THE TECHNICS OF GARDENING. 155 



" If I am to have a system at all," says the 

 author of "The Flower Garden" (Murray, 1852), 

 whose broad-minded views declare him to be an 

 amateur, "give me the good old system of terraces 

 and angled walks, the clipt yew hedges, against 

 whose dark and rich verdure the bright old-fashioned 

 flowers glittered in the sun." Or again: "Of all 

 the vain assumptions of these coxcombical times, that 

 which arrogates the pre-eminence in the true science 

 of gardening is the vainest. . . . The real beauty 

 and poetry of a garden are lost in our efforts after 

 rarity. If we review the various styles that have 

 prevailed in England from the knotted gardens of 

 Elizabeth ... to the landscape fashion of the 

 present day, we shall have little reason to pride 

 ourselves on the advance which national taste has 

 made upon the earliest efforts in this department " 

 ("The Praise of Gardens," p. 270). 



"Large or small," says Mr W. Morris, "the 

 garden should look both orderly and rich. It 

 should be well fenced from the outer world. It 

 should by no means imitate either the wilfulness 

 or the wildness of Nature, but should look like 

 a thing never seen except near a house " (" Hopes 

 and Fears"). 



The whole point of the matter is, however, per- 

 haps best summed up in Hazlitt's remark, that there 

 is a pleasure in Art which none but artists feel. 

 And why this sudden respect for "the materials of 

 our world-designer," when we may ask in Repton's 

 words " why this art has been called Landscape- 



