28 4 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



Vanbrugh, of Huntingdon's Regiment, who had been 

 a prisoner in the Bastille. From a soldier he became 

 a bad poet and a brilliant dramatist. His facile 

 plays, loved by the players for their easy lines, kept 

 the boards for generations, and one, at least, " The 

 Relapse," has come down to our own day. A man 

 of wit and honour he was, friend to everyone save 

 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, and everyone save 

 that terrible lady loved good-natured Sir John. 



Besides being soldier and dramatist, he was also 

 Clarenceux King of Arms and Acting Garter ; but 

 we have to deal with him as architect of Castle 

 Howard. Of his beginnings in architecture little is 

 known. Wren's long day was drawing to a close, 

 and in the next generation were only Vanbrugh and 

 Hawksmoor, both born in the year of the Great Fire. 

 Vanbrugh's boldness and originality and his sound 



defects. This front has a length of 323^., a mass 

 broken by a seried row of Corinthian pilasters, which 

 support an entablature, a pediment and a balustered 

 parapet, topped with vases. In the pediment are the 

 arms of the house of Carlisle, and above rises a dome 

 with a lantern at the top. The squared lines and 

 right angles of the lawn before the house allow no 

 trick of the eye to cheat us of the mighty impression 

 of the great pile of stone, and Vanbrugh's work may 

 best be viewed at a distance. His Flemish blood 

 brought with it none of the Fleming's love for 

 delicate detail. He loved heavy effects of light and 

 shade ; with these and a bold sky-line he was well 

 content. Of ornament he understood nothing ; and 

 his details are coarsely thrust in. The doorways will 

 be observed, for in Vanbrugh's the entrance is well 

 marked. The great t^arl is to come to his palace by 



ART AND NATURE ON THE LAWN. 



Whiggery in politics were known to all, so the E",arl 

 of Carlisle had not far to go to find his man. 



Castle Howard was begun in 1712, and in 1731 

 the Earl set up his obelisk to commemorate his 

 building of the house and making of the plantations 

 and the park. The site gave Vanbrugh a free hand for 

 his first important work, a beautiful and undulating 

 country well setting off the great mass of stone. 



More successful here than at Blenheim, Sir John 

 has left the best example of his art at Castle Howard. 

 His passion was for the vast. He built as for a race 

 of giants, and his houses are not only huge by the 

 test of line and rule, but carry vastneis in the look of 

 them. The great south front, which our illustrations 

 repeat from various points across the basin with its 

 Atlas ami Tritons, across the lawn and square-clipped 

 yews shows Vanbrugh in all his qualities and their 



a state entry in the middle of its front, to go up a 

 broad stairway, and go in at a great door with his 

 coronet and shield high above his head. 



The classic taste of the Carlislcs has surrounded 

 their Corinthian house with vases and statues. 

 Looking from these to their background of dark 

 woodland of the third Earl's planting, we have a 

 pleasant picture of untamed Nature coming to the 

 outposts of the cold and ordered art of the ancients, 

 as though we looked out from the villa of a pro- 

 consul to the wild forest. 



In the grounds a temple of Diana with a Doric 

 portico is summer-house and pavilion, and from the 

 shadow of the tree, across the sun-lighted lawn, we 

 see the shallow dome of the house to which the Earls 

 of Carlisle are carried when they have done with 

 their palace. 



