viii GARDEN ARCHITECTURE 169 



prefers the cast-iron finials and meagre wood- 

 work of his conservatory, and possibly takes 

 pleasure in the grotesque impossibilities ot 

 his rustic summer-house, but who on any 

 showing, has not realised that art has to be 

 taken as a whole, that it must penetrate every- 

 where, that it is not enough to have a well- 

 designed house, if everything inside it is vulgar ; 

 or a house complete, with a meaningless garden ; 

 or a fair house and garden, with no thought 

 given to its walls and gateways. Till the end 

 of the eighteenth century a tradition of good 

 taste existed in England — a tradition not con- 

 fined to any one class, but shown not less in the 

 sampler of the village school than in the archi- 

 tecture of the great lord's house. It might be 

 said to have lingered on into this century in 

 sleepy country towns. Behind the lawyer's 

 house, with its white sash-windows and delicate 

 brick work, there may still survive some de- 

 lightful garden bright with old-fashioned flowers 

 against the red-brick wall, and a broad stretch 

 of velvety turf set off by ample paths of gravel, 

 and at one corner, perhaps, a dainty summer- 

 house of brick, with marble floor and panelled 

 sides ; and all so quiet and sober, stamped with 

 a refinement which was once traditional, but 

 now seems a special gift of heaven. 



It would be impossible here to give more 

 than a general sketch of the details of garden 

 architecture. The field is a wide one, and 



