1 30 GARDEN-CRA F T. 



And even the School that is rather kinder to 

 Art, more lenient to tradition, represented by Mr 

 Milner — even he, in his admirable book upon the 

 " Art and Practice of Landscape Gardening " 

 (1890), is the champion of Nature, not of Art, in a 

 garden. " Nature still seems to work in fetters," he 

 says, and he would " form bases for a better practice 

 of the Art " (p. 4). Again, Nature is the great 

 exemplar that I follow " (p. 8). 



They have not got beyond Brown, so far as 

 theory is concerned. " Under the great leader 

 Brown," writes Repton, with unconscious irony, 

 " or rather those who patronised his discovery, we 

 were taught that Nature was to be our only model " 

 — and Brown had his full chance of manipulating 

 the universe, for " he lived to establish a fashion in 

 gardening, which might have been expected to 

 endure as long as Nature should exist " ; and yet 

 Repton's work mostly consisted in repairing Brown's 

 errors and in covering the nakedness of his hungry 

 prospects. So it would seem that Art has her 

 revenges as well as Nature ! " The way of trans- 

 gressors is hard ! " 



The Landscape-gardener, I said, gets no nearer 

 to maturity of purpose as time runs on. He creeps 

 and shuffles after Nature as at the first — much as 

 the benighted traveller after the will-o'-the-wisp. 

 He may not lay hands on her, because you cannot 

 conquer her wildness, nor impose your will upon 

 her, or teach her good behaviour. He may not 

 apply the " dead formalism of Art " to her, for 



