374 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



adornments so deficient that a green meadow is a more delightful 

 object. . . . And as all noble Fountains, Grottoes, Statues, etc. 

 are excellent ornaments and works of Magnificence, so all such 

 dead works in Gardens ill-done are little more than blocks in the 

 way to interrupt the sight, but not at all to satisfie the under- 

 standing,' 



While Le Notre's trumpet was being blown throughout Europe, 

 a still small tune was piped in Scotland, tenui arundine by John 

 Reid (gardener to Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, Aberdeen- 

 shire), who produced at Edinburgh in 1683 the earliest Scotch 

 Gardening Book, ' the Scots Gard'ner.' The thrifty simplicity 

 of his idea of a pleasure-garden is an agreeable contrast to the 

 magnificence of Versailles and its imitations : — - 



' Pleasure-Gardens useth to be divided into walkes and plots, 

 with a Bordure round each plot, and at the corner of each, may 

 be a holly or some such train'd up, some Pyramidal, others 

 Spherical, the Trees and Shrubs at the Wall well plyed and prun'd, 

 the Green thereon cut in several Figures, the walkes layed with 

 Gravel, and the plots within with Grass, (in several places whereof 

 may be Flower pots) the Bordures boxed, and planted with variety 

 of Fine Flowers orderly Intermixt, Weeded, Mow'd, Rolled, and 

 kept all clean and handsome.' 



The Dutch style of laying out gardens, introduced into England 

 by William III. and Mary, is not unlike the French, but every- 

 thing is on a smaller, almost too minute a scale ; and much care is 

 expended upon isolated details and ornaments (often trivial), such 

 as glass balls, coloured sands and earth, flower-pots innumerable, 

 and painted perspectives; and the garden is usually intersected 

 with canals degenerating into ditches. 



' Grassy slopes, green terraces and straight canals are more 

 common in Holland than in any other country of the Continent, 

 and these verdant slopes and mounds may be said to form, 

 with their oblong canals, the characteristics of the Dutch style.' 

 i^Loudon.) 



Typical instances on a large scale were the Gardens at Loo, 



