AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK, 309 



happily the place escaped notice in that artificial era 

 when half the parks and woods were spoiled to make 

 the engraver's ideal landscape of straight vistas, broad 

 in the foreground and narrowing up to nothing. Wide, 

 straight roads — you can call them nothing else — were 

 cut through the finest woods, so that upon looking from 

 a certain window, or standing at a certain spot in the 

 grounds, you might see a church tower at the end of 

 the cutting, In some parks there are half a dozen such 

 horrors shown to you as a great curiosity ; some have a 

 monument or pillar at the end. These hideous dis- 

 figurements of beautiful scenery should surely be wiped 

 out in our day. The stiff, straight cutting could soon 

 be filled up by planting, and after a time the woods 

 would resume their natural condition. Many common 

 highway roads are really delightful, winding through 

 trees and hedgerows, with glimpses of hills and distant 

 villages. But these planned, straight vistas, radiating 

 from a central spot as if done with ruler and pen, at 

 once destroy the pleasant illusion of primeval forest. 

 You may be dreaming under the oaks of the chase or 

 of Rosalind : the moment you enter such a vista all 

 becomes commonplace. Happily this park escaped, 

 and it is beautiful. Our English landscape wants no 

 gardening : it cannot be gardened. The least inter- 

 ference kills it. The beauty of English woodland and 

 country is in its detail. There is nothing empty and 

 unclothed. If the clods are left a little while undis- 

 turbed in the fields, weeds spring up and wild-flowers 

 bloom upon them. Is the hedge cut and trimmed, lo ! 

 the bluebells flower the more and a yet fresher green 

 buds forth upon the twigs. Never was there a garden 

 like the meadow : there is not an inch of the meadow 

 in early summer without a flower, Old walls, as we 



