6 GARDEN MANAGEMENT. 



square, having all its walls covered with phillyrea, and a beautiful jet 

 d'cau in the centre, the parterre having many pleasant walks, part of 

 which are planted on the sides with espaliers, and others arched all over. 

 At the end is a small mount, called the Mount of Venus, placed in the 

 midst of a labyrinth, and which is, upon the whole, the most beautiful 

 spot in the world." Dming this reign, the subject engaged the compre- 

 hensive mind of Bacon, with little immediate result ; but the contempt 

 ho expresses for "images cut out of juniper and other garden stuff" was 

 not without its weight a few generations later, when a purer taste came 

 to prevail. Hampton Court, Chatsworth, and Wooton, and many other 

 of the finest gardens in England, were laid out in Charles II.'s reign; 

 garden structures also began to be erected. Le Isotre planted Green- 

 wich and St. James's parks, under the immediate directions of Charles, 

 Versailles being the model, although only at a humble distance. CKpped 

 yew-trees and other Dutch tendencies, scarcely redeemed by the mag- 

 nificent gates and iron railings now introduced, became the rage in the 

 reign of William and Mary, — " terraced walks, hedges of evergreens, 

 shorn shrubs in boxes, orange and myrtle trees in tubs, being the chief 

 excellences." In 1696 an orangery with a glass roof was erected at 

 WoUaton Hall, IsTottinghamshii-e, said to have been the fii-st structure 

 of the kind in England. These gardens were laid out in the Italian 

 style, with terraces, statues, fountains, and urns, and, next to Chats- 

 worth, they seem to have been the finest in England. With Powis 

 Castle, and some other fine old tei'raced gardens, they were sacrificed 

 to the rage for improvement ushered in a century later by Kent and 

 Brown, and their followers. 



11. The time was, indeed, fast approaching when an entirely new 

 school of art in gardening and laying out grounds was to be initiated. 

 Bacon's criticisms had paved the way, Milton's gorgeous descriptions 

 helped to bring the stiff formality of the French and Dutch styles into 

 disfavour ; Addison and Pope, by their ridicule, completed their over- 

 throw. Addison compared your makers of parteiTcs and flower-gardens 

 to epigrammatists and sonneteers ; contrivers of bowers and gi-ottos, 

 treillages and cascades, to romance writers ; while the gravel-pits at Ken- 

 sington, then just laid out, were the writers of heroic verse. This ridi- 

 cule had a very happy effect, and when combined with the imaginings 

 of Milton, and the natm-al descriptions of scenery by Thompson and 

 Shenstone, and the refined criticism of Pope, Gray, Warton, Whately, 

 aiid Walpole, and the practical application of the poet's visions by Kent 

 ai'd Mason and their immediate predecessoi'S, had a wonderful effect on 

 English gardens and parks. The gardens of Paradise, as desci-ibed by 



