122 ON ORNAMENTAL GARDENING. 



nature in all her wildest forms around him, and, as lord of the 

 creation, he felt a kind of instinctive desire to bring her under 

 his controul ; he wished a contrast and a disposition of bis trees, 

 and boundaries that would mark or secure his possessions, and, at 

 the same time, exhibit his skill as well as his sovereignty. Art 

 was then his idol, not Nature ; and everything he did was to show 

 how much the latter was under his dominion. 



This artificial style of gardening continued to prevail in every 

 civilised country, from the earliest times till after the beginning 

 of the eighteenth century. Before this epoch, Le Notre, a 

 French garden architect and ornamental gardener, was exten- 

 sively employed in almost every nation in Europe ; and some 

 portions of his designs are still to be seen in France, and many 

 imitations of them everywhere, as well in this country as on the 

 Continent. 



While Le Notre and his contemporaries were driving every 

 trace of nature from their garden scenes, the painter was at the 

 same time enthusiastically engaged in studying her in her wildest 

 forms, and copying every incident in real scenery which would 

 improve his studies or enrich his pictures. 



Before the period to which we are alluding, many eminent 

 painters had immortalized their fame by the beautiful landscapes 

 which they had painted. Among the celebrated paintings, it is 

 remarkable that very few trim garden scenes were represented, 

 especially as the artists, both gardeners and painters, were prob- 

 ably admirers of each other. This, however, is only an instance 

 of how much the human mind is liable to be enchained by custom 

 or reigning fashion. The idea had not yet been entertained, per- 

 haps, that the principles of ornamental gardening and landscape 

 painting are the same ; for, in practice at that time, the artists 

 took directly contrary routes : the painter studied nature only, 

 while the gardener busied himself in cutting and slashing vegeta- 

 tion into all the most fantastic regular figures his ingenuity could 

 invent. Geometry, with its lines and rules, was his text book ; 

 without this he could not trace a line, or prune a tree, or trim a 

 hedge. On the other hand, nature, in all her varied forms, and 

 habits, and hues, were seized and imitated by the painter, tracing 

 her on the mountain steep, or in the secluded dell, by the spark- 

 ling river side, or on the banks of the placid lake. 



Thus, at one time, were painters and gardeners employed, 

 both occupied in arranging the same objects ; the one forming 



