THE ''LANDSCAPE-GARDEN." 



three steps, and as many walks and terrasses ; and 

 so many iron gates, that we recollect those ancient 

 romances in which every entrance was guarded b)- 

 nymphs or dragons. At Lady Orford's, at Piddle- 

 town, in Dorsetshire, there was. when m}- brother 

 married, a double enclosure of thirteen gardens, each, 

 I suppose, not a hundred yards square, with an 

 enfilade of correspondent gates ; and before you 

 arrived at these, you passed a narrow gut between 

 two terrasses that rose above )our head, and which 

 were crowned b}- a line of pyramidal yews. A 

 bowling-green was all the lawn admitted in those 

 times, a circular lake the extent of magnificence." 



Such an air of truth and soberness pervades Wal- 

 pole's narrative, and to so absurd an extent has for- 

 mality been manifestly carried under the auspices of 

 Loudon and Wise, who had stocked our gardens with 

 "giants, animals, monsters, coats of arms, mottoes in 

 yew, box, and holly," that we are almost persuaded 

 to be Vandals. "The compass and square, were ot 

 more use in plantations than the nursery-man. The 

 measured walk, the quincunx, and the etoile imposed 

 their unsatisfying sameness. . . . Trees were 

 headed, and their sides pared away ; many French 

 groves seem green chests set upon poles. Seats 

 of marble, arbours, and summer-houses, terminated 

 every vista." It is all very well for Temple to re- 

 commend the regular form of garden. " I should 

 hardly advise any of these attempts " cited by Wal- 

 pole, "in the form of gardens among us; they arc 

 adventures of too hard achievement for any co?)imon 



