xxxii Editor's Introduction 



beauty of which is the result of Prince Puckler's 

 ideas and advice, but it comes from sinning against 

 the light by those who ought to know better. 

 Fortunately, if the art is really sound and true 

 there generally seems to be a David to come for- 

 ward and redeem the delectable land from the 

 hands of the Philistines. 



The full development of landscape architecture 

 came late. Greek art in architecture, sculpture, 

 song, and the drama struck a high note which 

 reached almost perfection two thousand years 

 before the glimmerings of true landscape archi- 

 tecture appeared in the seventeenth century. 

 Nature hardly appealed to pagan artists except in 

 the form of a human being. 



When Christ said, "Consider the lilies," he 

 struck a new note, which, although submerged 

 and lost in the monastic sterility of the Middle 

 Ages, began to secure recognition of its true 

 value in the minds of men like Du Fresny who 

 first applied his genius to the landscape concep- 

 tion of a new Versailles, which was unfortunately 

 not accepted by Louis XIV. All through the 

 eighteenth century this lily of Christ's own 

 thought continued to open its petals until in the 

 early days of the nineteenth century, in the works 

 of Repton and Prince Piickler, the goodly flower 

 of landscape architecture appeared in full bloom. 

 It is not that finer trees and shrubs, better turf 

 and wider vistas have not obtained in later days. 

 That goes without saying! It is that men have 

 learned how to design a landscape on natural 



