CHARACTERS. 
_archite@; and on that nobleman’s 
applying to him to know whether 
“he would build it himself for the 
‘money mentioned in the estimate, 
he consented to undertake it. 
It was accordingly finished, and 
both parties, the employer and 
the builder, were satisfied with 
their bargains, and each with the 
other. 
The intercourse which Sir Wil- 
liam had obtained with his majesty 
soon after his sovereign’s accession 
to the crown, procured for him the 
Jaying out and improving the 
gardens at Kew, which from the 
nature of the ground, he was 
obliged to ornament in the Chinese 
taste. In 1763 he published “ Plans, 
Elevations, Se€tions, and Perspec- 
tive Views, of the Gardens and 
Buildings at Kew, in Surry, the 
Seat of her Royal Highness the 
Princess Dowager of Wales ;”* a 
magnificent work, in which the 
architeCtural designs were drawn 
by our author, the views by Messrs, 
Kirby, Thomas Sandby, and Mar- 
low, and the engravings by Paul 
Sandby, Woollett, Major, Grig- 
nion, and Rooker. In this work, 
Sir William assigns the reason for 
his adopting the Chinese style in 
this instance. ‘* The gardens of 
Kew,”’ sayshe, ‘are not very large, 
nor is their situation by any means 
advantageous ;as itis low, and com- 
mands no prospects, Originally 
the ground was one continued dead 
flat ; the soil was in general barren, 
and without éither wood or water. 
With so many disadvantages, it 
‘was not easy to produce any thing 
even tolerable in gardening: but 
princely munificence, and an able 
diretor, have overcome all diffi. 
eulties, and converted what was 
once a desert intoan Eden,’? The 
[365 
difficulty, of ornamenting such-a 
situation few - persons will deny ; 
but as few wil be inclined to desire 
the introduction of such’ exotics’ in 
places where nature. has been more 
bountiful. 
In the year 1771 our architect 
was announced in the catalogue of 
the Royal Academy as Knight of 
the Polar Star,-and the next year 
he published the work which has 
afforded much entertainment from 
itself, but more from the admira. 
ble piece supposed to be the pro- 
duGtion of Mr. Mason, entitled 
«© An Heroic Epistle.’? Sir William 
Chambers’s work was entitled ** A 
Disertation on Oriental Garden. 
ing,’? 4to. which, in the preface, 
he says was collected from his own 
observations in China, from con- 
versations with their artists, and 
remarks transmitted to him at dif- 
ferent times by travellers. A sketch 
of it had been published some 
years before; but the performance 
itself appearing immediately after 
Mr. Mason’s English Garden, it 
was invidiously suggested, that the 
intention of our author was to depre- 
ciate English gardeners, in order 
to divert his royal master from his 
plan of improving the gardens at 
Richmond as they are: to be seen at 
this time. The horrible and strange 
devices described to exist m the 
Chinese gardens have been much 
ridiculed, but are no more than 
had been before published by father 
Attiret, in his account of the Em- 
peror of China’s gardens near Pe~ 
kin, translated by Mr. Spence, 
under the name of Sir Harry 
Beaumont, in 175 3,and since repub. 
lished in Dodsley’s Fugitive Pieces. 
Sir William Chambers’ next 
work was on Civil Architecture ; 
and in the year 1775, on the build- 
ing 
