20 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



Whateley's book completed the revolution. It 

 was instantly translated into French, the " Anglo- 

 manie " being then at its height ; and though the 

 clipped pyramids and hedges did not fall so reck- 

 lessly as in England, yet no place of any pretension 

 was considered perfect without the addition of its 

 " jardin Anglais."* The natural style was now for 

 some time, in writings and practice, completely 

 triumphant. At length came out ' Price on the 

 Picturesque,' who once more drew the distinction 

 between the parterre and the forest, in opposition to 

 the straggling, scrambling style, which Whateley 

 called " combining the excellences of the garden and 

 the park." 



From the times of Socrates and Epicurus to those 

 of Wesley, Simeon, and Pusey, the same story of 

 Master and Scholars is to be told ; and if theology 



rose, has a passage in his ' Life of Shenstone ' so perfectly Johnsonian 

 that we must transcribe it : " Now was excited his delight in rural 

 pleasures, and his ambition of rural elegance. He began from this 

 time to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his 

 walks, and to wind his waters ; which he did with such judgment 

 and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and 

 the admiration of the skilful a place to be visited by travellers and 

 copied by designers. Whether to plant a walk in undulating curves, 

 and to place a bench at every turn where there is an object to catch 

 the view to make water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate 

 where it will be seen to leave intervals where the eye will be 

 pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be 

 hidden demand any great powers of the mind, I will not inquire : 

 perhaps a surly and sullen spectator may think such performances 

 rather the sport than the business of human reason. But it must at 

 least be confessed that to embellish the form of nature is an innocent 

 amusement, and some praise must be allowed by the most scrupulous 

 observer to him who does best what multitudes are contending to 

 do well." 



* Horace Walpole's description of M. Boutin's garden. 



