IV THE FORMAL GARDEN 79 



to have known anything about its authorship, 

 for the original was published anonymously in 

 1 709 ; but he inclined to think that it was written 

 by an architect. The translation was published 

 by subscription of the principal nobility and 

 gentry of the time. It is illustrated with 

 excellent engravings of the various parts of the 

 formal garden, and contains by far the most 

 valuable account ever published of the system 

 of garden design as practised by the school of 

 Le Notre. That system was now so completely 

 matured that it was capable of being reduced 

 to rules of practice, with the necessary conse- 

 quence that its break-up was imminent. In 

 1 7 1 8 appeared Ichnographia Rustic a ^ or the 

 Nobleman s^ Gentleman s^ and Gardener s Re- 

 creations^ by Stephen Switzer, gardener. The 

 writer of this book evidently supposed that he 

 was developing the traditions of formal gar- 

 dening ; but he had, in fact, lost touch of its 

 essential principle — the principle that the garden 

 within its enclosure is one thing, and the 

 landscape outside it another, and that no 

 attempt should be made to confuse the two. 

 He devised a system of what he called *' rural 

 and extensive gardening," by which a garden 

 of 20 acres should look to be 200 or 300. 

 Walls and fences were to be removed, and 

 woods and even cornfields made to appear 

 part of the garden scheme. He urged that 

 " those large sums of money that have been 



