THE ''LANDSCAPE-GARDEN:' ill 



their smooth and bald surface. "Why this art has 

 been called ' landscape-gardening,' " says the plain- 

 spoken Repton. "perhaps he who gave it the title 

 may explain. I can see no reason, unless it be the 

 efficacy which it has shown in destroying landscapes, 

 in which, indeed, it seems infallible." (Repton, p. 

 355-) " Our virtuosi." said Sir William Chambers, 

 " have scarcely left an acre of shade, or three trees 

 ^Trowino- in a line from the Land's End to the 

 Tweed." 



It did not take the wiser spirits long to realise 

 that Nature left alone was more natural. And this 

 same Repton, who began by praising " the great 

 leader Brown," has to confess again and again that, 

 so far as results go, he is mistaken. The ground, 

 he laments, must be everlastingly moved and altered. 

 " One of the greatest difficulties I have experienced 

 in practice proceeds from that fondness for levelling 

 so prevalent in all Brown's workmen ; every hillock 

 is by them lowered, and every hollow filled, to pro- 

 duce a level surface." (Repton, p. 342.) Or again (p. 

 347) : " There is something so fascinating in the ap- 

 pearance of water, that Mr Brown thought it carried 

 its own excuse, however unnatural the situation ; 

 and therefore, in many places, under his direction, 

 I have found water, on the tops of the hills, which 

 I have been obliged to remove into lower ground 

 because the deception was not sufficiently complete to 

 satisfy the mind as well as the eye.'' Indeed, in this 

 matter of levelling. Brown's system does not. on the 

 face of it, differ from Le Notre's, where the natural 



