LANDSCAPE GARDENERS. ' 13 



(or sunk fences), which he is often said to have 

 originated, though, as matter of fact, Batty 

 Langley also (and I think previously) advocates 

 their adoption. " Capability Brown " was perhaps 

 the next most noted landscape gardener. His idea 

 was always to improve nature, and he was par- 

 ticularly strong in artificial lakes and canals, with 

 rather formal clumps of trees. He had many dis- 

 ciples, and it seemed as if half the fine places in 

 England were to be reformed on the new principles. 

 But two formidable critics came into the field, 

 Knight and Price. Their plan was to leave 

 Nature as much as possible to herself, to let the 

 stream wind about as a stream should, instead 

 of being dammed into a canal, and to allow 

 trees to grow as they liked. Price's famous 

 Essay on the Picturesque is still full of interest, 

 and shows good sense in the exceptions he 

 allows to his general rule, as, for instance, where 



1 Horace Walpole says that Bridgeman invented the sunk fence, 

 "and the common people called them ' Ha ! ha's ! ' to express their 

 surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walks." 

 He adds that Kent " leaped the fence, and saw that all Nature was 

 a garden." 



