THE "LANDSCAPE-GARDEN." 105 



of garden-ornament was clean put out of mind, and 

 the grass is carried up to the windows of the great 

 house, as though the place were nothing better than 

 a farm-shanty in the wilds of Westmoreland ! 



But to return to the inauguration of the " land- 

 scape-garden." The hour produced its men in Kent, 

 and "the immortal Brown," as Repton calls him. 

 Like many another ''discovery," theirs was really 

 due to an accident. Just as it was the closely-corked 

 bottle that popped that gave birth to champagne, 

 so it was only when our heroes casually leaped the 

 ha-ha that they had made that they realised that 

 all England outside was one vast rustic garden, 

 from whence it were a shame to exclude anything ! 



So began the rage for making all the surround- 

 ings of a house assume a supposed appearance of 

 rude Nature. Levelling, ploughing, stubbing-up, was 

 the order of the day. The British navvy was in 

 great request in fact the day that Kent and Brown 

 discovered England was this worthy's natal day. 

 Artificial gardens must be demolished as impostures, 

 and wriggling walks and turf put where they had 

 stood. A/venues must be cut down or disregarded ; 

 the groves, the alleys, the formal beds, the terraces, 

 the balustrades, the dipt hedges must be swept away 

 as things intolerable. For the " landscape style " 

 does not countenance a straight line, or terrace or 

 architectural form, or symmetrical beds about the 

 house ; for to allow these would not be to photo- 

 graph Nature. As carried into practice, the style 

 demands that the house shall rise abruptly from 



