ON GARDENS 37 



the Sentimental Garden style. "Art," he cried, 

 "should never be allowed to set foot in the pro- 

 vince of Nature." And forthwith he planned a 

 Garden with the most consummate art and shut 

 Nature out. 



" Capability " Brown's desperate improvements 

 are well described by Cowper in " The Garden " : 



" Lo, he comes ! 



The omnipotent magician, Brown, appears ! 

 Down falls the venerable pile, the abode 

 Of our forefathers a grave, whisker'd race, 

 But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead, 

 But in a distant spot ; . . . 

 He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn ; 

 Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise ; 

 And streams, as if created for his use, 

 Pursue the track of his directing wand." 



Luckily before every delicious old Garden was 

 destroyed under Brown's fatal influence, a reaction 

 set in, and Brown was denounced by Gilpin, Price, 

 Knight, and Mason, who, in many ways approving 

 of the Landscape style, desired it to be " rational 

 Landscape." Knight was loud in his abuse, and in 

 a most amusing poem proves how incongruous the 

 new style is surrounding old houses : 



"Oft when I've seen some lonely mansion stand 

 Fresh from the improver's desolating hand, 

 'Midst shaven Lawns that far around it creep 

 In one eternal undulating sweep ; 



