154 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



with the air of a Moses freshly come down from the 

 Mount, with the tables of the law in his hands. And 

 there is more of it. " There is no code of taste rest- 

 ing on any solid foundation which proves that garden 

 or park should have any extensive stonework or 

 geometrical arrangement. . . . Let us, then, use 

 as few oil-cloth or carpet patterns and as little stone- 

 work as possible in our gardens. The style is in 

 doubtful taste in climates and positions more suited 

 to it than that of England, but he who would adopt 

 it in the present day is an enemy to every true 

 interest of the garden " (p. vi). 



So much for the " deadly formalism " of an old- 

 fashioned garden in our author's eyes ! But, as 

 Horace Walpole might say, " it is not peculiar to Mr 

 Robinson to think in that manner." It is the way of 

 the landscape-gardener to monopolise to himself all 

 the right principles of gardening ; he is the angel of 

 the garden who protects its true interests ; all other 

 moods than his are low, all figures other than his are 

 symbols of errors, all dealings with Nature or with 

 " the materials of our world-designer " other than his 

 are spurious. For the colonies I can imagine no 

 fitter doctrines than our author's, but not for an old 

 land like ours, and for methods that have the ap- 

 proval of men like Bacon, Temple, More, Evelyn, 

 Sir Joshua, Sir Walter, Elia, Wordsworth, Tennyson, 

 Morris, and Jefferies. And, even in the colonies, they 

 might demand to see " the code of taste resting on 

 any solid foundation which proves " that you shall 

 have any garden or park at all ! 



