2$8 ENGLISH PLEASURE GARDENS 



bestow immediate termination. His buildings, his seats, 

 his temples, were more the works of his pencil than of 

 his compass. We owe the restoration of Greece and the 

 diffusion of architecture to his skill in landscape." 



In plain words, nothing remained of the old style in 



ence of 



symmetry, the new gardens. These latter consisted of smooth 

 lawns of grass, diversified by clumps of trees, and inter- 

 sected by curved paths or irregular pieces of water. 

 Nature was said to abhor a straight line ; hence walks and 

 brooks were always laid out in "serpentine meanders." 



Marks of decay are often to be seen in nature ; 

 Kent reproduced this effect by planting dead trees and 

 stumps. These attempts to make a beautiful wilderness 

 often resulted in nothing but a confused mass of dis- 

 order, and were received with ridicule even by the 

 sentimentalists. 



"Capability Among Kent's successors was "Capability" Brown, 

 so nicknamed because he invariably discovered that 

 every piece of ground had capabilities of being improved 

 by his methods. He is said to have had supreme con- 

 trol over the art of modern gardening for nearly half 

 a century. He and his admirers increased the dimen- 

 sions of the naked lawn, multiplied the number of belts 

 of trees and shrubbery, but unfortunately destroyed 

 many of the beautiful old gardens to make way for their 

 improvements. 



Repton. The best exponent of the landscape school was 



