270 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



lamented the changes and decay which marred it, only a few 

 years after Shenstone's death. Wright was another designer of 

 this landscape-school, who succeeded Kent. He planned and 

 sketched designs, but did not himself superintend the carrying 

 out of the works. 



The name which stands out most conspicuously in con- 

 nexion with landscape-gardening is that of Brown. From 

 his habit of saying of any place he was asked to improve, 

 or lay out afresh, that it "had great capabilities," he 

 became known by the name of "Capability Brown." For 

 a time he was the most popular of all designers. He was 

 born in Northumberland in 1715, and began as a kitchen- 

 gardener, first at a small place near Woodstock, and then 

 at Stow. He remained with Lord Cobham, in that capacity, 

 until 1750, and it was not until, as head-gardener to the 

 Duke of Grafton, he planned and executed a lake at Wakefield 

 Lodge, that he attempted any designing. This brought him 

 into notice, and through the influence of Lord Cobham, he 

 was appointed Royal Gardener at Hampton Court, " and it 

 was he who planted the celebrated vine there, in 1796." * 

 He was next employed at Blenheim, and the way in which 

 he made the lake there established his reputation, and soon 

 every one who wished to alter their grounds, or lay out 

 new ones, employed Brown. He laid out Croome, Luton, 

 Trentham, Nuneham, Burghley, and many other places, and 

 altered in some way or the other half the gardens in the 

 country. He became the fashion, and was consulted by 

 nearly every one in England who had a garden of any 

 consideration. Had Brown confined himself to creating new 

 landscapes and gardens, posterity could not have borne such 

 a grudge against him. As it is, in studying the designs he 

 carried out, it is difficult to look with an unprejudiced eye at 

 his work, for before the results he produced can be admired, 

 one is filled with regret for the beauties he swept away. 



* London, Encyclopedia of Gardening. The parent of the Hampton 

 Court Vine was a Black Hamburg planted by Mr. Eden at Valentine House, 

 Essex, 1758. Phillips, Pomarium, 1820. 



