THE GAEDEN AND ITS DEVELOPMENT. 413 



treated like the walls of a house, shallow niches being- cut in them, or 

 pillars in relief being carved out. At last complete windows were 

 cut in the green wall, many even with two frames, one over the other. 

 Trellis walls and arbors, made from artistically united laths and rods, 

 and the rectangular ostentatious arrangement of an orangery with 

 the plants in exactly similar tubs and with similarly clipped crowns 

 complete the stiff magnificence of the French garden. As Louis XIV 

 was imitated at all the courts of Europe, so everywhere were gardens 

 planted according to the style of his pattern garden at Versailles. By 

 the Spanish Bourbons, at Palermo; })y the Hapsburgs, at Schon))runn; 

 by spiritual and secular princes in Germany, in Salzburg and Mainz; 

 in Schleissheim and Herrenhausen; at the state castle at Potsdam; even 

 up as far as Drottningholm, on the Malar Lake, everywhere arose 

 greater or less imitations, many of which, left to themselves, have now 

 from want of care resumed a form more in accordance with modern 

 taste. 



In spite of all the astonishment excited Iw the general magnificence of 

 the French garden with its imposing perspectives, we are yet obliged 

 to admit that it carried mannerism and artificiality to a degree never 

 before equalled in horticultural art, so that even the very plant material 

 revolted against it. However, mankind became gradually tired of full- 

 bottomed wigs and longed for the idyllic peace of a primitive human 

 state. The splendor of Louis XIV paled before the influence of Jean 

 Jacques Rousseau — the stilted court etiquette had to yield before the 

 so-called naturalness of shepherd poesy. This revolution of views was 

 again most accurately reflected 1\^^ the garden — the century-long rule of 

 the French style gave way to an eqV^Ty long domination of the English 

 method. 



The principle of this style, created by the landscape artist and archi- 

 tect, William Kent, who died in 1748, was to imitate nature — yes, 

 indeed! the garden must be merely a l)it of nature. Clipped walls of 

 trees, straight paths, and marble-inclosed basins, terraces, and balus- 

 trades were unmercifully swept aside. Only motives from the English 

 landscai)e could find place. Woods and fields, hills, ])()nds, and lakes 

 constituted the entire materials of the first English garden. Vistas 

 showing villages and castles were valued as constituents, and in order 

 to complete the impression that the garden was a i)iece of wild nature 

 it was sought to make the boundaries between it and the neighboring 

 landscape as inconspicuous as possible. This was done by sinking 

 ditches with steep walls and without railings, invisible a short distance 

 away, allowing the unsuspecting glance to sweep the landscape without 

 hindrance. 



But merely to create in the garden something that was elsewhere 

 possessed already should certainly not ))e the chief aim of the gar- 

 dener's art, and Kent himself felt the monotony of this style and 



