GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



stately gardens of Rome. Thus does Taine speak of the 

 characters embodied at the Villa Albani : "No liberty is left 

 to Nature; all is artificial. The lawns are hemmed in by 

 enormous hedges taller than a man, thick as walls, and 

 forming geometrical angles, of which the apices all point to one 

 centre. The flower-beds are enclosed by small box frames ; 

 they comprise designs, and resemble well-bordered carpets in a 

 regular mediey of graduated colours." And in this way did 

 Rousseau sneer at the fashioner of verdant conceits: "With 

 what disdain would he enter this simple and modest place, 

 with what contempt have all these weeds uprooted ! What fine 

 avenues he would open out, what beautiful alleys he would 

 pierce, what fine goose-feet and what fine trees like parasols 

 and fans ! What finely-fretted trellises, what beautifully 

 drawn yew hedges, finely squared and rounded ! What fine 



Moor Park in Hertfordshire lay upon the side of a hill, which 

 naturally led to a terraced formation, and the great parlour 

 opened upon the terrace fronting the house, which was about 

 300 paces long, and broad in proportion, the border being set 

 with standard laurels at intervals. From this walk were three 

 flights of steps, disposed at the middle and the ends, by which a 

 descent was made into a very large parterre. Gravel walks 

 crossed this space, dividing it into quarters, and it was adorned 

 with fountains and statues. Above, and at each end of the 

 terrace, were summer-houses, and alongthe sides of the parterre 

 were covered ways or cloisters open to the garden, and ending 

 with two other summer-houses. Over these two cloisters two 

 terraces extended from the main ..errace, with balustrades, and 

 were entered through the summer-houses first described. 

 Here was an enclosure, such as may still be found, though 



Copyright. 



THE TEKkACES, 1 ISSING TON HALL, DERBYSHIRE. 



Lije." 



bowling greens of fine English turf rounded, squared, sloped, 

 ovaled ! What fine yews carved into dragons, pagodas, 

 marmosets every kind of monster ! " Indeed, in the 

 descriptions both of those who loved the old gardening and 

 those who extolled the charms of the rival school, we find 

 imple evidence of the permanence we may even say the 

 essential permanence of something of formality in gardening 

 style. 



A type of the seventeenth century garden, devoid of such 

 exaggerations as Pope derided, was that at Moor Park in 

 Hertfordshire, made famous by the description of Sir William 

 Temple, and formal in character like the famous garden of 

 his own NVior Park near Farnhum. There were many great 



.us of the class in that century, as at Theobalds, the place 

 of the Lord Treasurer Burlei-jh, and at Wilton and Penshurst. 



with infinite variation, at Montacute, Blickling, Hatfield, Ham 

 House, and many other great places in the land. From the 

 middle of the parterre at Moor Park was a descent by many 

 steps, in two flights on either side of a grotto, into the lower 

 garden, where was an orchard, and here the walks were all 

 -urn, as well as a grotto (prototype of many) embellished with 

 shells, rockwork, and fountains. Thus we see, as has been 

 suggested, how the seventeenth century Englishman carried 

 his house, as it were, into his garden, and loved the shadowed 

 alley in the hot summer days, the delectable coolness of the 

 evening air on his terrace, and the green lawns where he sped 

 his well-turned bowls. 



There were other features of these old gardens which are 

 not found alluded to in Sir William Temple's description of 

 Moor Park, though some of them remain to this day from the 



