IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 1] 



to be doubted. It was starting at one bound from forming a 

 framework of mere angular curiosities or of mosaic, to the paint- 

 ing of a charming landscape, even though marred by some faults 

 or defects in design and in execution. For on the merits of his 

 general conception there cannot, I conceive, be two opinions. 

 He would have the space allotted for this purpose to be thirty- 

 acres at least — a vast advance from the pettiness of the old sys- 

 tem. This middle ground between the mansion and Nature's 

 own scenery he would thus divide : — four acres nearest to the 

 house he would have formed into a lawn, to refresh the eye and 

 yield a pleasurable spot for contemplation : immediately beyond 

 this would lie the main garden of twelve acres, the favourite 

 flowers and plants for which he carefully specifies : on each side 

 of the lawn and main garden there would run a strip of four acres 

 devoted to covered alleys and to walks, which however, it is 

 manifest, would not be obtrusive objects in the prospect : and 

 beyond the whole what he terms a heath — which however from 

 his own words, " I wish this to be framed as much as may be in 

 a natural vvildness," and from his having no trees in it, but 

 only shrubs and plants and flowers disposed irregularly, he clearly 

 designed to soften and smooth down the abrupt transition from 

 the cultivated and ornamented to the wild and natural scenery. 

 Add to this his condemnation of knots and figures, and of clipped 

 trees, in these plain words : — " I, for my part, do not like images 

 cut out in juniper and other garden stuff: they be for children ;" 

 and you see that he would remove two of the chief sources of 

 ugliness in the prevailing system. And then bear in mind that 

 he would have fountains to vary the scene still more ; and the 

 imagination can pretty well bring before its view a garden so 

 laid out, and appreciate with some degree of accuracy the im- 

 mense superiority of such taste over the petty, the formal, the 

 angular, the gingerbread, fashionable style of the age in which 

 he lived. But if Bacon were a prophet of enlarged views and 

 foretelling beautiful scenes, he was only a prophet. He could 

 only speak of what he would wish to have done. Fashion was 

 too strong for him to change her character or subdue her power. 

 He could only consign to posterity the task of carrying out his 

 designs, stripping them of all encumbering tawdriness, enlarging 

 their beauties, and making them complete. I may say here, that 

 a century elapsed before a real practical blow was struck at the 

 old fashion, and it was only by the successive efforts of Bridg- 

 man, Kent, Shenstone, Wheatley, Brown, and Repton, that what- 

 ever faults and mannerisms might occasionally, and for a time 

 only, be inti'oduced, landscape gardening came to be what it 

 ought to be, and what in its main features it is — as far removed 

 from the false fashion of the Elizabethan age as it could by 



