io8 XanDscape Brcbitecture 



/ 



Too great stress cannot be laid on the advisability of 

 securing directly about the house the highest degree of 

 horticultural finish. Here should be found the most 

 perfect turf (a difficult problem), the richest flower 

 garden, the choicest and rarest evergreens and shade 

 trees; — these represent in a way and for the lawn 

 statuesque beauty better than statues themselves, 

 which indeed have no place there. Richard Payne 

 Knight wrote sensibly on this subject of landscape gar- 

 dening around the house at the end of the eighteenth 

 century. He was a trustee of the British Museum and 

 a noted Greek scholar, and united with Sir Uvedale 

 Price in reacting against the extremes and exaggerations 

 of the landscape school of Brown and Repton. He 

 speaks thus of the house and its immediate surround- 

 ings: 



"For this reason we require immediately adjoin- 

 ing the buildings of opulence and luxury that every- 

 thing should assume its character; and not only be, 

 but appear to be dressed and cultivated. In such 

 places neat gravel walks, mown turf, and flowering 

 plants and shrubs trained and distributed by art are 

 perfectly in character. 



"In the decoration of grounds adjoining a house, 

 much should depend on the character of the house 

 itself ; if it be neat and regular, neatness and regularity 

 should accompany it ; but if it be nigged and pictur- 

 esque and situated amid scenery of the same character, 

 art should approach it with more caution : for though 



