INTRODUCTION xiii 



straight channels and basins determines its main 

 features and the straight and clipped (toped or 

 tonsured) hedges and trees are really subordinate to 

 the lines of water. 1 



In Gardening, which is eclectic and cosmopolitan, 

 more perhaps than in any other art, it is difficult to 

 draw hard and fast lines in discriminating styles and 

 schools. They overlap, merge and intersect for 

 every man feels ancV to son pitton in his own 

 Garden, and every one with a garden loves to plan 

 and alter, and is not withheld from modifying and 

 changing the features of the ground and its design by 

 any sense of incapacity, such as he might feel were he 

 to essay to alter the elevation of a house, re-paint an 

 old master, or try his hand at chipping off bits of a 

 marble statue. This freedom in dealing with " the 

 art of landscape," when the materials are Nature's 

 own, has its advantages and disadvantages. It allows 

 scope for individual originality and enterprise, but it 

 also leads to the destruction of types and styles, which 

 another generation tries in vain to revive. What 

 would we not now give to see intact Pope's five acres 



1 The present Editor has tried to sketch the literary and 

 engraved history of the early Dutch Garden in Holland, in 

 three Essays in " Country Life" (1905). 



