FILLING IN WITH COLOURS 269 



and gone, schools of designing have arisen, flour- 

 ished and fallen, great masters of the art have 

 become famous and been forgotten, yet gathering 

 a little of the best from every influence and as- 

 cendency it has grown and bloomed serenely, se- 

 cure in the fastnesses of its own most excellent 

 traditions. One generation has planted a walk 

 with Yews; another has built in a stairway or a 

 wall, and still another, moved by the magnificence 

 and grandeur of Le Notre has diverted a river from 

 its course and led it through a parterre of flowers to 

 frolic in a fountain ; and all these inspirations have 

 been absorbed and blended into an harmonious 

 whole to which Time has only added perfection. 



At one period the English garden was laid out 

 on an enormous scale, often containing gardens 

 within gardens; a park-like enclosure for flowers 

 was considered necessary to uphold the dignity of 

 a great house or castle. Although Le Notre is not 

 known ever to have been in England, his teachings 

 were for a time closely followed in the island across 

 the channel; yet it is a fact, as Bloomfield* points 



.* Reginald Bloomfield, M. A., F. S. A.: "The Formal Gar- 

 den in England." 



