GARDEN DESIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS 



195 



visited the garden, it had been ah'eady replanned in accordance with the 

 ideas that had recently been introduced from England. " I returned to- 

 wards The Hague," he writes, " and looked into the country house of the 

 late Count Bentinck, with parterres and bosquets by no means resembling^ 

 one should conjecture, the gardens of the Hesperides. But, considering 

 that the whole group of trees, terraces and verdure were in a manner created 



the place may claim some portion of merit. The walks 



out of hills of sand, 

 and alleys have 

 all the stiffness and 

 formality which 

 our ancestors ad- 

 mired, but the in- 

 termediate spaces, 

 being dotted 

 with clumps and 

 sprinkled with 

 flowers, are im- 

 agined in Holland 

 to be in the Eng- 

 lish style. An 

 Englishman ought 

 certainly to behold 

 it with partial eyes, 

 since every pos- 

 sible attempt has 

 been made to twist 

 it into the taste of 

 his country. 



" I need hardly say how liberally I bestowed my encomiums on 

 Count Bentinck's tasteful invention ; nor how happy I was, when I had 

 duly serpentized over his garden, to find myself once more in the grand 

 avenue. 



" All the way home I reflected upon the unyielding perseverance of the 

 Dutch, who raise gardens from heaps of sand, and cities out of the bosom of 

 the waters." 



" The House in the Wood " was originally built as a dower house by Amelia 



SORGVLIET. 



