ON ORNAMENTAL GARDENING. 123 



real, the other pictorial scenery, but with very different views :' 

 the first was enamoured of "neglect and accident;" the other se- 

 riously annoyed if a single leaf projected from the smooth surface 

 the shears had made. 



The love of gardening and of fine pictures, however, keep pace 

 with each other, and were often united in the same cultivated 

 mind ; indeed, we seldom meet a virtuosa who is not equally en- 

 amoured of all the fine arts. Both gardeners and painters were 

 employed in the embellishment of regal, noble, ecclesiastical, and 

 manorial residences. While the exterior was graced and adorned 

 by the former, the interior was decorated and enriched by the 

 latter. The painter"s landscape at last "bore away the bell;" the 

 admirable scenes presented on canvass were extolled by every 

 unsophisticated eye, and merely because they were more true to 

 nature ; aud when compared with the most laboured garden dis- 

 positions, the latter sunk in public estimation, and was soon fol- 

 io wed by the cry — Why is not every gardener a painter ? 



This impression was so strong after the new light broke in upon 

 the minds of the cognoscenti, that Kent, a painter by profession, 

 was actually induced to become a landscape gardener. His new 

 task was not a pleasant one ; he aimed at producing immediate 

 effect, as he used to do in his studio; but this was impracticable, 

 as he found he must wait many years before he could possibly see 

 the full effects of his dispositions of trees, shrubs, &c. 



The first attempt by Kent was certainly a failure, because, in 

 straining to do on the naked lawn what is so easily done on can- 

 vas, he made himself ridiculous, by planting dead trees, and 

 several other freaks, which, however objectionable as the effects 

 of time or accident in real scenery, become quite ludicrous if 

 imitated by art and labour. 



But as many places at that period were capable of great im- 

 provement by merely clearing away redundant growths, the 

 painter's ideas were in such cases highly valuable, and their as- 

 sistance was duly acknowledged ; and consequently improvement 

 by abstraction, or simple clearing away, became the rage. Hence 

 a reformation (by far too radical however) took place. Every 

 connoisseur wondered how the contracted ideas of the gardener 

 could have been so long tolerated ; a kind of remorse was felt 

 that the visual enjoyment of real pictures should have been so 

 long withheld ; a sweeping sentence of condemnation was instant- 

 ly pronounced by the arbiters of fine taste, and open war was 



