REMARKS ON THE SHRUBBERY. 



63 



tent were joined to the convents and monasteries of England, 

 and we find that the cultivation of flowers and shrubs was at- 

 tended to by most of the religious recluses of those establish- 

 ments, as well as that of fruits, pot herbs, and medicinal plants. 



The citizens of London had gardens to their villas as early as 

 the time of Henry II., which Fitz-Stephen tells us were, "large, 

 beautiful, and planted with trees." In Cerceau's Architecture, 

 which appeared in the reign of Henry III. every ground-plot was 

 laid out with plans of labyrinths darterres. 



The royal gardens of Nonsuch in Surrey were formed in the 

 time of Henry VIII. The privy gardens of that palace were 

 planted with flowering shrubs and fruit trees, and ornamented 

 with basins of marble fountains, and pyramids. The gardens of 

 Hampton court were also planted about the same period, by Car- 

 dinal Wolsey; and from that time to the present, the taste 

 for ornamental trees and shrubs have continued to increase. 



Charles II. returned from the continent with a taste completely 

 French ; Evelyn also, from his travels through France and Italy, 

 during the commonwealth, imbibed similar ideas. Thus our 

 plantations at that time consisted entirely of long, dull avenues, 

 and our pleasure gardens of clipped hedges, walks laid out upon 

 o-eometrical principles, and evergreen trees shorn into fanciful 

 and ridiculous figures. Le Notre who planned the celebrated 

 gardens of Versailles, came over at this time to England, by de- 

 sire of Charles, to plant the parks of Greenwich and St. James's. 



Early in the eighteenth century, the formal and heavy style of 

 gardening which had for some time prevailed, was changed by the 

 united efforts of the English poets and painters of the day. By 

 their pure taste and united efforts, they give birth to that classical 

 style of planting which has since been so much admired and imi- 

 tated throughout the most refined parts of Europe. 



Whilst Addison was forming a rural garden at his retirement 

 at Bilton, near Rugby, Pope was employed in laying out a pictu- 

 resque plantation at Twickenham. At the same time, with their 

 pens they engaged in open war against the right angles and dis- 

 figuring shears of the gardeners of their day, against whom they 

 levelled some of the. keenest shafts of their ridicule. These 

 geniuses were seconded by Kent, who as a painter and architect, 

 was adapted to embody their imaginations. In his capacity 

 of landscape planter, he laid out the grounds of Claremont and 

 Esher, about the year 1730; and as he painted the hall at Stowe, 



