•264 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



he wrote, " the leading step to all that has followed, was (I 

 believe the first thought was Bridgeman's) the destruction of 

 walls for boundaries, and the invention of fosses . . an attempt 

 then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called 

 them Ha ! Ha's ! to express their surprise at finding a sudden 

 and unperceived check to their walk." " No sooner was this 

 simple enchantment made, than levelling, mowing, and rolling, 

 followed. The contiguous ground of the park without the 

 sunk fence, was to be harmonized with the lawn within ; and 

 the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prim 

 regularit}-, that it might assort with the wilder country without. 

 ... At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste 

 the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to 

 dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a 

 great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped 

 the fence, and saw that all Nature was a garden. He felt 

 the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly 

 into each other^ tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or 

 concave scoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an 

 easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in 

 the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and 

 extended the perspective by delusive comparison." 



This shows the ideal which Kent was striving after. To copy 

 Nature was the aim of the new school : — " Nature abhors a 

 straight line," was one of Kent's ruling principles, so avenues 

 and straight walks and hedges were an eyesore to him, and 

 this feeling of dislike was shared by other landscape gardeners. 

 Batty Langley wrote, " To be condemned to pass along the 

 famous vista from Moscow to Petersburg, or that other from 

 Agra to Labor in India, must be as disagreeable a sentence, as 

 to be condemned to labour at the gallies. I conceiv'd some 

 idea of the sensation . . . from walking but a few minutes, 



immured, betwixt Lord D "s high shorn yew hedges." 



This is but a specimen of the exaggerated language in which 

 the new school of gardeners expressed their contempt for the 

 work of their predecessors. 



This passion for the imitation of Nature, was part of 

 the general reaction which was taking place, not only in 



