LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 283 



become the recognized National style of England, and it was 

 copied on the Continent^ in France, Italy and Germany. " Eng- 

 lish gardens " became the fashion, and books were written abroad 

 to extol the English taste, and invite other nations to copy 

 it,* and old gardens were destroyed to give place to the 

 new style. But on the Continent one thing was lacking, 

 which was the redeeming point in all these landscapes, and 

 that was the green turf. Nowhere is the grass so fair and 

 green as in England, and landscape-gardeners appreciated 

 this great advantage. 



It is strange the way in which the writers of this school 

 pointed to Milton and Bacon as the founders of their taste. 

 They claimed Bacon because he devotes a part of his ideal 

 garden to a "natural wildness," and also praises "green 

 grass kept finely shorn," and Milton, because he says that 

 in Paradise there were : — 



" Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art 

 In beds and curious knots, but nature boon 

 Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.'' f 



Yet how opposed to all ideas of landscape gardeners 

 would these two men have been. Bacon, who loved the 

 green grass, and yet would have his garden full of flowers in 

 bloom in every month of the year, would have been shocked 

 by the idea of " a garden . . . disgracing by discordant 

 character the contiguous lawn," or by being told that " the 

 flower-garden ought never to be visible from the windows of 

 the house." Sir Walter Scott, J in one of his charming articles 

 on landscape gardening, points out that Milton never intended 

 to censure the "trim gardens" of his own day, although he 

 pictured the natural beauties in the newly-created Paradise. 

 Scott well understood the great mistake that had been made 

 in destroying such a large number of old gardens. He saw 

 how perfectly an Elizabethan garden harmonized with the 

 house, and while he could not vindicate the " paltry imitations 



* DeV Arte dei Giardini Inglesi, Milan, 1801. Plan de Jardins dans le 

 gout Anglais, jean Louis Mansa, Copenhague, 1798. Ob. folio, &c. 

 t Paradise Lost — Book IV. 

 X Quaytcrly, Vol. 37, 1828, and Criticism, Vol. V. 



