DESiaiflNG.] 



PEACTICE Oi' HORTICULTUEE. [eaelt gardening. 



caused the old gardens at Kensington, com- 

 menced bv William, to be finished. Wise (of 

 London and AVise, noted gardeners) was en- 

 gaged for this purpose. He converted the 

 gravel-pits into a shrubbery, laid out in mean- 

 dering walks ; the effect of which upon the mind 

 of Addison was so great, that he elevated Wise 

 to a comparison with an epic poet, considering 

 the improved pits as episodes to the garden, 

 which of course was, in the eye of the Spectator, 

 the epic itself. Both London and Wise were 

 nurserymen and designers, who enjoyed great 

 popularity in their time. To them succeeded 

 Bridgeman, who banished vegetable sculpture, 

 substituting in its place wild scenes and cul- 

 tivated fields. This was a better taste. He 

 still, however, continued to clip his alleys, 

 though he left to their natural growth the 

 central parts of the masses through which 

 they were pierced. *' Blenheim, Castle 

 Howard, Cranbourne, Bushy Pai'k, Edger, 

 Althorp, JS'ew Park, Bowden, Hackwood, 

 Wrest, and, indeed, almost all the principal 

 noblemen's seats in the ancient style, were 

 laid out during this, the preceding, and part 

 of the latter reigns, or between the years 

 1660 and 1713. Blenheim was laid out by 

 Wise in three years. Wanstead in Essex, and 

 Edger in Hertfordshire, were the last of 

 London's designs. 



Under the first of the Georges, gardening lan- 

 guished rather than improved ; but under the 

 second George, his queen enlarged and planted 

 Kensington gardens. She also formed what is 

 now called the Serpentine Eiver, by uniting a 

 Btring of detached ponds. This bold step was 

 the precursor of subsequent changes in taste. 

 It would appear from Daines Barrington, that 

 Lord Bathurst informed him, that he (his lord- 

 ship) was the first who deviated from the straight 

 line in pieces of made water, by following the 

 natural lines of a valley, in widening a brook 

 at liyskins, near Colnbrook ; and that Lord 

 Strafford, conceiving that it had been done 

 from poverty, asked him to confess fairly how 

 much more it would have cost him to have 

 made it straight. In Mr. Loudon's Encj/clo- 

 pcedia, it is stated that Christopher Wren 

 (chaplain to Charles I., Dean of Windsor, and 

 father of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect) 

 claimed, as his, the invention of making serpen- 

 tine rivers. In a marginal note, ajQ&xed to 

 932 



Sir H. AVotton's Elements of Architecture^ 

 published in 1624, he says — " Eor disposing 

 the current of a river to a mightier length in 

 a little space, I invented the serpentine, a 

 form admirably conveying the current in cir- 

 cular, and yet contrary, motions upon one and 

 the same level, with walks and retirements 

 between, to the advantage of all purposes, 

 either of gardenings, plantings, or banquetings, 

 or very delights ; and the multiplying of in- 

 finite fish in a little compass of ground, with- 

 out any sense of their being restrained. la 

 brief, it is to reduce the current of a mile's 

 length into the compass of an orchard," 



The extent of Kensington gardens,, ori- 

 ginally, was twenty-six acres, to which Queen 

 Anne added thirty, and Queen Caroline nearly 

 three hundred more, taken out of Hyde Park, 

 and laid out by Bridgeman. Beckham, who 

 wrote in 1712, says — " The gardens of Ken- 

 sington Palace, which are three miles and 

 a-half in circumference, are very fine ; they 

 have been much improved and enlarged since 

 his present majesty came to the throne, under 

 the care and management of the late inge- 

 nious Mr. Bridgeman. They are kept in the 

 greatest order ; and in the summer-time, when 

 the court is not there, are resorted to by a 

 vast concourse of the most polite company." 

 Canons, the magnificent seat of the Duke of 

 Chaudos, is one of the principal places laid 

 out in the ancient style during this reign. 



Having thus traced the rise, progress, and 

 decline of the ancient style of gardening in 

 England, we will now, without entering into 

 the disputed point as to the originators of 

 the modern style, give, principally from jNIr. 

 Loudon, a brief description of the royal 

 gardens at Windsor, as being, perhaps, the 

 finest in this country. 



THE ROYAL GARDENS AT WINDSOR. 



Notwithstanding that Windsor Castle has 

 been a royal residence since the time of 

 William the Conqueror, we hear nothing of 

 the garden till the time of Henry V., when 

 James I., of Scotland, celebrated it in a poem 

 whilst a prisoner within the walls of the 

 fortress. In the reign of Elizabeth, the prin- 

 cipal terrace was formed on the north side of 

 the castle ; and in that of Charles II., this 

 same terrace was extended round the east, 



