Ill THE FORMAL GARDEN 6i 



century, and his far less able followers in this, 

 have had ideas of modifying a landscape by 

 planting trees here and there- or in clumps, or 

 by throwing out woods, or by many more of 

 their favourite devices for " chastening nature's 

 graceful touch " ; but their ideas are paltry 

 when contrasted with the comprehensive scale 

 on which designers went to work after the 

 Restoration. The main avenue at Bushey Park, 

 I mile long and 60 feet wide, with a row of 

 chestnuts next the road, and four rows of limes 

 on either side, with the great "Diana" basin at 

 Hampton Court, 400 feet diameter, was carried 

 out by Wise in 1699 at a cost of ^4300. Very 

 few of these gigantic schemes remain intact, 

 though there is a notable instance on the 

 Boughton estate, near Kettering, where one 

 suddenly finds one's self in the presence of 

 avenues miles away from the house to which 

 they relate. Part of the original laying out of 

 the grounds of Wrest in Bedfordshire remains, 

 and there are, of course, many instances of 

 isolated avenues. Fortunately, however, four 

 publishers — Mortier, Midwinter, Overton, and 

 Smith — took it into their heads to publish a 

 series of elaborate double plates in folio, illustra- 

 ting the great country seats of England at the 

 end of the seventeenth century, under the title 

 of Bf'itannia Illustrata. The drawings for this 

 series were made by a man named KnyfF,^ of 



' KnyfF was a painter of dogs and poultry, who died in 1721 j Jan 



