36 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



tiful and picturesque in nature and art, and founded a new 

 school, more spirited and free in its aim, deriving its prin- 

 ciples directly from nature and painting. These, with 

 Knight's elegant Poem, the Landscape, the English Garden 

 by Mason, and Whately's Observations on Modern Garden- 

 ing, all published between 1750 and the beginning of the 

 year 1800, established the new style firmly in the pubHc 

 mind. On the Continent, especially in France, though the 

 old fashioned gardens were not demolished, as in England, 

 new ones were laid out in accordance with the dawning 

 taste, and none of the antique establishments were thought 

 perfect without a spot set apart as ajardin Anglais. 



It is not a little remarkable that the Chinese taste in gar- 

 dening, which was at first made known to the English public 

 about this time, is by far the nearest previous approach to 

 the modern style. Some critics, indeed, have asserted that 

 . the English are indebted to it for their ideas of the modern 

 style. However this may be, and we confess it has very 

 little weight with us, the harmonious system which the taste 

 of the English has evolved in the modern style, is at the 

 present day too far beyond the Chinese manner to admit of 

 any comparison. The first is imbued with beauty of the 

 most graceful and agreeable character, based upon nature, 

 and refined by art ; while the latter abounds in puerilities 

 and whimsical conceits — rocky hills, five feet high — minia- 

 ture bridges — dwarf oaks, a hundred years old and twenty 

 inches in altitude — which, whatever may be our admiration 

 for the curious ingenuity and skill tasked in their produc- 

 tion, leave on our mind no very favorable impression of the 

 taste which designed them. 



The most distinguished English Landscape Gardeners of 

 more recent date, are the late Humphrey Repton, who died 



