242 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of nature, and ridiculed the monstrous fashion. Pope, in one of his 

 papers in ' The Guardian,' details an imaginary set of plants for sale, 

 including a ' St. George, in box, his arm scarce long enough, but 

 will be in condition to stick the dragon next April ;' and a ' quickset hog 

 shot up into a porcupine by being forgot a week in rainy weather.' 

 Addison, in ' The Spectator,' says, ' Our British gardeners, instead of 

 humoring nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees 

 rise in cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks of the scissors 

 upon every plant and bush.' Pope himself laid out his grounds in his 

 villa at Twickenham ; and his gardens there, which still bear the impress 

 of his taste, attest to his practical skill as a gardener. 



" The satire of these great writers contributed not a little to a revolu- 

 tion in English gardening. Bridgeman seems to have been the first to 

 commence the wholesome work of destruction, and to introduce landscape 

 gardening ; and it is said that he was instigated to his labor by the very 

 paper of Pope's, in ' The Guardian,' to which we have alluded. But 

 Kent, at a later period, banished the old grotesque and ridiculous style, 

 and established the new, picturesque treatment. He laid out Kensington 

 Gardens, and probably Claremont. Wright and Brown were also early 

 artists in the new style, and deserve honorable mention for their exer- 

 tions in the right direction. The former displayed his skill at Fonthill 

 Abbey, the seat of Mr. Beckford ; Bi-own was consulted at Blenheim, 

 where he constructed the earliest artificial lake in the kingdom, — the 

 work of a week. Nor must Shenstone, the poet, be forgotten. His 

 attempt, towards 1750, to establish the rights of nature in his own orna- 

 mental farm at the Leasowes, places him fairly in the front rank of our 

 rural reformers. Mathematical precision and the yoke of excessive art 

 were thus cast off, and nature was allowed a larger extent of liberty and life. 

 She was no longer tasked to imitate forms that detracted from her own 

 beauty without giving grace to the imitation ; but she was questioned as to 

 the garb which it chiefly delighted her to weai', and answer being given, 

 active steps were taken to comply with her will. Then came Knight 

 and Price to carry out the goodly work of recovery and restoration. To 

 them followed Mr. Humphrey Repton, the accomplished scholar, under 

 whose eye the gardens of Cobham Hall were planned, and under whose 

 influence all the celebrated landscape-gardens of his time were fashioned. 

 And as the result of the united labors of one and all, we have the irregu- 

 larly-bounded pieces of water, the shrubberies, the noble groups of trees, 

 tlie winding walks, the gentle undulations, and pleasant slopes, — all 

 which combined give a peculiar charm to English landscapes. 



" In the Crystal Palace Gardens, the Italian style has not been ser- 

 vilely copied, but rather adapted and appropriated. It has been taken, 

 in fact, as the basis of a portion of the garden, and modified so as to suit 



