104 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



things, and he had besides a few myrtles, oleanders, 

 and evergreens." 



u The old order changeth . 

 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 



And now is Art in a Garden become ridiculous. 

 Since the beginning of things English gardeners 

 had clipped and trimmed their shrubs ; but had never 

 carried the practice beyond a reasonable extent, and 

 had combined it with woody and shady effects. With 

 the onset of Dutch influence country-aspects vanish. 

 Nature is reduced to a prosaic level. The traditional 

 garden, whose past had been one long series of noble 

 chances in fine company, now found content as the 

 pedant's darling where it could have no opening for 

 living romance, but must be tricked out in stage con- 

 ventions, and dwindle more and more into a thing of 

 shreds and patches ! 



Having arrived at such a pass, it was time that 

 change should come, and change did come, with a 

 vengeance ! But let us not suppose that the change 

 was from wrong to right. For, indeed, the revolu- 

 tion meant only that formality gone mad should be 

 supplanted by informality gone equally mad. And 

 we may note as a significant fact, that the point of 

 departure is the destruction of the garden's bound- 

 aries, and the substitution of the ha-ha. It was 

 not for the wild improvers to realise how Art that 

 destroys its own boundaries is certainly doomed to 

 soon have no country to boast of at all ! It proved so 

 in this case. From this moment, the very thought 



