THOMAS GRAY 171 



Repton be allowed by the public.^ — Dallaway's ^Anecdotes of 

 Gardening.^ ^ 



T TE (Count Algarotti) is highly civil to our nation, but there is THOMAS 

 ^ one little point, in which he does not do us justice. I am (j^jg.,--!) 

 the more solicitous about it, because it relates to the only taste 

 which we can call our own, the only proof of our original talent 

 in matter of pleasure ; I mean, our skill in gardening, and laying 

 out grounds. That the Chinese have this beautiful art in high 

 perfection, seems very probable from the Jesuifs Letters, and 

 more from Chamber's little discourse published some few years 

 ago. But it is very certain, we copied nothing from them, nor 

 had anything but nature for our model. It is not forty years 

 since the art was born among us ; and it is sure, that there was 

 nothing in Europe like it, and as sure, we then had no informa- 

 tion on this head from China at all. — Letter to Williafn Taylor 

 Howe, dated Cambridge, September 10, 1763. 



And so you have a garden of your own, and you plant and 

 transplant, and are dirty and amused; are not you ashamed of 

 yourself? Why, I have no such thing, you monster; nor ever 

 shall be either dirty or amused as long as I live ! My gardens 



1 Reptoiij in his enquiry into the changes of taste in Landscape Gardening, 

 offers the following defence of Brown : — ' After his death he was immediately 

 succeeded by a numerous herd of his foremen and working gardeners, who 

 from having executed his designs, became consulted as well as employed in 

 the several works which he had entrusted them to superintend. And this 

 introduced all the bad taste attributed to Brown, by enlarging his plans. 

 Hence came the mistaken notion, that greatness of dimensions would produce 

 greatness of character : hence proceeded the immeasurable length of naked 

 lawn : the tedious length of belts and drives : the useless breadth of meander- 

 ing roads : the tiresome monotony of shrubberies and pleasure-grounds : the 

 naked expanse of water accompanied by trees, and all the unpicturesque 

 features which disgrace modern gardening, and which brought on Brown's 

 system the opprobrious epithets of " bare and bald." ' 



^ What may be called the literary history of gardening shall be succinctly 

 and impartially attempted. — Dallaway. 



