52 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND iii 



the University of Oxford, and it thus became 

 the basis of the Ashmolean collection. In lists 

 of garden books of this period the name of 

 Sir Hugh Piatt often occurs, and the titles of 

 his books, The Garden of Eden and Fiords 

 Paradise raise expectations which are uniformly 

 disappointed. Piatt says he will not trouble 

 his readers with rules for the shaping and 

 fashioning of an orchard — " every Drawer or 

 embroiderer, nay, almost each Dancing-master, 

 may pretend to such niceties," and having thus 

 demolished the necessity of such a poor thing 

 as the designer, Piatt unfolds his own learning 

 in a meagre string of amateur notes on plants. 

 Piatt was only a dabbler in science, and from 

 our point of view stands on a very different 

 footing from such men as Markham and Lawson. 

 Both of the latter were thoroughly familiar with 

 the garden, not only as practical gardeners, but 

 as designers of gardens. They do not appear 

 to have had any special training in design, but 

 they were evidently familiar with the accepted 

 methods of garden design, and there is an 

 important difference between the country gentle- 

 man of the seventeenth century and his successor 

 in the nineteenth. The latter has little tradi- 

 tional knowledge of design, and the arts of 

 design form no part of his education, whereas 

 the English gentleman from the sixteenth to 

 the eighteenth century did possess a general 

 traditional knowledge of design and of the 



