XXXVI. 



INTRODUCTION. 



beauty, indeed, now that the original precision and 

 newness have gone from it ; now that time has refused 

 to allow the growths to remain as the original 

 designer intended them, o - as Kip engraved them ; 

 now that artificiality no longer dominates Nature, but 

 Nature has patiently obtained the mastery over 

 artificiality. To some extent this happens even in 

 gardens recently planted and where the shears are 

 used, a fact which we must always bear in mind when 

 we judge of the great formal gardens of Queen 

 Anne's era through the medium of Kip's views. His 

 own and his collaborators' precise and stiff style of 

 drawing accentuates the rigidity of the gardens they 

 delineate, and leads us to forget that Nature 

 was always mitigating and mellowing their 

 formalism. Among Kip's views, those of Cashio- 

 bury and Wimpole well represent the new method 

 of leaving the open parterres as soon as possible 

 and entering the shady groves and boscages, pierced 

 squarely, angularly and circularly with clipped 

 alleys. Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, shared 

 Evelyn's pre-eminence in the gardening world, and 

 made Cashiobury noted for its " rural excellencies." 

 He sent his gardener, John Rose, to study at 

 Versailles, and then passed him on to the King, 

 he being the predecessor and instructor of George 

 London. At Cashiobury there was very limited 

 parterre space ; the groves were entered almost 

 at once, and open spaces, as for a bowling 

 green, obtained by great treeless circles at the 

 intersections of the alleys. "The gardens," 

 thought Evelyn, " are very rare and cannot be 

 otherwise, having so skilful an artist to govern them 

 as Mr. Crooke " (he had succeeded Rose), " who 

 is, as to y e mechanic part, not ignorant in mathe- 

 matics, and pretends to astrologie." These would 

 not be the qualifications most insisted on to-day ! 

 At Wimpole (page xxxvii.), next to the house lay 

 an open garden, whose great width was divided 

 into three parterres of elaborately patterned knots, 

 each centring in a statue, and beyond this section lay 

 a tract of clipped wood, with intricate diagonal 

 alleys ami triangular open spaces. The two main 

 divisions had hexagonal enclosures in their rrrdst, 

 in the centre ot which are temples of "carpenter's 

 work." The immense system of formal avenues, 

 for which Wimpole was famous until the school 

 of Capability Brown destroyed them, does not 

 seem to have been entirely planted when Kip's 

 view was taken, and was probably completed 

 by the Edward Harley who came into the 

 property through his wife in 1713. But in other 

 places they were set in time to appear in " Les 

 Delices de la Grande Bretagne," and prove to us 

 that Bramham and Wrest were by no means excep- 

 tional cases of extensive planting. It was, indeed, 

 a time when reafforesting was in vogue, and avenues 

 radiating for miles, varied by large woods set with 

 quincunx precision, were the favourite mode of 

 accomplishing it. The great destruction and small 

 renewal of woods was brought home to Englishmen at 

 the Restoration, when the increase and efficiency of the 

 Navy were much considered, and its Commissioners 

 found some difficulty in obtaining oak of 

 adequate growth and quality. Even in Tudor 

 times, Tom Tusser had noticed that men were 

 " more studious to cut down than to plant trees," 

 and [.eland had found at Droitwich that " makynge 

 of salt is a great and notable distruction of wood, 



that the wontyd placis are now sore decayed in wood " 

 and that they were forced to seek it as far as Worcester 

 town. Later on the development ot glass-works 

 and iron furnaces had caused immense consumption, 

 and the time of the Civil Wars was marked by great 

 destruction and neglected cultivation. The newly- 

 established Royal Society was appealed to for 

 information, and its most expert member on the 

 subject, John Evelyn, took the matter up, and in 

 1664 his " Sylva " was published. "Let us arise, 

 then, and plant," cries Evelyn, as if the mantle 

 of Nehemiah was on his shoulders. " To you 

 Princes, Dukes, Earls, Lords, Knights and gentle- 

 men, noble patriots (as most concerned) I speak 

 to encourage and animate a work so glorious, so 

 necessary." And when we call to mind that it was 

 part of the instructions of the Spanish leaders, in 

 the Armada year, if on landing -as to which they 

 had no doubt they found they could not hold the 

 country, not to leave a tree standing in the Forest 

 ot Dean, we realise the immense importance, for 

 naval purposes, attached to such storehouses of oak 

 trees. "Sylva" gave direction and purpose to a 

 widely-felt inclination. The King told its author 

 that he " had by that book alone incited a world 

 of planters to repair their broken estates and 

 woods which the greedy rebels had wasted and 

 made such havoc of," and a century and a-half 

 later Isaac Disraeli declares: "Inquire at the 

 Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been 

 constructed and they can tell you that it was with 

 the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted." This 

 enables us to understand that, though Kip no doubt 

 availed himself considerably of artistic licence in 

 some of his purely garden views, he by no means 

 exaggerated the extent of the formal foresting which, 

 in the case of important seats, Evelyn chronicles in 

 the later editions of his " Sylva." In such places it 

 formed the outworks of the gardens and was compre- 

 hended with them and the house itself in the general 

 design. This extension of the general scheme 

 beyond the limits of the old contracted enclosure 

 and into the neighbouring country-side produced 

 a change in the methods of fencing. Even Bacon, 

 with his princely ideas, did not want to see out 

 of his twenty-six-acre plot except from the mount, 

 and, therefore, it could be surrounded by a high 

 and continuous wall or hedge. But when the 

 garden was a mere fraction of the scheme, this 

 system needed modification. From certain points, 

 a full understanding and enjoyment of the whole 

 design was essential. There might be the sheltered 

 parterre and the secluded alley ; but there must 

 also be the series of wide-stretching vistas. It 

 was here that the much-developed art of the iron- 

 worker became opportune to the disciples of 

 Le Notre, and the c/airuoyJe became a part of 

 garden design. Even in the Commonwealth time 

 Evelyn remarks upon the deftness and skill of the 

 English craftsmen in this metal when he is shown 

 "such a lock for a doore, that for its filing and rare 

 contrivances was a master-piece, yet made by a 

 country blacksmith," and he adds that " not many 

 yeares after there was nothing so frequent than all sorts 

 of iron-work more exquisitely wrought and polish'd 

 than in any part of Europ." But there was more 

 dexterity than art in the native work. For the latter 

 quality France had, as usual, to be drawn upon 

 when anything exceptionally fine was needed, and 



