40 A BOOK OF ENGLISH GARDENS 



was the case with the Natural or Landscape school. 

 The latter school, which became the National 

 English style, began to pass into France about 

 1762. It is distressing to think what beauties were 

 recklessly destroyed in the name of Nature, and 

 these innovations bear a close resemblance to what 

 was done later in the name of liberty 



It is difficult, in the maze of literature and the 

 disconnected lives of the principal actors in the 

 drama, to describe the exact evolution of Gardens 

 especially to discover the actual source of the great 

 change from one style to the other. 



Gray, the poet, claims " our skill in Gardening, or 

 rather in the laying out of ground," as being "the 

 only taste we can call our own, and the only proof 

 of original talent in the matter of pleasure," and 

 that the natural style was the invention of the 

 English. 



Foreigners declare that the whole style was 

 borrowed from the Irregular Gardening of the 

 Chinese and made particularly pleasing in England 

 by the beautiful grass Lawns. 



Be this as it may, the principles of modern Land- 

 scape Gardening have been laid down by English 

 authorities, chiefly Mason's " Essay on Design in 

 Gardening," Walpole's famous " Essay on Modern 

 Gardening," and last, but not least, Thomas 

 Whately's "Observations on Modern Gardening." 



Loudon claims for the latter that it is " the 



