XXX. 



INTRODUCTION. 



(page xiii.) of Isaac de Caus, or Caux. It is even 

 possible that De Caus's plan was never fully 

 carried out, as Evelyn, in 1654, dismisses the 

 subject in the single sentence, " It has a flower 

 garden not inelegant." On the other hand, we 

 hear of " such a deal of intricate setting, 

 grafting, planting, inoculating, railing, hedging, 

 plashing, turning, winding and returning, circular, 

 triangular, quadrangular, orbicular, oval, and every 

 way curiously and chargeably conceited," as may 

 well describe the scene which De Caus's view 

 represents. The quotation is from John Taylor, who 

 was at Wilton in 1623. Taylor was a sailor, who 

 fought at Cadiz, and tells us that " seven times at sea 

 I served Eliza Queen." Then he turned waterman 

 and poet, and when the idea arose of making the Avon 

 navigable up to Salisbury he, with another Thames 

 waterman, went in a wherry from London by sea to 

 Christchurch and then up the river, calling on local 

 landowners, such as the Penruddocks at Hale and 

 Lord Dundalk at Longford, who entertained him 

 and listened to his scheme. The day after reaching 

 Salisbury he went over to Wilton, where he was given 

 dinner and shown round the house, where " his 

 Majesty some few days before had dined with most 

 magnificent entertainment." He attributes the whole 

 garden work to " the pains and industry of an 

 ancient gentleman, Mr. Adrian Gilbert," and breaks 

 out into verse : 



Kor Nature brings but Earth and seeds and plants, 



Which Art, like Tailors, cuts and puts in fashion : 



As Nature rudely doth supply our wants, 



Art is deformed Natures reformation. 



So Aiiryan Gilbert mcndeth Natures features 



By Art, that what sh? makes does seem his creatures. 



Nature was indeed " reformed " at Wilton. The 

 garden is a walled in space, divided, as Bacon would 

 have had it, into three sections, but containing only 

 about a third of the acreage that he had recommended. 

 It begins, not with the reposeful Green, but with 

 " ffbure Platts embroydered ; in the midst of which 

 are ffoure fountaynes with statues of marble in their 

 midle, and on the sides of those Platts are the Platts 

 of {flowers, and beyond them is a little Terrass rased 

 for the more advantage of beholding those Platts " 

 an arrangement which reminds us of Montacute. 

 In the next section, through which runs the Nadder, 

 bridged over for the width of the great central alley, 

 are the groves, the green galleries or arbours, and 

 other pleachings and clippings ; while the third section 

 has elaborate galleries of" Carpenter's Worke" along 

 the sides, but in the centre appears the "orbicular" 

 arrangement set with cherry and other fruit trees. 

 The great alley ends with a portico, " and above the 

 sayd portico is a great reserve of water for the 

 grotto." It is noticeable that Taylor does not 

 describe the grotto, or mention any architectural 

 work fountains, statues, or galleries and he is 

 probably right in attributing much of the planting 

 and training to Gilbert the gardener, De Caus being 

 the architect and engineer, whose work may even 

 not have been done at the time of Taylor's visit in 

 1623, as the designs were only published in 1640. 



Solomon, of Caux in Normandy, became mathe- 

 matical tutor to Prince Henry of England in 1609. 

 But architecture and waterworks were his chief 

 delight and Vitruvius his favourite author. In his 

 book " Des grotes et Fontaines pour 1'ornement des 

 Maisons de Plaisance et Jardins," are many designs 

 which he tells us were made for the adornment of 



Richmond and the amusement of the prince who 

 lived there. He also built the gallery at Richmond 

 and the south front of Wilton, which was burnt 

 in 1645 and then rebuilt by Inigo Jones. He, no 

 doubt, is the " Frenche Gardiner " whom we find 

 employed at Somerset House and Greenwich, but 

 after the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the 

 Elector Palatine, he went abroad with her and laid 

 out the gardens at Heidelberg. Isaac de Caus was 

 his son or nephew, and his book on waterworks, 

 which was translated in 1659 by John Leak, who 

 describes him as "a late famous Engenier," was largely 

 taken from that of his elder relative. The importance 

 of water forgarden ornament andamenity was asevident 

 to the Renaissance designers as to those of ancient 

 Rome. Pliny's Tusculan Villa was, as we have seen, 

 rich in water devices, and he was by no means different 

 to his neighbours. The Italy of the sixteenth century 

 eagerly revived the art, and, if it went no further in 

 splendour, it did in ingenuity and trickery. In all 

 such craft England was far behind the Continent, 

 where, though Italy began, France soon copied and 

 then excelled, as Evelyn found when he visited some 

 of the finest places about Paris in 1 644. At Rueil, the 

 creation of Cardinal Richelieu, he found water used 

 in all three of the above methods. There was 

 splendour in the "plentiful though artificial cascade, 

 which rolls down a very steepe declivity and over the 

 marble steps and basins w th an astonishing noyse and 

 fury ; each basin hath a jetto in it, flowing like 

 sheetes of transparent glasse, especially that which 

 rises over the greate shell of lead from whence it 

 glides down a channell through the middle of a 

 spacious gravel walk terminating in a grotto." 

 There was ingenuity in that said grotto, wherein 

 stood a marble table " on which a tountaine 

 playes in divers formes of glasses, cupps, crosses, 

 fanns, crownes, etc." And there was trickery in 

 " two extravagant musqueteeres " who, as he went 

 out, squirted him with water through their 

 musket barrels. The spending of large sums 

 over elaborate contrivances to wet your un- 

 suspecting guests was a favourite effort of wit in 

 those days, and was for long one of the attractions 

 of Wilton, for CeliaFiennes, visiting it in William III.'s 

 time, was delighted with de Caus's contrivances to 

 " Wet y e Company, designed for diversion." His 

 "engineering," however, was not always so objection- 

 able though often rather childish. One of his water- 

 power triumphs was of " Divers Birds which shall 

 sing diversly when an Owl turns towards them : and 

 when the said Owl turns back again they shall cease 

 their singing." Something of the sort Celia Fiennes 

 found at Wilton, but not, apparently, an example of 

 his moving figures. In his book on waterworks he 

 gives instructions and designs for two of these. In 

 each case the scene is a grotto of artificial stalactites, 

 one with a square and the other with a circular basin 

 of water forming its floor. In the first, we have 

 " Galatea drawn upon the Water by 2 Dolphins, 

 going in a right line and returning of her Self, 

 while a Cyclope plaies upon a Flagolet." In the 

 second, " Neptune turns circularly with certain 

 Trytons and other Figures, which shall cast forth 

 Water in turning." If England never had anything 

 quite so grand as these, France, certainly, had ; for 

 Evelyn finds at St. Germains " Subterranean grotts 

 and rocks where are represented several objects in 

 the manner of sceanes, and other motions by force 



