EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EXTREMES 269 



places. His treatment of water was often delightful, as 

 is shown in the lily pond at Castle Ashby. Unfortu- 

 nately his first step was often to undo the work of his 

 predecessors, until he has come to be considered less of 

 a creator than a destroyer of gardens. 



In Repton's various publications his methods are fully Repton's 

 described and illustrated with pictures, showing how the 

 landscape would appear before and after his alterations. 

 The present gardens at Ashridge remain much as he 

 laid them out, and were perhaps his favourite design. 

 No less than fifteen different kinds of gardens were 

 proposed in his map, and most of them were afterward 

 constructed. Two of the prettiest are enclosures called 

 the Rosary and the Monks' Garden, both formal in their 

 arrangement. At Beaudesart he restored an old gar- 

 den that it might be in keeping with the Tudor man- 

 sion, and everywhere he showed a respect for the past 

 surprisingly in contrast to Brown's iconoclastic methods. 

 In speaking of temples he mentions the temple at Tivoli 

 as the perfection of its type. This is shown in the 

 illustration at the beginning of this chapter, drawn from 

 a painting by Claude Lorraine. 



The French were quick to adopt the English style. French 

 It was heralded by philosophers such as Rousseau, who, the English 

 as Taine said, "made the dawn visible to people who gard 

 had never risen till noon, the landscape to eyes that had 

 only rested hitherto upon drawing-rooms and palaces, 



