the most splendid compositions,” and advocated unity of effect produced by the use of stucco or paint, was a garden designer of more intelligence than most of his immediate contem- poraries. Some of his suggestions are quite worth remembering— for instance, “‘ There is no error more prevalent in modern gardening, or more frequently carried to excess, than taking away hedges to unite many small fields into one extensive and naked lawn before plantations are made to give it the appearance of a park; and where ground is subdivided by sunk fences imaginary freedom is purchased at the expense of actual confinement,” or, “the boldness and naked- ness round the house is part of the same mistaken system of concealing fences to gain extent. A palace, or even an elegant villa, in a grass fiéld, appears to me incongruous.” In other comments on the fashion of his time he shows a useful degree of independence :—‘ The plantation surrounding a place, XXV THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING called a belt, I have never advised; nor have I ever willingly marked a drive, or walk, completely round the verge of a park, except in small villas, where a dry path round a person’s own field is always more interesting than any other walk.” ‘‘ Small plantations of trees, surrounded by a fence, are the best expedients to form groups, because trees planted singly seldom grow well. Neglect of thinning and removing the fence has produced that ugly deformity called a clump.” ‘ Water on an eminence or on the side of a hill is among the most common errors of Mr. Brown’s followers. In numerous instances I have been allowed to remove such pieces of water from the hills to the valleys, but in many my advice has not prevailed.” These remarks have an interest not only because they mark his disapproval of the foolish practices which were in vogue when he lived, but also because they point the absurdity of certain crude methods of landscape gardening which are even now not wholly extinct. There is one more of his precepts which deserves to be quoted, on account of the warning it gives against shallow artifi- ciality :—“‘ Deception may be allowable in imitating the works of nature. Thus, artificial rivers, lakes, and rock scenery can only be great by deception, and the mind acquiesces in the fraud after it is detected, but in the works of art every trick ought to be avoided. Sham churches, sham ruins, sham bridges, and everything which appears what it is not, disgusts when the trick is discovered.” This is frankly a plea for honesty of design, a plea in which there is both common sense and a good measure of artistic discretion. It is set down with something of the same spirit that actuated William Morris when he wrote, “‘ Large or small, the garden should look orderly and rich. It should be well fenced from the outer world. It should by no means imitate the wilfulness or the wildness of nature, but should look like a thing never seen except near the house,” though clearly Repton was prepared to go to far greater lengths in the direction of deceptive imitation of nature than Morris would have considered allowable. The landscape gardening of the present day is certainly managed by the better class of designers with more taste and with more understanding of its wide possibilities than was shown by most of the eighteenth-century gardeners. We recognise that an artificial piece of landscape can be made to look “orderly and rich,” and that even if it is not quite like “a thing never seen except near the house,” it can be carried out with something of the studious exactness which the formal garden demands. Much care is taken now to retain the characteristic features of the piece of ground XXVi THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING that has to be dealt with, and to make these features the foundation upon which the general planning of the whole garden depends. The principle which governs the best modern work is that laid down by J. D. Sedding :—‘“ The gardener’s first duty in laying out the grounds is to study the site, and not only that part of it upon which the house stands, but the whole site, its aspect, character, soil, contour, sectional lines, trees, etc. Common sense, economy, nature, art, alike dictate this. There is an individual character to every plot of land as to every human face, and that man is unwise who, to suit preferences for any given style of garden, or with a view of copying a design from another place, will ignore the characteristics of the site at his disposal.” When this sound principle is observed in garden-making the gardener’s practice comes much closer to that of the landscape painter than did the pedantic imitation of pictures which was affected by men like Kent. The preliminary study of the site is like the consideration which the painter gives to the subject which he has chosen and proposes to realise pictorially. Before he sets upon his canvas the piece of nature which is before him he examines it in every part to see which lines he will have to modify, which details to omit or accentuate, and which of the salient masses he must make the main fact in his composition, so as to give the fullest possible suggestion of the particular ciiaracter and interest which the subject possesses. The sincere garden designer, in the same way, takes pains to see where and how the ground he has to lay out must be treated so as to make the most cf what beauties it has by nature, and decides what must be added a: d what removed, what features must be given more prominence and what must be rendered less conspicuous to perfect the landscape which already exists. His function is a delicate one to fulfil, for he must neither be too literal nor, on the other hand, too much disposed to apply to nature that chastening process in which the early gardeners believed. In a word, he must be an artist, and his artistic sense must be thoroughly trained and absolutely under control. If landscape gardening is practised in this spirit and by men of this type, it is indisputably worthy to rank beside the best productions of the designer of formal gardens. ‘The primary principle, that the garden must be in exact relation to the house which it surrounds, must, however, not be forgotten, and on many occasions the attempt to imitate nature’s freedom and careless charm must be abandoned for frank formality and architectural severity. The artist in garden- making should certainly cultivate his selective sense, and should in XXVil THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING the work he carries out be quite prepared to be guided by circum- stances. ‘The house is his one immutable fact, from which all that he proposes to do must start ; his study of the site is next in importance, and in this study it is well that he should not forget that the character of the site can be equally well preserved whether it is a formal or a landscape garden that he lays out upon it. The one thing that is at all costs to be avoided is that shameless torturing of nature to fit her to a mere pedantic and unintelligent convention which was practised by the men who made landscape gardening a century or so ago as formal as the worst examples of degenerate precision in garden design. It must also be remembered that success in landscape gardening comes from consideration of many small details as well as from correct observance of large principles: Not many designers are fortunate enough to have at their disposal a site which needs nothing more than simple regulating and bringing into shape, one which has most of its beauties ready-made. Even when the general features of the ground lend themselves well to effective development there is almost always much to be done in the way of filling up and improvement before the right artistic result is obtained. Unsightly objects outside the boundaries of the garden have, perhaps, to be hidden by judicious planting, or the outlook from the house has to be improved by the removal of trees which block the view ; the existing vegetation has to be thinned to give the house more light and air, or has to be made more dense to afford protection from cold winds. Practical questions, like the provision of a tennis lawn, or a kitchen garden, have to be taken into account, and such neces- sary adjuncts to the house have to be dealt with discreetly so that they may fulfil their purpose adequately and yet not seem obtrusive or out of place in a well-imagined scheme. It is in the planning of a garden which is picturesque and yet of practical utility as a pleasure ground that the designer can best prove his capabilities ; by his distribution of the details, which are of definite importance to the owners of the place, he shows to what extent he has mastered the essentials of his craft, and by his manner of harmonising these details with what may be called the pictorial intention of his plan he gives the measure of his artistic perception. There is another matter which must receive from the landscape gardener a considerable degree of attention, a matter which is more important than it might appear to be at first sight. If, as seems reasonable, naturalistic gardening is regarded as being more or less akin to picture painting, it follows that it is subject to some of the XXVIii — a eee a THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING same laws by which the artist is guided in dealing with his canvases. Form and colour have certainly to be taken into account by the garden designer, and he must have a thorough understanding of the manner in which composition lines should be adjusted so as to pro- duce their proper decorative effect. In arranging the forms of his garden he must choose those trees and shrubs which by their variety of shape and growth will give what is required in the way of con- trast of outline, and he must decide where masses of vegetation are necessary, and where single trees or groups of trees should be placed to diversify open spaces which would look bare and empty without some details to break their regularity. In devising colour effects he must consider not only what can be done by the use of flowering plants, but also how he can play upon that scale of tints which is provided in the foliage of the trees with which the large masses of his design are composed. He has a wide range within which to work, and he has only to refer to nature to see what scope there is for the exercise of his faculties as an artist. In the adjustment of his composition lines he is obviously limited to a great extent by the necessity for making the best of what beauties the site on which his garden is to be laid out possesses naturally. But his sensitiveness to refinements of form will enable him to judge how these beauties can be emphasised and how the additions he proposes can be kept in character with what already exists. Restless lines, or lines that are irregular merely for irregularity’s sake, imply insufficient consideration, and are the mark of inefficiency in design: there must be, not only in the ground plan of the garden, but in its elevation and sky-line too, a real suavity and elegance, a true grace of proportion, and a studied ease of arrangement which con- ceals the artifices by which the naturalistic result has been attained. There is clearly no place for narrow conventions in the right kind of landscape gardening ; what is needed is rather largeness of view and that ready adaptability which comes from study of nature and from the cultivation of zsthetic instincts ; the man who works by rule and depends upon a preconception only is inevitably doomed to fail. ; This is in some measure true of the formal gardener as well, though, perhaps, in this branch of the art there is less possibility of breaking away from ancient tradition. But in formal gardening there is ample scope for the exercise of a just perception of form and a real love of colour, and there is the fullest opportunity for displaying ingenuity of design. Only it is the architect’s mind that is needed here rather than that of the landscape painter—the architect’s instinct Xxix THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING for firmness and precision of line, for exact balance, and accurately regulated proportion. His forms and his colour masses must be more strictly studied and more distinctly spaced than those of the landscape gardener, because pre-arranged accident does not enter into his calculations. He guides nature along lines he has laid down beforehand ; he does not follow her and adapt himself to her moods. Of the two types of designers he is in many ways the one who has the larger problems to solve, who has to overcome the greater difficulties before he can hope to succeed. But for him, too, there is an evident necessity for openness of mind. If he thinks only in the past, and is content merely to imitate the works of his predecessors, if he believes that in their theories and practice all the possible principles of gardening have been defined, he will do little to help garden-making to take once again its right place among the arts. XXX NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS My(N the pictorial treatment of garden subjects it is important that the particular charm and character which they possess should be sym- pathetically suggested. To make a garden picture a mere piece of obvious realism, a. simple representation of pretty details, is by no means enough ; each place has an individ- uality of its own and a distinctive atmosphere # which needs to be studied and expressed. The ordinary topographical record, which states facts without sensi- tiveness and gives a sort of diagram of the general laying-out of the garden, is far from satisfactory, for it conveys no real impression of those subtleties of effect which were the intention of the original designer. It misses the true sentiment of garden-making, and makes commonplace what should be fascinating in its quaint variety and daintiness of feeling. The principle which has been followed in the illustrations of this number has been, as can plainly be perceived, to avoid as far as possible simple topography, and both in the selection from the material available, and in the treatment of the motives illustrated, to secure the right atmosphere and sentiment of the well-designed garden. In the execution of the large series of photographs from which those reproduced have been chosen, Mr. W. J. Day has _ entered sincerely into the spirit of the work, and has realised full what are the pictorial possibilities of the places with which he has had to deal. Consequently it may fairly be claimed that what is presented here illustrates adequately the best type of gardening, and—in accordance with the traditions of THe Srupro—puts in the first place the artistic aspects of a subject which has been far too often treated with an excessive amount of matter-of-fact actuality. It can be seen, too, that all phases of garden-making have been recognised and considered, and that old and modern work alike has been repre- sented ; so that the series of illustrations sums up sufficiently the results which have been attained by many generations of designers. Care has especially been taken to present the salient features of the various places, those features which make them notable as examples of a pleasant and interesting art, and which deserve the attention of all students of gardening at its best. These features have a definite significance, for they illustrate the manner in which art can be asso- ciated with nature and used to enhance her charm. Their value can XXXI1 NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS be all the better appreciated because the reproductions show them as they are, in the setting devised for them by the designer and among surroundings which nature has perfected and made appropriate— because they have their right positions in a completed picture, and are not detached from the accessory details with which they are necessarily required to be in proper relation. ‘The garden seat, the sundial, the fountain, or the group of statuary must be judiciously laced or it may become an annoying incongruity even when it is in itself a beautiful object; and the test of the judgment used in placing it is the manner in which it lends itself to treatment as the central fact of a reasoned composition. The garden designer, it should be remembered, must work with an eye to the future, and in his plan he must take account of what is to be in years to come. The design which looks well on paper may easily prove impossible to realise, and is quite likely to be thrown out of all proportion by processes of nature, the consequences of which have not been foreseen. But when these processes have been deliberately prepared for and the inevitable effect of the growth and thickening of vegetation has been allowed for in the carrying out of the plan, the lapse of years only helps to develop an intention which was from the first sound and discreet. The illustrations given show, in the majority of instances, the evolution of a design made many years ago, and so they are to be taken as records of what can be accomplished by controlling nature intelligently, and by inducing her to do her work along the lines laid down by men with shrewd foresight and ingenious minds. These men made her help them, as they understood that without her assistance much of their labour would be unprofitable, and what came of this alliance we can well judge to-day, because the results are available for our inspection. The almost endless possibilities of garden-making when it is carried on in accordance with the dictates of common sense and without slavish adherence to fashion, are clearly indicated in the series of illustrations. Many effective comparisons can be made between the various places represented, comparisons that are as instructive as they are interesting, and that prove how little a preference for a particular style makes necessary any adherence to stereotyped methods of design or any repetition of a stock formula. In both formal and landscape gardening there is obviously the fullest scope. for invention, and the only restriction that need be observed is the salutary one which forbids to the designer any lapse into those extravagances of manner which are to be condemned as foolish travesties of nature. XXX NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS For instance, what better contrast could be desired than that which can be made between the stately pleasure grounds at Wilton House (Prates CXXXIII to CXXXVI) and the quaint, precise, and studied garden at Old Place, Lindfield (PLares XCIV to XCVII). Both are formal in the sense that they owe their beauties to delibe- rate contrivance ; but while Wilton is a typical example of classic design, and has many of the finer characteristics of the Renaissance manner, Old Place is essentially illustrative of the methods of the English designer who had learned to combine into a harmonious whole the best features of English and Dutch gardening. Again, it is interesting to compare the sumptuous and careful elaboration of the formal gardens of Blenheim Palace (PLarzs XV to XIX) with the not less careful but more quietly effective completeness of Brockenhurst Park (Prates XXVII to XXX); or the somewhat exaggerated primness of Longford Castle (Prares LXX XVIII and LXXXIX) or Canford Manor (PLates XX XIII and XXXIV), with the old-world charm of Penshurst Place (Plates CIV to CIX). At Longford, and in a less degree at Canford Manor, the Italian spirit is very perceptible, but at Penshurst the garden laid out, since the middle of the last century, under the direction of George Devey, the architect, revives most happily the particular qualities of the English work of the best period, before the eccentricities practised in the earlier years of the eighteenth century brought formal gardening into disrepute. The same atmosphere which makes Penshurst delightful is very apparent in such places as Groombridge House (Pirates LXII to LXIV) and Clevedon Court (Plates XXXVIII to XL), both of which, with their terraces and clipped hedges, their rich masses of foliage and their gay flower borders, are typical instances of garden- making on essentially English lines. They respect tradition, but in the treatment of details they show the degree of freedom necessary to prevent them from becoming merely illustrations of the use of a set convention. Similar qualities distinguish houses like Hatfield (PLares LXX to LXXIII) and Holland House (Prates LXXVII to LXXXI), where the gardener’s craft is used to enhance the architectural effect of noble buildings and where the alliance between nature and art is given the fullest opportunity of making its meaning felt. Montacute House (Plate XCI) is another place of the same kind ; like Hatfield, it derives a most persuasive dignity from the happy combination of architecture with the regulated wildness of nature, and from the use of formal details to give cohesion and consistency to a well-planned design; and at Ham House (Prates LXV and LXVI), though the combination is XXXIl11 NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS less deliberate, the relating of the garden to the building it surrounds is exceedingly judicious and quite agreeable i in its result. As further examples of this association The Hall, Bradford-on-Avon (PLrates XXIII and XXIV), Brympton House (Plates XXXI and XXXII), and Orchardleigh Park (PLarzs XCVIII to Cl), are espe- cially notable. ‘The first two illustrate admirably the value of the stately and well-proportioned terrace with fine flights of steps as a connecting link between the house and the grounds, and prove very decisively how mistaken were the earlier landscape gardeners when they neglected the opportunity of securing such a feature as a starting-point for their garden design. Orchardleigh Park shows a different treatment of the terrace, but one which lacks neither pic- turesqueness nor beauty of effect, and one, moreover, which must be commended for its elegant arrangement of lines. At Ammerdown Park (Piates IV to VItt) the architectural effect of the immediate surrounding of the house is more than ordinarily persuasive ; a very correct judgment in the spacing of the different parts of the approach 7 can be recognised, and the formality of the design, carefully con- trived as it is, does not in any way exceed legitimate bounds. This formality does not, however, extend to the garden, in which nature has been allowed to riot pleasantly and to hide by a free growth of foliage many of the terrace walls. A similar profusion can be seen at Stratton Park (Prarrs CXVI to CXVIII), where the dis- tinguishing note is a kind of intentional wildness, a prearranged confusion which is quite happily unconventional. : A touch of the same deliberate carelessness can be seen in the garden at Hartham Park (PLares LXVII and LXVIII) where the severe lines of the architectural laying-out—an excellent piece of modern work—have been softened by what seems at first sight to be the accidental growth of vegetation in unexpected places. Whether this device is entirely legitimate is a question for discussion by experts ; it gives, perhaps, a hint of neglect which has produced effects not really allowable in formal gardening. It would certainly be out of place in such gardens as those at Ashridge Park (Pirates IX to XIII), where the dominant note is strict precision; and it would spoil the trimness of such places as Moor Park (Pirates XCII and XCIIT) or Taplow Court (Prares CXXI and CXXII), both of which are interesting examples of laying-out in the strictly correct manner. It seems more appropriate at Corsham Court (PLates XLI to XLIII) and at Paulton’s Park (PLates CII and CIII), where variations from the exact design have apparently been contemplated and prepared for in the original plan ; and it does not clash with the domestic charm XXXiV NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS of Daw’s Hill Lodge (PLares XLIV and XLV), a house that is delightful by its very absence of pretentiousness. Among the other places which are illustrated some, like Dropmore (Prates XLVI to XLVIII), Eridge Castle (Plates LV and LVI), and Embley Park (Piares LI to LIII) combine formality and freedom in about equal proportions, and present a well-planned commingling of features which belong to both formal and landscape gardening. Others, like Bowood (Plates XXI and XXII) and Tring Park (PLares CXXIII to CXX VI), exemplify well the way in which the gardener can draw upon the recognised authorities for the various parts of his design, and can bring together within a more or less limited area the results of his study of several schools of garden-making. And another, like Sedgwick Park (Plates CXIV and CXV) shows how formality can be made fantastic and how a strict formula can be modified to satisfy a desire for a fanciful effect. To compare the arrangement of clipped hedges and an artificial sheet of water at Sedgwick with the management of similar features at Brockenhurst Park, for example, is decidedly instructive, for by this comparison it can be realised how little justified the opponents of formal gardening are in their contention that acceptance of certain principles of design must necessarily lead to unnatural regularity and repetition of conventional forms. To a class of gardens that is particularly English in its main characteristics belong such places as Ven Hall (PLlares CX XVIII to CXXX), Great Tangley Manor (Pirates I, LVIII, and LIX), Broadands, (PLares XXV and XXVI), Beaulieu Palace (PLate XIV), the college gardens at Oxford (PLares XC, CXII and CXXXI), and those at Farnham Castle (PLare LVII), and the Bishop’s Palace, Salisbury (PLare CXIII). They have a certain savour of antiquity, a solid dignity which comes partly from their associations and partly from the glamour which age has given them. Their charm is scarcely dependent upon subtleties of design ; it results rather from an element of unexpectedness, from more or less surprising departures from rule which have come about accidentally during the lapse of years. There is none of this unexpectedness in a garden like that at Hinton Admiral (PLates LXXIV to LXXVI), where the hand of the skilled designer well acquainted with modern devices can be plainly traced ; but it is pleasantly evident in the shady walks at Ven or in the quaint corner of the Bishop’s Palace at Salisbury. It is felt, too, very definitely in the Devonshire gardens, Chaddle- wood (Pratres XXXVI and XXXVII), Eggesford House (PLares XLIX and L), Greenway House (PLates LX and LXI), and Killerton XXXV NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS (Prates LXXXIII to LXXXV), and in the Cornish place, Pen- tillie Castle (PLares CX and CXI), all of which derive much of their specific character from the help which nature has given to the designer. These are in the best sense of the term landscape gardens in which the ordering of details has been made to bear a direct relation to the natural character of each place. The configuration of the site has determined the plan, and the laying-out has been more in the direction of a development of what was already there, an adapta- tion of existing features, than in the direction of preconceived and. calculated formality. Nature has not been unduly chastened; to a large extent, indeed, she has had her own way and the gardener has worked at her dictation and under her guidance. As examples of the reversal of this process, of the use of nature to complete an entirely definite plan, the gardens at Abbotsbury Castle (Prares II and III) and Swaylands House (PLratre CXIX) are noteworthy. The effects here have been prearranged, and what seems to be accidental wildness has been led up to by human ingenuity. “The Abbotsbury garden is as much a composition as the most precise of the formal designs, and that at Swaylands—one of the most elaborate rock gardens in England—has been built up laboriously with a purely pictorial intention. Both show well what an illusion can be obtained by clever artifice, and how the naturalistic suggestion is possible in what is in principle formal gardening. In work of this character precise methods are employed to produce an informal result, but it is only by the preliminary precision that the subsequent informality can be made credible. There remain to mention the illustrations of bits in the gardens at Kingston Lacy (Plate LXX XVII), Inwood House (Plate LX XXII), and Walhampton Park (PLare CXXXII). The Kingston Lacy and Inwood subjects show ways of treating that favourite garden accessory, the sundial; and the Inwood example in particular is memorable because it is an unusually ingenious piece of work, an instance of the clever use of the gardener’s craft. The bit from Walhampton Park illustrates the application of statuary, when divorced from architectural surroundings, to the ornamentation of open pleasure grounds. The figure has a certain pictorial effective- ness in its relief against the dark foliage of the ilex-trees, and serves as the high light in a tone arrangement which without some such contrast might seem a little too ponderous. The coloured plates in this number have a specific value as instances of the adaptability of garden subjects to the painter’s purposes, and of the variety which is possible in the treatment of this class of XXXVI ee NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS material. Miss Stannard’s three drawings suggest frankly the charm of those unambitious gardens which are chiefly fascinating by their brilliancy of colour and profusion of flower growth; and Miss Adie, by her two studies at Hampton Court, shows what kind of pictures can be made in those more elaborate pleasure grounds which have been laid out by a designer who worked originally with a view to stately developments. Mr. Elgood and Mr. Rowe set forth the beauties of places which are types of what the garden should be when it is intended to satisfy that love of the picturesque which has called into existence in this country so much that is worthy of careful preservation. At Great Tangley Manor, Penshurst, and Brickwall the formal gardener has done his work with the rarest judgment, and what exists now in proof of his skill is legitimately the delight of the artist who can appreciate how intimately nature and art can be associated. A. L. Barpry. XXXVI DINS. Pour qui youdrait écrire une histoire détaillée de l'art des jardins, la principale difficulté serait de savoir ou ; commencer, car il est pratiquement impossible de dire ou et a quelle époque l'homme, pour 1a premiére fos, -eut l'idée d’entourer sa demeure d’arbres et de fleurs disposés avec ordre, suivant un plan arrété, et comment de la culture d’un terrain réservé a des besoins utili: taires on passa a la plantation d’espaces ot |’on jouirait - de la nature aux moments de repos. Cette histoire commencerait peut-étie 4 cette époque éloignée oi _Vhomme, cessant d’étre le nomade qui allait de-ci de-la en poussant devant lui ses troupeaux, adopta une sorte d@habitation permanente. Sa premiére pensée, aprés le choix d’un habitat, fut de subvenir a ses besoins en culti- vant les plantes nécessaires 4 sa nourriture et, par une transformation naturelle, il passa de la vie de pasteur 4 celle d’agriculteur. Puis il rechercha les herbes et les arbres qui, sans étre absolument nécessaires lui parurent plus ou moins indispensables a son plaisir ; il ajouta donc aux plantes qu'il cultivait, la vigne et les arbres fruitiers. ; En augmentant son luxe matériel il devait par une conséquence naturelle développer ses instincts artis- : tiques et les faire servir 4 son plaisir personnel. Le jardin, dans sa forme la plus primitive, fut donc le résultat d'une tentative pour faire d’une piéce de terrain cultivé quelque chose d’agréable a regarder; ce fut un lieu de repos, le coin d’ombre ow |’homme, aprés son tra- vail, vient se reposer, ou il s’installe pour se délasser et satisfaire sa vue. En Orient, ce berceau des antiques civilisations, une ombre fraiche sous un figuier ou sous la vigne était une nécessité pour letravailleur harassé. Il planta donc ses arbres, conduisit ses vigneés pour se procurer un abri contre la chaleur du soleil ; et, petit a petit, il se construisit un jardin destiné uniquement 4 étre un endroit de repos et de distraction. A ce coin de terre, refuge contre les soucis de tous les jours, il songea & donner un charme particulier, a l’orner de fleurs, a l’embellir de toutes fagons, 4 en faire, par tous les moyens dont il disposait, -une sorte de petit sanctuaire oi il offrirait l’encens a la déesse Nature. Les premiéres mentions de jardins, systématiquement disposés et arrangés suivant certains principes, se trou- ISTOIRE DE L’ART DES JAR- vent chez les écrivains orientaux.En Assyrie, en Perse, en Egypte, l’art des jardins fut trés étudié et les princi- pes d'aprés lesquels on devait les traiter furent bien com- pris. Aux Indes aussi le réle du jardin dans l’ornement du palais ou du temple fut parfaitement apprécié; les souverains hindous, méme dans les ages anciens, furent des amateurs de jardins; ilssurent profiter des moyens dont ils disposaient pour donner & cette nature si riche des formes définies et ils ajoutérent aux beautés naturelles en les mettant d’accord avec l’architecture. Mais l'histoire des jardins n’est pas spéciale al’Orient. Les Grecs firent beaucoup pour développer cet art; les Romains I’élevérent & un haut de degré de perfection. Pline le Jeune nous parle de son jardin d’hiver dans la Baie d’Ostie et du jardin de sa villa de Toscane au pied des Apennins; il nous donne de précieuses indica- tions sur la fagon dont les Romains employaient toutes les ressources de l'art du jardinier & embellir leurs villas. La villa @’hiver avec ses haies de romarin et de buis, ses terrasses, ses vignes, ses figuiers, ses miriers, ses portiques et ses siéges d’oi l’on avait une vue charmante sur la campagne et sur la mer devait étre une retraite délicieuse et l'on comprend la joie du propriétaire qui apparait dans les descriptions que Pline nous a laissées. C’est sa terre de Toscane qui l’attirait surtout, c’est a lorner qu'il dépensa ses soins et son habileté. Le jardin de cette villa devait étre une merveille, tant il s’y trouvait de dispositions curieuses et d'ingé- nieux détails. « Devant le portique, on voyait un parterre, dont les différentes figures étaient tracées avec du buis. Ensuite un tapis de gazon peu élevé autour duquel te buis représentait des figures d’animaux variés. Plus bas, une pelouse toute couverte d’acanthes : elle était environnée d’une allée d’arbres pressés les uns contre les autres et diversement taillés. Auprés, une promenade tournante, en forme de cirque, au dedans de laquelle on trouyait du buis taillé de différentes fagons, et des arbres dont on arrétait la croissance. Tout cela, enclos de murs qu'un buis étagé couvrait et dérobait @ la vue. » Les ouvrages d’art se mettaient 4 limitation de la na- ture, pyramides, lit de repos de marbre blanc couvert d’une treille, auprés de fontaines jaillissantes, de vas- ques et de ruisseaux. Rien n’était oublié pour embellir ces’ jardins. Celui de Pline n’était pas unique ; d’autres Romains en possédaient d’aussi beaux, peut-étre méme de plus beaux. Ce que nous savons des jardins de cette I lex Jardins époque nous les montre ornés de fontaines, de yas- ques, de statues et d’autres objets d’art. Le topiarius qui taillait les arbres et leur donnait des formes fantaisistes était trés apprécié chez les Romains qui voulaient avoir des jardins a la mode. Le plan de cesjardins était toujours conforme & certains principes, mais, dans les limites im- posées par la mode, il y avait place pour mille détails yariés, Ces jardins de Rome ont unintérét particulier parce que c'est & eux qu’on peut en partie faire remonter lorigine des jardins classiques de l’Angleterre. Les jar- diniers de la Renaissance italienne imitérent leurs pré- décesseurs de Rome: ils remirent a la mode les arbres taillés, les accessoires d’architecture si en vogue autre- fois. Ils cherchérent a faire reviyre la tenue et la grace classiques des jardins anciens et arattacher, par une cer- taine continuité de méthode, leur pratique a celle du passé. Ils youlurent créer un genre d’élégance étudiée, séyérement parfaite, et en méme temps somptueuse, ce qu'on trouye dans la description des Jardins de la Villa Medicis, par Hawthorne. « Ils sont construits dans le genre ancien avec des allées droites, bordées de buis, qui forment des haies d'une grande hauteur et trés épaisses ; elles sont taillées au niveau du mur de pierre. Il y a des allées vertes avec de longues perspectives ombragées par du houx : 4 cha- que croisement d’allées, le promeneur trouve des bancs de pierre couverts de mousse et des statues de marbre. Dans les parties découvertes, devant la facade de la villa, vous trouverez des fontaines et des corbeilles de fleurs; dans la saison, des roses 4 profusion qui sous le beau soleil de l’Italie répandent a I'alentour leur par- fum. » Liinfluence de la Renaissance commenga en Angle- terre vers les premiéres années du xvi® siécle, et bien que modifiée par les traditions locales elle apporta quel- ques changements notables dans!’art des jardins. L’ceuvre des premiers jardiniers anglais est assez mal connue en Yabsence de descriptions détaillées ; d'aprés certaines enluminures de manuscrits, il semble que les jardins d’agréement, avec de trés intéressants détails, n’étaient pas rares ; haies,allées ombragées, fontaines, petits ruis- seaux, corbeilles de fleurs, siéges, treilles, tonnelles cou- vertes de fleurs, tout cela clos de murs, avec des parties bien distribuées, voila ce que nous montrent ces des- sins et l’effet nous en parait trés plaisant. Jacques I** d’Ecosse, prisonnier a Windsor, dans les premiéres années du xv® siécle, a laissé des vers dans ~ lesquels il dépeint un de ces jardins. Il y décrit le jar- din tel que nous yenons de le représenter. Rien n'y @tait laissé au hasard et'l’on ne songeait pas a laisser la Nature agir seule sans l’assistance de l’homme. L’introduction des idées italiennes dans un pays qui _ avait des notions nettes sur les jardins, ne devait pas 2 LA ngleterre - : amener Pabandon andy systéme en “vigueur depuis des siécles.Le résultat fut plut6t une sorte de compromis : on prit a l’Italie des idées nouvelles, mais on conserya les anciennes qui avaient été employées avec succés par les jardiniers anglais. Tout d’abord la nouveauté du style italien fit fureur et l’on copia jusqu’aux plus extra -vagants détails; puis, peu a peu, ces extravagane furent corrigées et en combinant les deux métho on arriva & mieux satistaire le goftt national. On ade ce que le style italien avait de somptueux en le m fiant par ce que le style du moyen ge avait d’original et de familial et l’on en fit quelque chose qui n’eut rien de trop artificiel ni de trop conventionnel. 2 C’est au xvii" siécle que l’on voit bien les effets de cette alliance. Pendant le xvr°, le jardin Renaissance, | type romain domina, grace a la préférense que témoigna Henri VIII qui employa des jardiniers italiens dans son chateau de Nonsuch commencé en 1539, et qui fit transformer en 1530 les jardins d Hampton Court dessinés par Wolsey dans le style anglais du moyen 4 re, L’un des plus beaux jardins de cette époque est celui de de Théobald planté pour Lord Burleigh; commeneé en 1560, il fut visité en 1598 par Hentzner qui en par dans son Voyage en Angleterre; il semble d’aprés. description qu'il ait été dessiné dans le style italien: — « Prés du palais est un jardin entouré d’eau de tous les cotés. On peut s’'y promener en bateau avec grand plaisir; on y trouve des espéces d’arbres et de verdures trés variées, des labyrinthes trés compliqués, une fon- taine jaillissante en marbre blanc, des colonnes, des pyramides, les unes en bois, les autres en pierre. Le jar- dinier nous conduisit au pavillon et nous vimes douze statues des empereurs romains en marbre blane et = table en pierre de Lydie, » Ab L’art des jardins 4 cette époque faisait dows l'objet ae sérieuses études et denombreux ouvrages. C est le «Livre pour apprendre & quiconque le moyen de construire sa maison pour la santé de son corps, et d’y trouver le repos pour la santé de son Ame et de son corps », par le Dt Andrew Borde; c’est « Le trés bref et plaisant traite apprenant comment tracer et faire un jardin, tiré des: principaux auteurs en cet art », par Thomas Hill; cest de Bacon, «|’Essai sur les Jardins », c'est le « Labyrinthe du Jardinier » par Didymus Mountain qui parait avoir été copié sur l'une des nombreuses éditions de Thomas Hill. Borde et Hill n'ont guére fait que compiler les anciens ouvrages italiens sur la matiére, l’Essai de — Bacon est une réunion de théories dans un style dun grand charme, mais tous ces livres nous prouvent que _ le sujet intéressait quantité de lecteurs. Le jardin de Bacon est ce que nous pourrions appeler_ le développement extréme du style Renaissance. Il con- serve bien certaines traditions du moyen 4ge, mais il admet toutes sortes de perfectionnements dans le goat Les Jardins ul en ; fontaines, statues, arbrés taillés, arcades, orne- _ ments en verres de couleurs. Le livre d’Hill et le « Labyrinthe du Jardinier » s’ap- _ puient surtout sur l’autorité des Romains, on y trouve aussi certaines indications qui prouvent moins d’in- _tramsigeance que Bacon. Le jardin de Moor-Park, appartenant 4 la comtesse Rs de Bedford, fut tracé, dit-on, d’aprés les indications de Bacon. Sir William Temple nous en a laissé une des- cription : « Je n’ai jamais vu un plus beau jardin. Il est _ situé sur le flanc d’une colline au-dessus de laquelle : s’éléve la maison. La facade de la maison oii se trouvent : les plus belles piéces s’étend devant le jardin. Le grand “salon ouvre au milieu d’une terrasse-promenade sa- blée; elle a environ 300 pieds dé long et large en propor- __ tion, elle est ornée de lauriers qui ont la beauté des oran- gers. De cette terrasse, partent trois escaliers, au milieu _ etachaque extrémité. Puis un trés grand parterre divisé en carrés par des allées sablées et ornées de‘ deux fon- = taines et de huit statues. Au bout de la terrasse deux _ pavillons d’été et sur les cOtés du parterre deux grandes 3 galeries en arcades couvertes de plomb et ornées de _ balustrades ; on y accéde par les deux pavillons d’été, au - __ . bout de la premiére terrase : les deux galeries qui re- _ gardent le sud sont couvertes de vigne. Au milieu du _ parterre un escalier conduit au jardin d’en bas ott sont les fruits ; les allées sont vertes; on y trouve aussi une -grotte avec des coquillages, des rocailles, des fontaines et des jets d’eau. » a Sir William Temple passant pour un défenseur du style . x régulier, son éloge de Moor Park a l’époque oui il écri- 4 — est significatif. L’arrangement dont il parle devait _ étre trés réussi comme plan et comme richesse de dé- tails ; ce devait étre un excellent exemple du style italien. Bacon était-il pour quelque chose dans ce plan, nous ne saurions le dire, mais il est fort possible que le dessina- _ teur s’en soit inspiré et qu'il ait trouvé dans les idées dun homme de lettres cultivé et intelligent beaucoup de choses & mettre en pratique. Les premiers ouvrages trfitant de l'art des jar- __ dins par des gens compétents en la matiére datent du xvul® siécle. Ils sont de Gervase Markham et de William ; Lawson qui ont pu expérimenter par une longue pra- F- - tique les principes qu’ils défendaient. _ Markham é€crivait pour les gens de fortune moyenne, mais il n’en était pas moins trés partisan d’un trace ré- gulier, méme dans les jardins modestes, et ce qu il a écrit y sur les jardins d’agrément prouve importance qu'il attachait aux plus petits détails. Il divisait le terrain en carrés, dont chacun était entouré d’une allée et subdi- visé en quatre quartiers par d'autres allées ; au croi- - sement de ces allées, il mettait un cadran solaire, une aA ngleterre : si les carrés pouvaient étre installés a des niveaux diffé- rents, il établissait des escaliers et des terrasses. II] con- servait le mur élevé ou la haie pour entourer le jardin, mode du moyen 4ge, il conservait aussi les motifs de la corbeille ou bordure plantée dé fleurs. Ces corbeilles occupaient chaque subdivision des carrés. Lawson, lui aussi, a préconisé dans ses livres la forme réguliére : « Le Jardin de campagne de la Maitrésse de Maison » et « Le nouveau Verger et le Jardin ». Il recommande que le jardin soit carré, enclos d’un mur ~ et orné de corbeilles; comme Markham, il veut qu’on apporte le plus grand soin au jardin planté pour l’utilité et au jardin d’agrément. Son verger est un endroit avec allées et siéges, corbeilles de fleurs, arbres taillés et labyrinthes ; le potager sera égayé par des fleurs, on ne sacrifiera pas le charme de la nature a la seule utilité. On sent dans l’écrit de Lawson l'amour dela nature; c’était un idéaliste quoique son but fat essentiellement pratique. Avec des hommes comme lui, l'art des jardins s’affran- chissait de linfluence italienne et continuait 4 s’ap- puyer sur les traditions nationales et, en écrivant son « Nouveau Verger et Jardin », il pouvait se vanter d'une pratique de quarante-huit ans. Son ouvrage et celui de Markham ont, dans l’histoire des jardins, cet intérét spécial qu’ils montrent comment on arrangeait les aleutours d’une maison d'une certaine importance a la fin du xvr* ét au commencement du xvit* siécle ; ils donnent aussi des indications sur ce que |’on faisait au- trefois- avant que la maniére artificielle de la Renais- ‘sance vint battre en bréche la tradition du moyen 4ge. Méme au commencement du xvil® siécle, des jardins comme Nonsuch et Hampton Court étaient fort rares. _ Wilton est peut-étre le meilleur exemple qu’on puisse donner du jardin de style traditionnel au xvii* siécle. Le Comte de Pembroke s’assura, pour le tracer, les services d'un Allemand, larchitecte Isaac de Caux, qui a publié une série de gravures avec légendes: « Ce jardin entouré du nouveau mur a mille pieds de long sur 400 de large; il est dans sa largeur divisé en trois parallélogrammes ; le premier a trois longues plates- bandes au milieu desquelles quatre fontaines avec statues de marbre; sur les cdtés des fleurs et plus loin une petite terrasse un peu surélevée; dans la seconde deux buissons ou bois avec allées; la riviére Nader le traverse, elle a 44 pieds de large, un pont de la largeur de l’allée est jeté sur la riviére. Au milieu de ces bois, deux grandes statues de marbre blanc de 8 pieds de haut, l’une repré- sente Bacchus, l’autre Flore. Sur les cétés des plates- bandes de fleurs et des allées couvertes de 300 pieds de long. Au commencement de la troisiéme et derniére division sont de chaque cété de l’allée deux bassins avec fontaines et deux colonnes au.milieu quijettent de Peau ; au-dessus une pelouse verte avec différentes allées 3 Les Jardins plantées de cerisiers. Dans le milieu un grand ovale avec un Gladiateur en bronze, une des plus belles ceuvres de l’Antiquité. Au bout de la grande allée un portique de pierre avec pilastres et niches dans lesquelles se voient des statues de cing pieds de haut. De l'autre cété du por- tique on accéde 4 la terrasse. Au lieu de balustrade, l’ar- chitecte a placé des monstres marins qui se renvoient l'eau de haut en bas. » Peu d’années aprés, on soumettait Wilton 4 un rema- niement. Inigo Jones, qui avait étudié en Italie et qui s’était occupé de l’ceuvre de Palladio, avait acquis un Savoir assez grand pour mettre a la mode un genre assez nouveau pour devenir populaire. Il donna une grande impulsion a la renaissance ita- lienne commencée en Angleterre un siécle auparavant, et il exerca une grande influence sur l’architecture des maisons et des jardins. Les transformations faites a Wilton parmi lesquelles un superbe pont sur la riviére, sont le type des changements que lui et ses disciples firent dans nombre d’autres, et marquent les modifica- tions, dans le gofit public. La villa italienne entourée de jardins bien tracés devint chose commune en Angle- terre, et beaucoup de jardins du xvi° siécle furent dé- truits ou modifiés complétement. Cependant le genre d’Inigo Jones ne devait pas durer longtemps; les troubles de la guerre civile allaient arréter la culture de tous les arts et les Puritains, en rasant les jardins des grandes propriétés, voulaient supprimer des beautés existantes sans créer un autre style ou des motifs agréables. John Evelyn écrivait, & propos de Nonsuch Palace, sous le régne de Charles II : « Il y a dans le jardin deux belles pyramides en pierre et tine avenue plantée avec deux rangées de beaux ornies, mais le reste de ces grands arbres ainsi que ceux du parc de Worcester qui y touche sont tombés sous la hache des rebelles dans la derniére guerre et on a abimé une des plus jolies résidences du Roi. » Il aurait pu en dire autant de nombre d’autres en- droits aussi remarquables. Il est certain qu’on a accusé les Puritains de fautes commises par d'autres, mais ils ont certainement diminué le nombre des jardins qui méritaient de compter parmi les jardins historiques. Le retour de Charles II donna aux dessinateurs de jardins une nouvelle occasion de se distinguer, mais les choses n’en revinrent pas a ce qu’elles étaient avant la guerre civile. Une nouvelle mode apparut qui ne venait plus d’Italie comme celle d’Inigo Jones, mais de France, ou de grands progrés s’étaient faits dans le tracé des jardins. Le Notre, homme d’une grande originalité et trés habile, avait su créer un style tout a fait personnel. Ses conceptions avaient un caractére de grandeur somp- tueuse inconnu jusqu’alors. Les jardins n’étaient plus - quelques arpents ornés, c’était d’énormes espaces de 4: d’A ngleterre Ris ee - eee G. terrain avec, a a Voccasion, des avenues qui se prolon- geaient fOr au dela des limites du jardin propre fe dit. oa tea Le Notre passe pour avoir tracé les jardins d’Hamp- ‘ ton Court et de Greenwich et celui qui pendant quelque “s temps entoura S' James Palace. Mais qu’il soit venu ou 4 non en Angleterre, son influence s’exerga sur les jardi- 4 niers anglais qui avaient & s’occuper de grands jardin Son systéme d’avenues aboutissant 4 un rond-point, usage de larges et belles terrasses, de piéces d’eau, tout cela fut adopté en Angleterre et on sent bien son inspiration dans ce qui nous est parvenu de eee époque. . Comme exemple de -I’influence de Le Notre nous prendrons Badminton. Voici la description qu’en don-_ ae nent MM. Reginald-Blomfield et Inigo Thomas dans 4 leur ouvrage sur les jardins réguliers en Angleterre aes « On accédait & la maison par une triple avenue, celle du e milieu avait 200 pieds de large, les deux autres 80 pieds.. Les portes d’entrée de ces avenues étaient placées au — centre d’un grand mur semi-circulaire. La distance Pe la porte a la maison était de 2 milles ; aprés avoir ‘passé A par deux ou trois autres portes, l’avenue s‘ouvrait sur un grand espace faisant partie d’un parc avec avenues a de chaque cété, la porte dela cour se trouvait a Vex- trémité opposée de l’avenue principale; une grande allée sablée, avec plates-bandes de gazon et fontaines de chaque cété, conduisait de la porte de la cour principale . a quatre marches menant au pavé sur le devant de la : maison. A droite, la basse-cour, avec écuries et com- muns, derriére, la cuisine; le fruitier et le pigeonnier. A gauche, les jardins d’agrément avec bois au dela, celui- ci divisé en quatre carrés avec allées et rond-point et fontaine au centre. Le reste planté d’arbres formant labyrinthe taillés en carré 4 une hauteur de 15 4 20 pieds — du sol. Opposée a l’allée centrale, une baie semi-circu- laire divisée en cercles. Chacune avec une fontaine et un — bassin et de grandes haies taillées en carré de méme — hauteur que le reste. Cet immense jardin était entouré de murs. Au bout des allées principales, de grandes portes conduisant en I?gne droite et s’entrecroisant — dans toutes les directions. » f On dit que certaines avenues de Badminton avaienite i jusqu’a 6 ou 7 milles de long. En tracant le plan, le dessi- nateur pouvait imaginer de grands effets, un arrange- — ment dans lequel le jardin entouré de murs n’était — que le centre d’un théme décoratif. Le Nétre encoura- — gea certainement les jardiniers anglais 4 agrandir leurs — plans et leur apprit des choses qu'ils ne connaissaient — Se pas, mais il va de soi qu’ils n’eurent pas tous les jours j occasion d’appliquer ces principes. En fait, les grands jardins a la mode de France ne furan pas trés nombreux; le gentilhomme campagnard conti- nua pendantle xvi1® et une partie duxvii® 4 s’en tenir — Les Jardins la tradition. Peut-étre mit-il dans son plan plus de grandeur, il adopta, parfois sans gofit, quelques nouveau- ~ tés, mais s’i! donna trop dans les statues, les fontaines et les prétentieuses avenues, il resta plus encore fidéle aux plates-bandes, aux divisions rectangulaires, aux - embellissements d’architecture qui avaient charmé ses : ‘ancétres. Les idées apportées de l'étranger ne dé- ' truisirent pas l’influence d’écrivains comme Gervase ~ Marckham et John Worlidge dans son « Systema Horti- culture» ou I’ « Art des Jardins », publié en 1677, alors que Le Notre était a l’apogée ; on y vante le style régu- _ lier sans presque aucune modification. Sous les régnes de _ Mary et de Guillaume, quelques modifications, mais de _ détails : avec Guillaume des variétés du style renaissance -connu sous le nom de jardin hollandais; l’amour des _ Hollandais pour l’originalité les a conduits 4 tailler les / arbres dans les formes les plus artificielles et 4 en faire une absurdité. L’ceuvre du /ofiarius devint extravagante et ridicule : c’est la décadence de l’art des jardins, la finde cette simplicité paisible qui avait présidé au tracé de tant de jardins anciens. Cet art dégénéré fut trés 4 la mode. On demandait des tailles fantaisistes 4 des maisons comme celles de Wise de Chelsea qui faisaient tout leur possible pour satisfaire leur clientéle. Les arbres taillés qui jusqu’alors avaient eu quelque chose d’architectural devinrent des -bizarreries sans aucun gofit ni naturel, qui n’eurent aucun rapport avec le théme du dessin. Elles mirent quelque chose de grotesque dans le jardin classique et _contribuérent a le discréditer. Un changement se faisait dans l’art des jardins ; l’abus " qu’on avait fait de la taille en fut & la fois l’effet et la cause. L’influence de Le Notre avait dérouté les jardi- niers anglais en les engageant a élargir leurs limites et - as’étendre au dela des quatre murs qui formaient au- trefois les limites des jardins. ae : Ils songérent 4 diriger et 4 discipliner la nature ; ils se dirent que leurs prédécesseurs étaient trop attachés _ 4 la régle, aux conventions pour étre suivis par des _ réformateurs qui voulaient pénétrer les secrets de la nature. Pour protester contre ces nouvelles idées, les \@ partisans de l’ancienne école en arrivérent aux extrava- gances de la taille des arbres et selivrérent ainsi 4 leurs -adversaires. Les partisans du progrés avaient beau jeu _ pour combattre, au nom des principes du dessin, _ ceux-lA mémes qui étaient, théoriquement, les plus dési- rex de défendre ces principes. Des écrivains de talent, Pope et Addison en téte, se __jetérent dans la mélée entre les deux écoles de jardi- a nage et pour la plupart ils défendirent les idées de la 3 ‘nouvelle école. Voici ce que nous lisons dans le Guar- 3 dian de 1712 : ___ «Combien le systeme moderne de jardins est contraire . a la simplicité ! Il semble que nous fassions tout pour eee ree fy 9 Dal a he d Angleterre nous éloigner de Ja nature, dans la facgon variée de tailler les arbres, dans les formes les plus réguliéres et les plus classiques, mais surtout dans les ten- tatives monstrueuses qui n’ont rien 4 faire avec l'art ; nous arrivons & faire de la sculpture, et nous préférons des arbres taillés dans les formes les plus bizarres d’hommes et d’animaux que de les voir dans leur forme naturelle. Un bourgeois devient-il propriétaire d’une paire difs, ilsonge 4 leur donner la forme des géants ‘de Guidhall. Je connais, un éminent cuisinier qui a dé- coré sa maison de campagne d’un diner du couronne- ment en verdure ; on y voit le marié 4 cheval 4 un bout de la table et la Reine toujours verte a l’autre bout. « Pour ceux de mes concitoyens qui ont ce goft bizarre, je donnerai une liste des arbistes qui ont été traités par un éminent jardinier de la ville qui s'est adressé 4 moi derniérement. Mon correspondant est ar- rivé aune telle perfection qu’il taille des péres, méres et enfants pour familles. Une dame peut avoir, si elle le désire, son portrait en myrte ou celui de son mari en charmille. Voici le catalogue tel qu’on me l’envoie pour que je le recommande : « Adam et Eve en if: Adama été un peu détérioré par la ‘chute de l’arbre de la science unjour de vio- lent orage; — « Eve et le Serpent ,en trés bon état; — La Tour de Babel, encore inachevée ; — Saint-Georges en buis : son bras n’est pas encore tout 4 fait assez long, mais il sera en mesure de terrasser le Dragon en avril prochain; — une Reine Elisabeth en phylyroea, un peu atteinte' de chlorose, mais en pleine pousse; — une Vieille dame d’honneur en armoise. — « Divers émi- nents poétes, en Jaurier un peu fané et qu’on pourra se procurer & bon compte. — « Un porc en haie vive qui a poussé en porc-épic pour avoir été arrosé par la pluie pendant une semaine. » Contre ces attaques, l’ancienne méthode ne put pas résister et peu a peu, mais sirement, elle dut céder a la nouvelle mode. Pendant ce temps les partisans du | jardin a paysage s’empressaient de faire disparaitre I’ceu- vre des générations passées et tragaient des jardins qui, malgré leur prétention, étaient dans leur genre aussi différents que tout ce qui avait précédé ; seulement le cété classique en était moins honnéte et moins logique et pas beaucoup plus en accord avec la nature. Ce qu’étaientles méthodes employées, Horace Walpole va nous le dire: « La génération vivant dans un pays de richesse et de luxe nese contente jamais des perfections de ses ancétres ; on veut encore plus de perfections et des pro- grés ont été faits depuis que London et Wise ont rempli les jardins avec des géants, des animaux, des monstres, des chevaliers et des devises en if, en buis, et en houx. Bridgman, le dernier dessinateur de jardins a la mode, fut plus réservé; il supprima la sculpture en 5 Les Jardins verdure et n’en revint méme pas 4 la précision carrée ages des précédents. Il agrandit ses plans et tout en conservant les allées droites avec des haies taillées ce fut pour les grandes lignes, le reste était divisé par des buissons, des bouquets de chéne toujours entourés de haies. Quand cette réforme fut a la mode il s’aventura a introduire des champs cultiyés et méme des morceaux de forét en bordure de ces allées sans fin. Mais le coup le plus fort fut la destruction des murs et l’invention des fossés : tentative si €tonnante que les gens du peuple les appelérent des Ha! Has! pour expri- mer leur surprise en se voyant tout a coup arrétes dans leur route. Cela ne fut pas plus tét fait que l’on se mit a niveler, a gazonner, arouler. Le terrain du parc dut étre harmonisé ayec les pelouses; et a son tour le jardin dut perdre de la régularité premiére pour s’harmo- niser avec le pays au dehors. A ce moment apparut Kent, assez artiste pour apprécier les charmes du pay- sage, assez habile pour faire des essais et les mettre 4 exécution, et possédant un talent qui lui permit d’eta- blir un grand systéme aprés quelques essais. Bridgman et Kent dont il est question ici jouérent un grand role dans le progrés de la nouvelle mode. Bridgman était jardinier de George I*" et fut chargé d’arranger plusieurs endroits importants, parmi lesquels Stowe, dans Buckinghamshire. Ses méthodes n’étaient pas excessivement avancées, il avait le respect du vieux style, il ne chercha pas 4 rompre trop brusquement avec le passé, Il abandonna, cependant, la forme la plus ex- travagante de la taille des arbres; il peut compter parmi les réformateurs qui voulaient protester contre les abus d'une pratique honorée pendant un temps, et par son aversion pour la précision carrée du passé, il prepara la voie au grand changement qui allait se pro- duire. William Kent était plus ambitieux et rompit plus ra- dicalement avec le passé. C’était 4 bien des égards un homme de valeur, qui embrassa plusieurs professions sans atteindre jamais dans aucune une réelle éminence. Dans sa jeunesse il fut apprenti carrossier, puis au début du xvi1r° siécle il quitta le Yorkshire, son pays natal, pour Londres ou: il devint peintre de portraits et d’histoire. Il y trouva beaucoup d’appui. et obtint un tel succés qu’en 1710 il put partir pour I’Italie. En 1719 il reviat en Angleterre avec Lord Burlington chez lequel il résida jusqu’a sa mort, en 1748, et qui lui obtint plusieurs em- plois 4 la cour et beaucoup de commandes particuliéres, Comme architecte il réussit mieux que dans la sculpture et la peinture et certaines maisons construites par lui ne manquent pas de mérite. Dans son arrangement des jardins il est plus peintre quarchitecte. Il cherche le pittoresque, il veut disposer la nature comme un peintre de paysages, Horace Walpole nous a résumé ses principes : 6 d’ Angleterre « Par son choix d'objets qui lui plaisent et en dissimu lant les difformités par des écrans de plantations il réa lise la composition des plus grands maitres paysagistes Le paysage vivant est paré, arrangé, mais non trans forme. » Walpole appartenait au groupe réaliste, il faut ¢ co se méfier de ses éloges et ne pas accepter sans oe le cas qu ‘il fait du talent de Kent. Aujourd’hu ' n’accepterait pas si facilement ce pr océdé qui consiste habiller et & améliorer la nature et on ne prendrait ‘cela pour une marque de brillant bth te ses plus évidentes beautés. Son grand sy stéme « él artificiel, et Scott le jugeait bien quand il disait ; 1« style n’est pas la simplicité, mais affectation vis étre simple. » Ses tableaux f/antés manquaie distinction et au lieu de l’originalité noble des arrangements ils ayaient quelque chose de tour et de peu harmonieux. Ajoutez a cela des choses r SOS des gprs morts peer. wae yn air de réa Red grecs pour donner plus de pittoresque & * jardins. Il faut reconnaitre cependant que son ceuvre fut Bi . seul 4 le traiter de génie; un concert d’ éloges s ‘leva c eC duit par Maton le poéte qui employa les ressources d la langue Angie a chanter Kent 7 ses méthodes. Pr ‘ de la nature était de mode ; faux, ¢ car i n 'était pa sur l'amour véritable du charme de la nature, n sur le gofit de ces compositions ot Claude et an avaient travesti la réalité, Ce qu’il y avait de are ceuyres ; intéressantes de ses ¥s prédécesseurs et en d aussi de ses principes dart erronés, doit étre ‘considér comme un trés intelligent dessinateur a cbté de ceux ; qui vinrent aprés lui, L’art des jardins tomba ‘dans, Jes. 3 mains de Martin Brown surnommé « Capacité Bro vr d’Humphrey Repton, de Wright et de Thomas Whi ez qui renversérent ce qui restait des jardins régul 2 de Non Such; ils eurent moins de sympathie. que Ken pour les idées anciennes et moins d’habileté 2 aen de nouvelles. Ils se bornérent a discréditer ¢ tou ce qt Les Jardins ‘était relique du passé, tout ce qui méritait d’étre ‘conserve en raison d’une respectable antiquité, et Sir William Chambers avait raison de s’écrier : « Nos vir- aii: % tuoses ont & peine laissé un arpent d’ombre, trois arbres -poussant en ligne de Land’s End a la Tweed. » Le plus connu de ces jardiniers fut « Capacité » Brown. Ce r’était pas comme Kent un artiste entrainé s'imaginant, a tort d’ailleurs, qu’il appliquait des régles @art, ce nétait méme pas un homme instruit. Ignorant, il était passé du poste de jardinier potager de Lord Cobham & celui de jardinier d’Hampton Court et de _ Windsor, et grace a l’autorité de cette situation il put ne se poser comme une autorité en matiére de jardins nouveau style. Ses services étaient fort demandés; qui- conque était atteint de la manie du jour allait lui ” demander avis et il eut d’innombrables occasions de mettre en pratique ses théories de dessin réaliste. Il mAs i ee bl ete ge a: : Sp ii : Lyf a. ee wa ’ + fit donc un grand mal, détruisant de droite et de gauche ; ce qui restait des anciens jardins et les remplacant par a des tracés a lui, - Comme il ne connaissait rien de son sujet et qu'il s’en = vantait, il adopta une formule qui exprimait saconception de la nature et il s'y tint. Il nous parait incroyable au- - jourd’ hui qu’on ait pu accepter ces iaées comme con- formes : ala nature, et que des esprits sensés aient cru que cette convention creuse avait quelque rapport avec le jardin de paysage. La méthode de Brown fut tournée en ridicule par quelques-uns, peu appréciée par d’autres ; _ Daines Barrigton, par exemple, a dit de lui : « Il eut sans _ doute un grand talent pour tracer lesjardins d’agrément, mais il me semble que dans certains de ses plans il y a plus du jardinier potager de Stowe que ‘de Poussin et de Claude Lorrain. » Quoi qu’il en soit, le jardinier royal fut, pendant de longues années, une sorte de dictateur en matiére de gout, et a sa mort, en 1783, il laissa une grande fortune aS ‘grace aux honoraires de ses clients reconnaissants. Les autres membres du groupe ne furent pas plus - scrupuleux eta peine plus intelligents; ils ne comprirent pas mieux les finesses de l'art, mais l’influence de la mode était si grande dans cette moitié du xvi’ siécle, qu’ils purent agir a leur fantaisie et qu’on leur laissa faire ce quiils voulurent. Wheatly écrivit un livre intitulé se _ Observations sur le Jardin moderne qui, avec |’ Essai sur le Jardin moderne de Walpole, publié quelques années plus ¥ tard, fit autorité pour le nouveau type de tracé, non 4 ‘seulement en Angleterre, mais aussi sur le Continent. La : “rage de destruction continua et l’influence anglaise fut assez forte a l’étranger pour produire des résultats qui _nous semblent aujourd’ hui déplorables. Nous avons une ; -appréciation plus juste de la valeur des reliques du passé , que n’ en avait le xviit° siécle et nous regrettons sinceére- 4 ment le zéle des réformateurs qui youlurent étre mo- _dernes ? a tout prix. dA ngleterre Le mouvement en faveur du jardin de paysage opposé a la convention de Il’ancienne école, était trop tort pour étre enrayé par des protestations. Le jardin conventionnel avait été discrédité par l’extravagance apportée 4 sa décoration, et aussi, par- ce que ses traits principaux étaient trop connus et avaient perdu le charme de la nouveauté. On ne se demanda pas si le prix auquel on avait acheté cette nouveauté n’était pas trop élevé. Et cependant une voix se fit entendre qui regrettait les excés de la nouvelle école et réclamait moins de hate et moins de conces- sions désastreuses 4 lanouvelle école. Sir Uvedale Price, dans son traité sur la Décoration des alentours de la mai- son, nous raconte ce qu'il a fait de son vieux jardin et regrette les changements qu’il y a apportés. En 1827, Sir Walter Scott prenait en main la défense du vieux jardin contre les inventions du jardin de paysage et citait exemple d’un endroit d’Ecosse, autrefois déli- cieux, qui était devenu, aprés les modifications. « aussi vulgaire,aussi commun que possible» ; d’autres auteurs écrivirent dans le méme sens. Ce ne fut guére que dans la seconde moitié du x1x® siécle qu’on chercha sérieu- sement 4 en revenir au vieux type de jardin. Depuis cinquante ans, une nouvelle école de dessinateurs de jar- dins s'est fondée, elle comprend desarchitectes de mérite qui reprennent les premiéres traditions avec intelli- gence et discrétion et savent en méme temps faire preuve d’originalité, C’est plus qu'une simple reconstitution de ce qui existait il y a deux ou trois cents ans et on n'y trouve pas cet excés de fantaisie qui discrédita le jardin classique. Le jardin est franchement architectural en ce sens qu'il est tracé avec une grande précision de lignes et un balancement des masses: l’effet cherché ne dé- pend pas d’heureux accidents, on veut ramener dans les jardins modernes la dignité paisible, la richesse sobre du xvu® siécle, sans fermer le chemin aux ingénieux dessinateurs qui sauront donner une signification nou- velle et plus grande aux combinaisons de leurs predé- cesseurs. Cette renaissance du jardin d’autrefois n’empéche pas le succés du jardin de paysage. Les deux types se développent céte a céte, seulement le formalisme mo- derne est plus libre, moins géné que l’ancien, et le jardin moderne -moins conventionnel que celui de Capacité Brown et de ses disciples. Les jardiniers modernes n’ont plus. cette idée qu’ils peuvent et doi- vent se modeler sur les peintres de paysages et que leur tracé devra reproduire des tableaux exposés a la National Gallery ou a d'une toile de Claude ou de Poussin, Académie. Ils ne. s’inspi- rent pas ils cheichent directement leurs idées dans la nature et voudraient donner a leur ceuvre quelque chose de sa spontanéité et de sa charmante irr égularite. Dans les deux types, les lecons du passé n’ont pas été perdues 7 Les Jardins d’Angleterre et cette tenue, cet éloignement de toute extrava- gance est généralement apprécié. Comme preuve de l’intérét toujours plus grand que lon prend aux jardins, il suffit de signaler leur place dans la littérature. Dans les nombreux périodiques consacrés al’horticulture, les questions d’art sont l’objet d’une grande attention, les articles qui traitent ces sujets sont nombreux. En ces derniéres années des ouvrages importants ont paru : c’est le Fardin classique en Angleterre de MM. Reginald Blomfield et Inigo Thomas, l’Art et Métier du Fardinage de M. Thomas ’ Mawson, ouvrages ot celui qui voudra s'initier & l'art des jardins trouvera d’utiles renseignements sur ce qu'il doit faire et éviter. Une bibliothéque considé- rable est aujourd’hui a la disposition de qui aime assez la nature pour désirer profiter de ses trésors. Le régne de la mode est passé enfin et les différentes écoles ont la sagesse de se tolérer. Il y a place pour l'effort individuel, et nous pouvons espérer. dans un avenir prochain le sérieux développement d’un art qui a tant de droits 4 nos encouragements. ES PRINCIPES DE L’ART DES JARDINS. On peut affirmer que Ja condition primordiale du tracé d’un jardin est qu’il soit en rapport direct avec le caractére architectural de la maison qu’il est destiné a entourer. Traiter le jardin comme une chosea part sans aucune relation avec la construction n’est ni judicieux ni artistique. Une telle séparation produit inévitable- ment un effet désagréable et prouve un manque ’ d’intelligence chez le dessinateur. Dans un plan bien concu, il faut tenir compte nou seulement du point de vue qu’on aura de la maison sur le jardin, mais aussi de celui qu’on aura des différents points du jardin, et la maison sera un point important pour les mettre en valeur. Un cottage recouvert de chaume placé au milieu d'un jardin a l’italienne avec terrasses, statues et fon- taines paraitrait complétement déplacé et il en serait de méme d’un palais au milieu -d’un terrain sauvage et sans culture. Tout cela serait cOntraire au bon sens et au bon goit ; mais si le jardin est, comme il doit l’étre, un complément approprié 4la maison, s'il est dessiné dans un style conforme au caractére architectural de la construction, le résultat sera d’une agréable harmonie et il donnera a l’ensemble un air vraiment artistique. Si le jardinier décorateur reconnait ce rapport néces- saire on pourra lui laisser toute liberté pour exécuter son ceuvre,car son savoir lui fera éviter toute préférence préconcue pour un type particulier de jardin. 8 Le mal fait dans le passé par ceux qui détruisirent l’ceuvre des anciens jardiniers et la remplacérent par ce — qu’ils considéraient comme moderne et tout nouveau était di en grande partie a ce que ces iconoclastes ne — comprirent pas la nécessité de conserver un étroit rap- — port entre la maison et le jardin, Ils suivaient tout — simplement une mode qu’ils croyaient d’une application — générale, sans comprendre qu’en nombre de cas une — formule précise ne s’appliquait pas et qu'elle était ; méme en opposition avec les vrais principes artistiques, — Ils ne comprenaient pas quel’ceuvre ancienne remplis- sait parfaitement son réle décoratif et méritait d’étre — conservée, car elle tenait admirablement sa place; ils avaient fait choix d’une convention nouvelle et tout cee qui ne rentrait pas dans les limites de cette convention — était condamné 4 disparaitre. On se rend compte aujourd’hui de Vétroitesse de ce jugement : nous comprenons qu'il y a place 4 la fois d pour le jardin classique et pour le jardin de paysage et que chacun, dans certaines conditions, mérite Vatten- tion. On ne demande, on ne tolére plus le respect d'une ~ convention quelconque ; aucontraire plus le dessinateur — aura d’originalité, plus il aura de chance d’étre apprécié ; et plus il montrera qu’il a profité des lecons du passé, plus ila de chances de réussir. ae .. Le jour ow l’architecte est devenu dessinateur de ‘ jardins un grand progrés a été accompli, car dans le tracé d’un jardin oi l’on veut conserver la régularité ; convenable, il faut se préoccuper de l’effet architectu- al. Dans ce jardin enclos de murs il n’y a pas place — pour d’heureux accidents, rien que la nature ait a cor- ; riger. Chaque ligne, chaque masse doit étre bien placée, : on doit en tenir compte ; chaque détail doit concourir &_ ensemble dont il est partie essentielle. Le balance-— ment, la relation des lignes, des masses et des détails — doivent étre conduits dans le méme esprit qui doit . guider la construction d’un édifice judicieuseuienias étudié. N’oublions pas que ce jardin doit étre le cadre de la maison ;c’est un morceau du pays qui l’entoure, il — doit mettre en relief son charme. oo ees ee Donc laisser ce jardin se sa vise dans le paysage est une erreur, car on arrive ainsi 4 lui faire perdre beau- coup de sa signification et de sa valeur. Le cadre d’une peinture est destiné 4 faire un entou- rage qui sera d’accord avec le caractére de la peinture, c’est aussi une zone neutre qui séparera nettement le — tableau du mur contre lequel il est accroché. Con- — fondre la peinture avec le papier de tenture serait une idée absurde et serait considéré ‘comme une fantaisie a ) indigne d’étre prise au sérieux. r Le vrai but d’un jardin est de créer cette zone neutre 3 autour de la maison et ses limites doivent étre aussi q précises que le cadre d’une peinture. Bai x d comprendre la valeur artistique de cette séparation. Au début du mouvement en faveur des jardins a paysage, ‘ceux qui tenaient pour le jardin régulier firent une “sorte de compromis et tout en conservant la régularité autour de la maison, ils glissérent par gradations jus- —qu’a la nature sauv age, & mesure qu’on s’éloignait de la onstruction. _ Sir Uvedale Price recommandait nne division par com- -partiments. D'abord le jardin régulier, puis un jardin de "Paysage, puis un parc qui pousserait 4 sa fantaisie. C’est zy ce que proposait aussi Repton, successeur et disciple de « Capacité » Brown. Comme tous les compromis, ces ten- -tatives pour combiner des styles différents dans un espace limité ne pouvaient donner que des résultats peu satis- faisants ; cette collection de types des différentes écoles de jardins ne pouvait s'adapter qu’a de grands espaces ott chaque genre serait traité comme un spécimen tout a fait sépare. _ Sans doute il vaut mieux habituellement tracer le jar- t “din régulier comme une création distincte, le relier clai- -rement a la maison plutét que d’essayer de le rattacher dans le lointain avec la nature. Nul besoin de pousser la régularité jusqu’a l’extravagance, de reprendre ces - tailles absurdes qui ont discrédité autrefois ce genre. Mais, en somme, ily a peu acraindre ces manques de _ qui connaissent la valeur dela beauté architecturales. _Dans|!’effort moderne pour faire revivre un art qui a péri- -clité par safaute et par mauvais emploi, il faut prendre ce "qu'il y a de mieux dans l’ancienne tradition. Nous avons ' de quoi nous guider pour éviter les erreurs d’autrefois. Et ainsi nous arriverons 4 refaire du jardin régulier anglais une chose vraiment vivante. 3 En méme temps il ne faudrait pas faire revivre une convention ; la mode a fait tant de mal al’art des jardins q qu'il est absolument nécessaire d’écarter les méthodes _ stéréotypées qui n’ont été adoptées que pour satisfaire le goit populaire. Le jardin régulier a son réle dans la _ décoration domestique, réle important, mais le jardin de _ paysage a aussi sa grande place; seulement il ne faut pas i qu'il soit quelque chose de précongu comme |’étaient les “tracés de Kent ou de Brown. Lejardinier de paysage doit tout d’abord étudier la nature et étre capable d’en adapter les réalités 4 son plan. Lui aussi trouvera de nombreux ; enseignements dans les ceuvres de ses prédécesseurs : il verra comment les Brown ont déformé la nature pour la conformer aleur plan et combien, ils ont manqué de goat alors que le godt seul pouvait justifier leurs préten- tions. Il trouvera également des conseils et des indica- ions chez les dessinateurs qui prirent part au conflit ont le résultat fut la suppression du jardin régulier. Le jardin de paysage est aujourd’hui entre les mains le dessinateurs de plus de gotit que ceux du xvitt® siécle. Beaucoup d’anciens dessinateurs ont été incapables - gotit quand le dessin de ce jardin est confié 4 des gens’ Les Jardins d’A ngleterre Un morceau artificiel de paysage doit paraitre bien or- donné et riche, il faut qu'il soit tracé avec la méme exactitude qu’un jardin régulier. On prend grand soin de conserver & la piéce de terrain son caractére et d’en faire la base du plan général. Sedding a défini ainsi le principe qui gouverne le meilleur ouvrage moderne : « Le premier devoir du jardinier en tragant son plan doit étre d’étudier le site tout entier, son aspect, le sol, le contour, les arbres, etc. C’est le bon sens, l’éco- nomie, la nature, l'art qui le veulent. Chaque coin de terre a son cachet comme chaque figure humaine, et c’est étre peu sage que de méconnaitre Je caractére de Yendroit dont on dispose, par goat pour un genre donné de jardin ou pour vouloir copier un jardin d’un autre endroit. » Observer ce principe c’est se rapprocher du peintre de paysage plus que ne le firent les Kent et autres dans leur imitation pédante de peintures. L’étude du site est une des premiéres choses que fait le peintre quand il se propose de peindre un sujet. Avant de re- produire sur la toile le morceau de nature qu’ila devant lui, il l’examine dans chacune de ses parties, il étudie les lignes qu’il modifiera, les détails qu'il accentuera ou qu’il supprimera... con de traiter le terrain. Son réle est délicat, il ne faut pas qu'il soit trop littéral ni trop audacieux, il devra étre artiste. Alors le jardin de paysage pourra prendre place 4 cété des meilleurs jardins réguliers. Le principe primordial De méme le jardinier étudiera la fa- de la relation entre le jardin et la maison ne doit pas étre oublié et, en bien des cas, la tentative pour imiter la liberté et le désordre de la nature devra céder le pas au formalisme et 4 la sévérité architecturale. L’ar- tiste jardinier doit cultiver son sens de sélection et se laisser guider par les circonstances. La maison est un fait immuable d’ou le reste dépend, il étudiera le site et il évitera surtout de torturer la nature. On n’oubliera pas que le succés du jardin de paysage tient au soin de mille petits détails autant qu’a la cor- recte observance des principes. Peu de dessinateurs ont la chance d’avoir 4 leur dis- position un site qu'il suffit de régulariser, de mettre en forme et donttoutes les beautés sont déja apparentes. Lors méme que l'ensemble du terrain se préte 4 un heureux développement, il reste beaucoup a faire pour remplir et améliorer les_espaces avant d’obtenir un ré- sultat artistique. Tel objet qui se trouve en dehors des limites du jardin devra étre dissimulé par des planta- tions; la vue quel’on a dela maison devra étre étendue par la suppression d’arbres qui masquent la vue; il fau- dra élaguer et diminuer la végétation pour donner plus de lumiére et d’air 4 la maison ou, au contraire, la rendre plus dense pour protéger contre les vents froids. 9 Des détails pratiques tels que |’établissement d'un ten- nis, d'un potager, devront entrer en ligne de compte et on les traiteraavec discrétion pour qu’ils sharmonisent avec l’ensemble et ne paraissent pas excessifs ou dépla- cés dans le plan général. C’est dans le tracé d’un jardin pittoresque et pratique en méme temps, comme doit étre un jardin d’agrément, que le dessinateur fera preuve d’habileté. Par la distribution des détails qui sont im- portants pour le proprié¢taire il marquera combien il connait l’essentiel de son métier; par la fagon pitto- resque de les harmoniser;il donnera la mesure de sa valeur artistique. Il est un autre point qui doit attirer l’attention du jardinier de paysages, point beaucoup plus important qu’il ne semble au premier abord. Sil est raisonnable que le jardin naturel se rapproche plus ou moins d’une peinture, il s’en suit qu’il sera soumis aux mémes lois que celles qui guident l’artiste devant sa toile. Il faut tenir compte de la forme et de la couleur, bien com- prendre comment les lignes de la composition s’adapte- -ront pour produire un bon effet décoratif. En tragant le jardin il conviendra de choisir les arbres et les arbustes qui contrasteront par la variété de leurs formes et de leur croissance ; alterner les arbres seuls avecles massifs pour mettre dela diversité dans les es- paces ouverts : tails rompant leur régulariteé. r re Me , F ils paraitraient vides et nus sans ces deé- En choisissant les effets de tons on ne prendera pas seulement en considération l'emploi des fleurs, mais aussi les teintes que donnera le feuillage des arbres en grandes masses. Le choix est vaste et on n’aura qu’a consulter la nature. L’artiste en disposant les lignes de sa composition est nécessairement astreint a tirer le meilleur parti des beautés que le site posséde naturellement, son goiit lui montrera quelles sont les beautés 4 mettre en valeur et comment ce qu’ily ajoute pourra s’adapter & ce qui existe. Des lignes tourmenteées, irréguliéres sans raison impliqueront un manque d’étude, une insuffisance de dessin; il doit y avoir dans le plan du jardin et aussi dans l’élévation, dans la ligne d’horizon, une douceur une élégance, un charme de proportions, une aisance voulue dans l’arrangement pris pour dissimuler les arti- fices. - Dans un yrai jardin de paysage il n’y a pas place pour d’étroites conventions : il y faut. au contraire une lar- geur de vue, un accord entre l'étude de la nature et des gofits artistiques. Quiconque travaille d’aprés . des régles précongues est fatalement condamné 4 échouer. . Et cela est vrai aussi, dans une certaine mesure. pour le dessinateur de jardins réguliers, bien qu'il ait moins de facilité de s’écarter de l’ancienne tradition. Encore y. a-t-il ample matiére a la juste perception de la se) “2 reproduire. Nous pouvons done affirmer que ici ’architecte a le pas sur le peintre de paysage ; ee faut la fermeté, la précision de lignes, le balancemen exact, les proportions justes. Ses formes et ses mass de couleur doivent étre étudiées plus strictement, p espacées que celles du jardinier de paysage, ite pas 4 tenir compte d’accidents préarrangés. Il g nature d’aprés les lignes qu’il a tracées, il ne suit nature et ne l’adapte pas & ses idées. Des deux genres de dessinateurs il est celui aa plus de problémes a résoudre, le plus de diffiew! vaincre pour arriver au succés. Mais; lui aussi, avoir une grande ouverture d’esprit. S’il ne s’c que du passé, s‘il se borne a imiter les ceuvres de | prédécesseurs,s’il croit que tous les principes se vent dans leurs théories et dans leur pratique, il contribuera guére a restituer au jardinage la place’ quelle il a droit dans les arts. | OTICE SUR LES ILLU TIONS. Dans la fagon pittoresque de traiter les sujets de ja dins, il faut que leur charme particulier et leur car 1C- tére soient bien indiqués. Ce n’est pas assez de faire « jardinun morceau de réalisme, une simple repro¢ de jolis détails, chacun doit avoir son individ propre, son milieu qui a besoin d’étre étudié et e: mé. La note topographique qui établit les faits s plus, qui donne une sorte de diagramme de l’ensem est loin d’étre satisfaisante. Elle fait quelque chose ¢ vulgaire de ce qui devait étre d’une variété pean d’un sentiment agréable. On verra dans nos illustrations que nous avons alle tout ce qui est simplement topographique, et dans. : choix des matériaux, dansla fagon de traiter les m nous avoris conservé l’ambiatice et le sentimen jardin bien dessiné. Dans l’exécution des nomt photographies parmi lesquelles nous avons di fai choix, M. Day est entré dans l’esprit de l’ouvrage, bien compris tout le pittoresque des endroits qu'il; illustrations représentent les meilleurs types de j: Commetoujours, le Séwdio,a misen premiére lignel’as] artistique d’un sujet trop souvent traité differemme On y verra aussi toutes les phases de histoire des. dins ; l’ancien et le nouveau type y sont représe la série des illustrations resume les travaux de psi générations de dessinateurs. Nous avons pris grand soin de mettre en relief: J traits saillants des différents endroits, exemples art intéressant et gracieux. Ils ont une significatic te ; ils illustrent la maniére dont un art peut s’asso- r avec la nature et en augmenter le charme. On en ay préciera d’autant plusla valeur que les reproductions les montrent tels qu’ils sont dans le milieu choisi par le lessinateur, dans Ventourage que la nature a perfec- tionné et approprié. Lejardin, le cadran solaire, la fon- aine, les groupes de statues doivent étre judicieuse- , ment disposés, ou ils seront déplacés, fussent-ils ceuvres ‘dart, et l'on appréciera le gofit apporté 4 leur placement par la facon dont ils se préteront 4 former ‘le centre d’une composition raisonnée. ~ Le dessinateur dejardins, ne l’oublions pas, doit tra- --vailler en pensant a l'avenir, il faut que dans son plan _ il tienne compte de ce qu'il sera dans l’avenir. Un Filan fort beau sur le papier sera peut-étre impos- _ sible & réaliser et la nature se chargera, si l’on n'y prend | pas garde, de lui faire perdre toutes proportions. Mais : sion a pensé 4 cela, si l’on a tenu compte au moment - ott l'on a tracé le plan de la croissance et de |’épaisseur Ede la végétation, les années ne feront que dévelop- "per une idée & lorigine sérieuse et discréte. Dans la plupart de nos illustrations, on verra l’évolution d’uni dessin fait il y a nombre d’années, et c’est bien ains 4 qu'il fallait le prendre pour montrer ce que peut donner la nature intelligemment conduite. Les artistes ont -_obligé la nature a les aider, ils ont compris que, sans “elle, leur ceuvre serait en grande partie inutile; voit aujourd’hui le résultat de leur prévoyance. _On pourra faire des comparaisons instructives et inté- _essantes, aimer telle ou telle forme sans adhérer pour cela 4 des méthodes de dessins ou des formules toutes faites. Jardins classiques ou jardins de paysages, tous _ prétent 4 l’invention, une seule réserve est a faire : ne jamais tomber dans ces extravagances qui ne sont que les ridicules travestissements de la Nature. | Ainsi quel meilleur contraste que celui des jardins d'agrément de Wilton House (pl. 133 4136) et du jar- din original, précis et étudié d’Old Place, Lindfield : (pl. 944 97). Tous deux sont conventionnels en ce sens que leur beauté est due 4 un tracé voulu ; mais si Wilton est un exempletypique du dessin classique et se ressent beaucoup du style Renaissance, Old Place est un excel- lent exemple de ce qu’ont su faire les Anglais pour. -harmoniser au mieux les parties du jardinage anglais avec les jardins hollandais. N’est-il pas intéressant de comparer le plan tai ae et si bien étudié de Blenheim Place (pl. 15 4 19) avec tout ce qu’a de fini Brockenhurst Park (pl. 27 4 30), l’afféterie exagérée de Longford Castle (pl. 88 et 89) ou de Canford Manor (pl. 33 et 34) avec le charme ancien de Penshurt Place G4 4 109)? A Longford, et sur une plus petite échelle | aCanford Manor, on reconnait trés bien le style italien, mais 4 Penshurt, le jardin refait dans le milieu ‘du xix? siécle, sous la direction de George Devey, 1’archi- pe J ardins on. d’ Angleterre tecte, fait revivre trés heureusement les qualités parti- culiéres au style anglais de la meilleure époque, avant les excentricités des premiéres années du xvi siécle. _ Le charme de Penshurt est trés apparent 4 Groom- bridge House (pl. 62 & 64) et a Clevedon Court (pl. 38 a4 40) ot les terrasses et les haies taillées, les riches masses de feuillage et les riantes bordures de fleurs sont des types du jardin anglais. La tradition est res- pectée, mais dansles détails régne une liberté qui écarte toute convention. On retrouve les mémes qualités a Hatfield (pl. 704 73), 4 Holland-House (pl. 77 & 81) ot l'art du jardinier met en relief l’architecture d’un bel édifice et ot la nature s’allie 4 l'art dans le plus heureux effet. Montacute-House (pl.g1) est dans le méme genre; comme Hatfield, il doit sa beauté a l’'heureuse combi- naison de |’architecture avec la nature. Dans Ham-House (pl. 65 et 66), la relation du jardin avec la construction qu'il entoure est extrémement heureuse et d’un effet trés agréable. Nous citerons encore comme exemples de cette asso- ciation The Hall, Bradford-on-Avon (pl. 23 et 24), Brympton House (pl. 31 et 32), Orchardleigh-Park (pl. 98 & ror). Les deux premiers montrent le parti qu'on a su tirer d’une terrasse de bonnes proportions avec de jolies marches d’escalier établissant le lien entre la maison et les jardins et prouvant l’erreur des premiers jardiniers paysagistes qui négligérent ce moyen comme le point de départ de leur plan. Dans Orchardleigh-Park, la terrasse est différente, mais elle ne manque ni de pittoresque ni de beauté, et elle mérite d’étre signalée pour l’élégant arrangement des lignes. A Ammerdown-Park (pl. 4 & 8) Yeffet architectural du voisinage immédiat de la maison est fort réussi. L’espacement des différentes parties est bien compris et ce que le dessin peut avoir de convenu n’a rien qui dépasse les bornes permises. Encore cette convention ne se voit-elle pas dans le jardin ot la nature peut se développer avec agrément ; méme profusion 4 Statton- Park (pl. 116 & 118) avee sa confusion voulue d’un trés heureux effet. Méme négligence étudiée 4 Hartham-Park (pl. 67 & 68 ) ; les lignes sévéres de l’architecture ont été adoucies par ce qui semble au premier coup d’ceil le développem ent inattendu et accidentel de la végétation. Cette facon de faire est-elle légitime ? C’est aux experts ale dire ; on pourrait lui reprocher de donner 4 l’ensem- ble une apparence négligée qui n’est pas admissible | dans un jardin classique. Elle serait certainement déplacée dans des jardins, comme Ashridge-Park (pl. 9 & 13. ) ou la note dominante est Ja stricte précision; elle ferait perdre l’air soigné d’endroits comme Moor-Park (pl. 92 et 93), et Raplow-Court (pl. 121 et 122). Elle II Les Jardins serait plus appropriée a Corsham-Court (pl. 41 43) et a Paulton’s-Park (pl. 102 et 103) ot l’on a tenu compte dans le plan original de certaines modifications possibles, enfin a Daw’s Hill-Lodge (pl. 44 et 45) maison délicieuse par sor manque de toute prétention’ Parmi les illustrations que nous donnons quelques- unes, Dropmore ( pl. 46 448 ), Eridge-Castle (55 et 56 ), Emblay-Park ( pl. 51 4 53 ) combinent les genres clas- siques et libres en proportions égales, D'autres, comme Bowood ( pl. 21 et 22), Tring-Park (pl. 123 & 126 ), montrent la fagon dont un jardinier peut, en s’appuyant sur des autorités reconnues, arriver, dans les limites plus ou moins grandes'de son plan, a combiner les résul- tats de son étude des différentes écoles ; a Sedgwick-Park ( pl. 114 4 115 ) le classique devient fantaisiste et les formules précises se modifient pour produire un effet de fantaisie. Il est intéressant de comparer l’arrangement de haies taillées. et de bassin artificiel de Sedgwick avec les mémes dispositions a Brockenhurt-Park, par exem- ple, car on constate alors combien les adversaires du jar- din classique ont tort en affirmant que certains prin- cipes de dessin conduisent nécessairement & une régula- rité sans naturel et 4 la répétition de formes convention- nelles. ; ; A la catégorie des jardins particuliérement anglais appartiennent Ven Hall (pl. 128 4 130) : Great Tangley- Manor (pl. 1, 58, 59) ; Broadans (pl. 25 et 26); Beaulieu’ Place (pl. 14), les jardins du collége d’Oxford (pl. go), ceux de Farnham-Castle (pl..57) et du Palais episcopal de Salisbury (pl. 113).Ils ont une saveur d’antiquité, un grand air qui leur vient de leur association et aussi de,la main du temps. Leur charme n "est pas dans la finesse de leur dessin, mais plutét dans quelque chose d’inattendu que leur a donné le temps. Il-n’y a rien de semblable dans Hinton-Admiral (pl.74 a 76) ot !’on sent la main d’un dessinateur bien au courant des choses mo- dernes, mais cela est sensible dans les promenades ombragées de Ven, dans le Palais de Salisbury, dans les jardins de Devonshire : Chaddlewood (pl. 36 et 37), Eggersford-House (pl. 49 et 50), Greenway-House (pl. 60 et 61), Killerton (pl. 83 et 84), Penstlie Castle (pl. 110 et 111), jardins qui doivent leur caractére & l'aide que-la nature a donnée au dessinateur. Ce sont, au meilleur sens, des jardins de paysage ot par l’ordon- nance des détails chaque chose est en relation avec aA ngleterre aux rechercnes du pelntre, son caractére naturel. La configuration du site ea déterminé le plan, le tracé n’a été que le développe- ment de ce qui existait déja, une adaptation au milieu. La nature n’a pas été forcée, elle a pu se développe t librement, le jardinier a travaillé sous ses ordres et se: conseils. 2 peg ee l'un des jardins rocheux les plus coraptianes gletterre, a été fait de toutes piéces dans un ment pittoresque. ie - Tous deux montrent 4 limpression naturelle dans ce qui ‘est « en prin ci jardin classique. onan ‘ nous reste a mentionner, Tes illustratic , favori du jardin, le cadran solaire; & Waihasad onvoitl’ application de la statuairea V'ornemente jardins d’ agrément en dehors de leur entourage : berturae La statue presiut un. certain effet Pi trer comment les sujets de jardins se ane du pittoresque. A Great Tangley-Manor, Per a Brickwall, le jardinier a fait son ceuyre avec” grande intelligence et cette ceuvre fait la joie di qui apprécie combien intimement la nature peuvent associer:. Paris. — Typ. Pu. RENovaRD, 19, rue des Saints-Péres., Jr. L’imprimeur-gérant : Px. 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The Earl of Portsmouth.) “NOA3QC ‘3SNOH Ga Y¥O4IS3A9N943 LV SSOYO LNAIONV (‘UINOWUS}WJoOg JO [WeZ EYL “UOH “ZY YL jo Loiss}wued Ag) ag, PE Shen BEES OE Fe “| 3LV1d ‘SLNVH ‘WUVd ASTSWA LY LVaS S173MWONO (4eqSeUDIUD dofeW Jo UOIss|ued Ag) a re ee a Monae Oak: ot ee ee ae ‘171 3LV 1d "SLNVH “WYVd AS TIGW3 LY Y1IVM YVGSO SHL (49yse9Y4I1YO uofew JO uolsswued Ag) Pe weak in sens MH SLVId C4syseydiyO uofel JO uolssiluded Ag) “SLNVH ‘MuYWd ADIEWS tt ES a | "SIOV “H ‘3 Ad SNIMVYC YNOT00-¥3LYM V WOYS “LYNOOD NOLdUWVH LV WIVM SSVY¥9 "AI 3LV 1d ’XASSNS ‘31LSVO 39aIv3a LV AVMALVS N3AGYVS CAUUGABRMOdy 30 SiNbawyy UL “NOH 380 O41 JO O}Ss}Used Aa) ‘AT 3LV 1d *KASSNS ‘S31LSVO 3DGIYH3 (Auusaesueqy JO sinbuBW SY, "UOH SOW BYUL JO UOISsiWiued Ag "IAT 3Lv1d | z PLATE LVII. THE CEDARS OF LEBANON AT FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY. (By permission of The Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of Winchester.) “ASYYNS ‘YONVW AS IONVL LVEDD (‘Puwuusy *H “Z [@UOJOD JO UOIss!uued Ag) “IMAT 2Llv1d “ASYYNS ‘YONVW ASTONVL LvVaYS Ly NaqYvVd TWIGNNS SHL (PuBuUusy *"H "FZ [EUojOD JO UO!ss}wiued Ag) *XIT BSLV 1d PLATE. LX, GARDENER’S COTTAGE AT GREENWAY HOUSE, DEVON. (By permission of T. B. Bolitho, Esq.) "NOA3G ‘SSNOH AVMN3SYD (‘bs3 ‘ourI0g “g "1 JO UOIss}WUed Ag) IXT 3LV1d CqULes sessiW eu, JO UOISs}Wued *XSSSNS ‘ASNOH ADGIYsWOO0eS TPE *XSSSNS ‘ASNOH ADAGIYSWOOUD LV N3GHYVD YSMO7 SHL (7Ules Sess!) EYL JO UOJSS}|Wyed Ag) dina SPE sea “MIX SALW 1d , ‘X3SSNS ‘3SNOH JDAGINSWOOUD Lv N3GuVd YaddN SHL é (aupsg Seesial 4s 40 Uoleniued AB) “AIXT SLV Id “AS ‘ YYNS ASNOH WVWH LY LNOYS N3GHYD 3HL . (WBSAQ JO [4BZ OY. “UOH “FY EYL JO UO!Ss}WUEd Ag) fa, Ee oor Oe 2 see EE “AJYUNS ‘ASNOH WVH LV AYSDONVYO G10 3HL ({Weskg 30 Wea CUL “UOH “TY SUL JO UOJss}uMlod Ag) “IAX1 ALV1d “SLIIM ‘WYVd WVYHLYVWH LV NS3GYVD Y3LVM MSN SHL (‘Weg ‘uepuAog-UOSydIG UYOP UIs yO UOISSIUUed Ag) “HAXT SLV1d “SLTIM ‘wud WVHLYVH LY N3GYVvD YSLVM SHL (weg ‘deapuAOg-UOSY9IG UYOF dig JO UOIssiUed Ag) “MIAXT 3LV1d PLATE LXIX. (Copyright reserved.) “’~ SUMMER EVENING.” FROM A WATER-COLOUR DRAWING BY LILIAN STANNARD. ‘SLUSH “SSNOH G1FISLVH LV SSLVD JONVYLNS CAINASIBS 40 SINDABW EYL “UOH YsOW EYL Jo UO!Ss!WHOd kQ) Y) 2 a ‘ oes me Gree * hin ACNE ae Ble GN As J] py SE ee veh 60) a nh ee 2 Re os Rb TN Na "YY" 3ZAIliW Ia a aie, sil ee ae ‘SLUSH ‘SSNOH GIZISLVH LV LYNOO 3YO4 SHL JO YSNHOO V CAungsiyes JO SinbuBw ey, “UOH FSOW OYL JO UO!SSjUIUed Ag) “IXX1 3LV1d ‘SLUSH ‘ASNOH G13ISLVH LV AZVW SHL (‘Aunqgsijes JO sinbusw SY, “UO SOW OUL Jo uolss}uded Ag) “UXXT SLV 1d PLATE LXXIil. OLD GARDEN WALL AT HATFIELD HOUSE, HERTS. (By permission of The Most Hon. The Marquis of Salisbury.) ‘SLNVH ‘IVYINGY NOLNIH LV 3OVYYNSL SHL NO LV3S (Bg so4AeW eB400H wIS JO UO|SS}UNed Ag) IXX1 3LVId 5) WOOU (‘WBg ‘YOJUABW EBU0eH UIs JO UOJss}wiued Ag) ‘SLNVH “IVYINGV NOLNIH LV N3qGuV es 7 *AXX1 ALVI1d PLATE LXXVI. oO [- a < <= af < S = a) ” < a = Sten Be ve a ee i. os be re f Pe) — iv ne “ee PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY BioMed S33 EOE zs Sz se * nat © a Shore a pas ees = Stes os hs ee SRN 6h Bik dee er iM oe Rens ree is me a pees i. 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