THE "LANDSCAPE-GARDEN? 101 



three steps, and as many walks and terrasses ; and 

 so many iron gates, that we recollect those ancient 

 romances in which every entrance was guarded by 

 nymphs or dragons. At Lady Orford's, at Piddle- 

 town, in Dorsetshire, there was, when my brother 

 married, a double enclosure of thirteen gardens, each, 

 I suppose, not a hundred yards square, with an 

 enfilade of correspondent gates ; and before you 

 arrived at these, you passed a narrow gut between 

 two terrasses that rose above your head, and which 

 were crowned by a line of pyramidal yews. A 

 bowling-green was all the lawn admitted in those 

 times, a circular lake the extent of magnificence." 



Such an air of truth and soberness pervades Wai- 

 pole's narrative, and to so absurd an extent has for- 

 mality been manifestly carried under the auspices of 

 Loudon and Wise, who had stocked our gardens with 

 " giants, animals, monsters, coats of arms, mottoes in 

 yew, box, and holly/' that we are almost persuaded 

 to be Vandals. " The compass and square, were of 

 more use in plantations than the nursery-man. The 

 measured walk, the quincunx, and the 6toile imposed 

 their unsatisfying sameness. . . . Trees were 

 headed, and their sides pared away ; many French 

 groves seem green chests set upon poles. Seats 

 of marble, arbours, and summer-houses, terminated 

 every vista." It is all very well for Temple to re- 

 commend the regular form of garden. " I should 

 hardly advise any of these attempts " cited by Wai- 

 pole, "in the form of gardens among us; they are 

 adventures of too hard achievement for any common 



