THE ''LANDSCAPR-GARDENy 131 



" Nature abhors lines." Hence his mimicry can 

 never rise above Nature. Indeed, if it remains 

 faithful to the ne<^ative opinions of its practitioners, 

 landscape-gardening will never construct an)- system 

 of device. It has no creed, if you except that sole 

 article of its faith, " I believe in the non-eeometrical 

 garden." A monumental style is an impossibility 

 while it eschews all features that make for state 

 and magnificence and symmetr)' ; a little park 

 scenery, much grass, curved shrubberies, the 

 " laboured littleness " of emphasised specimen plants 

 — the hardy ones dotted about in various parts — 

 wriggling paths, flower-borders, or beds of shapes 

 that imply that they are the offspring of bad dreams, 

 and its tale of effects is told. But as for " fine 

 gardening," that was given up long ago as a bad 

 job ! The spirit of Walpole's objections to the 

 heroic enterprise of the old-fashioned garden still 

 holds the "landscape-gardener" in check. "I 

 should hardly advise any of those attempts," says 

 Walpole ; " they are adventures of too hard achieve- 

 ment/or any coiunion hands'' 



It is not so much at what he finds in the land- 

 scape gardener's creations that the architect demurs, 

 but at what he misses. It is not so much at what 

 the landscape-gardener recommends that the archi- 

 tect objects, as at what moving in his own little 

 orbit he wilfully shuts out, basing his opposition to 

 tradition upon such an ex parte view of the matter 

 as this—" There are really two styles, one strait- 

 laced, mechanical, with much wall and stone, or it 



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