IV THE LANDSCAPE SCHOOL 85 



process described by Walpole in a sentence, 

 which is probably his masterpiece in claptrap : 

 " Kent leapt the fence and saw that all nature 

 was a garden." 



Kent was followed by " Capability " Brown, 

 who began as a kitchen gardener, but took the 

 judicious line that knowledge hampered origin- 

 ality. He accordingly dispensed with any 

 training in design, and rapidly rose to eminence. 

 Brown's notion of a landscape consisted of a 

 park encircled by a belt of trees, a piece of 

 ornamental water, and a clump — the latter in- 

 dispensable ; and on these lines he proceeded 

 to cut down avenues and embellish nature with 

 the utmost aplomb. He died in 1783, and was 

 succeeded by Humphrey Repton and other pro- 

 fessors of landscape gardening, who between 

 them irrevocably destroyed some of the finest 

 gardens in England. Two instances will show 

 the taste of these men. One of them advised, 

 as an improvement to Powis Castle, that a 

 precipitous rock in front of the Castle with a 

 stone balustraded terrace and stairs should be 

 blown up, in order to make a uniform grassy 

 slope to the Castle ; and in Repton's Landscape 

 Gardening appears the following remark : " The 

 motley appearance of red bricks with white 

 stone, by breaking the unity of effect, will often 

 destroy the magnificence of the most splendid 

 compositions," and he accordingly recommends 

 that the bricks should be covered with plaster 



