4 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND i 



the house and its surroundings. This very 

 effect can be seen in the efforts of the landscape 

 gardener, and in old country houses, such as 

 Harrington Court, near Langport, where the 

 gardens have not been kept up. There is a 

 gaunt, famished, incomplete look about these 

 houses, which is due quite as much to the obvious 

 want of relation between the house and its 

 grounds, as to any associations of decay. 



Something, then, of the quality of the house 

 must be found in the grounds. The house will 

 have its regular approach and its courtyard — 

 rectangular, round, or oval — its terrace, its paths 

 straight and wide, its broad masses of unbroken 

 grass, its trimmed hedges and alleys, its flower- 

 beds bounded by the strong definite lines of 

 box -edgings and the like — all will show the 

 quality of order and restraint ; the motive of 

 the house suggests itself in the terrace and the 

 gazebo, and recurs, like the theme in a coda, 

 as you pass between the piers of the garden gate. 



Thus the formal garden will produce with 

 the house a homogeneous result, which cannot 

 be reached by either singly. Now let us see 

 how the landscape gardener deals with the 

 problem of house and grounds. 



It is not easy to state his principles, for his 

 system consists in the absence of any ; and 

 most modern writers on the subject lead off 

 with hearty and indiscriminate abuse of formal 

 gardening, after which they incontinently drop 



