256 ENGLISH PLEASURE GARDENS 



as the adjoining walk up the Wilderness to the temple 

 is to be cockle-shells, in the natural taste, agreeing not 

 ill with the little dripping murmur and the aquatic idea 

 of the whole place. It wants nothing to complete it but 

 a good Statue with an inscription like that beautiful 

 antique one which you know I am so fond of : 



" ' Nymph of the Grot, those sacred springs steep, 

 And to the murmur of these waters sleep. 

 Ah, spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave ! 

 And drink in silence or in silence lave.' " 



The English The English perhaps because they had most abused 



rebellion. . 



the conventional system were the first to raise an out- 

 cry against formal gardening. Formality could certainly 

 be carried to no greater excess; it was logical to seek 

 beauty in a contrary extreme. Freedom from every re- 

 straint was the gospel of the new school. Kent, its 

 leader according to Walpole, was the first to jump out- 

 side the fence and insist that the garden should be " set 

 free from its prim regularity, and the gentle stream taught 

 to serpentize." His method, as described by Lord Kames, 

 was, "to paint a field with beautiful objects, natural and 

 artificial, disposed like colours upon a canvas. It requires 

 indeed more genius to paint in the gardening way: in 

 forming a landscape upon a canvas, no more is required 

 but to adjust the figures to each other: an artist who 

 lays out grounds in Kent's way, has an additional task : 

 he ought to adjust the figures to the several varieties of 

 the field. 



