EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EXTREMES 251 





If the garden appeared spick and span, with paths 

 absolutely straight and smooth, and grass-plots ex- 

 actly square and even, nothing was lacking, except an 

 occasional statue or dwarf tree, to complete its per- 

 fection. The larger the garden, the larger the number 

 of grass-plots all alike and of enclosures similar if not 

 exactly the same. Symmetry was 

 carried out on a pointlessly large 

 scale, for the corresponding objects 

 were often too widely separated to 

 come within the same line of vision. 

 It seemed as though the proprietor 

 was principally desirous of showing the extent of 

 his property, and the gardener his knowledge of 

 geometry, while neither displayed a ray of originality, 

 or evinced any fondness for the real pleasures of a 

 garden. 



The French style, without the guidance of Le Notre, Oppressive 



grandeur. 



had even in France degenerated to a mere display of 

 magnificent dimensions, oppressive but seldom impres- 

 sive. " A false taste for grandeur which is not made 

 for man, spoils his pleasures," Rousseau remarks in this 

 connection, continuing : " The grand air is always melan- 

 choly; it makes us think of the miseries of the man 

 who affects it. Amid his parterres and endless alleys 

 his littleness does but increase, a tree twenty feet high 

 shelters him as well as one of sixty. He can never 



