HISTORICAL NOTICES. 21 



The most distinguished English Landscape Gardeners 

 of recent date, are the late Humphrey Repton, who died in 

 1818; and since him John Claudius London better known 

 in this country, as the celebrated gardening author. Repton's 

 taste in Landscape gardening was cultivated and elegant, 

 and many of the finest parks and pleasure grounds of 

 England, at the present day, bear witness to the skill and 

 harmony of his designs. His published works are full of 

 instructive hints, and at Cobham Hall, one of the finest 

 seats in Britain, is an inscription to his memory, by Lord 

 Darnley. 



Mr. London's* writings and labors in tasteful gardening, 

 are too well known, to render it necessary that we should 

 do more than allude to them here. Much of what is known 

 of the art in this country undoubtedly is, more or less 

 directly, to be referred to the influence of his published 

 works. Although he is, as it seems to us, somewhat 

 deficient as an artist in imagination, no previous author 

 ever deduced, so clearly, sound artistical principles in Land- 

 scape Gardening and Rural Architecture ; and fitness, good 

 sense, and beauty, are combined with much unity of feeling 

 in all his works. 



As the modern style owes its origin mainly to the 

 English, so it has also been developed and carried to its 

 greatest perfection in the British Islands. The law of 

 primogeniture, which has there so long existed, in itself, 

 contributes greatly to the continual improvement and 

 embellishment of those vast landed estates, that remain 

 perpetually in the hands of the same family. Magnificent 



* While we are revising the second edition, we regret deeply to learn the death 

 of Mr. Loudon. His herculean labors as an author have at last destroyed him ; 

 ind in his death we lose one who has done more than any other person that 

 ever lived, to popularize, and render universal, a taste for Gardening and 

 Domestic Architecture. 



