2 2+ THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND x 



the whole character of the place by means of 

 irregular curves and irrelevant hummocks. His 

 dislike of a simple straight line and a plain 

 piece of grass amounts almost to a mania. In 

 Bloomsbury, till within the last few years, 

 there existed a good old-fashioned square 

 garden, laid out in four grass plots, with a 

 lime walk and a border of flowers running 

 round the sides. It was restful and pleasant 

 to look at. The grass plots were good for 

 lawn-tennis and the lime walks kindly to the 

 citizen ; but the landscape gardener appeared 

 on the scene and speedily put all this to rights. 

 He cut up the grass plots and destroyed two 

 sides of the lime walk, and heaped up some 

 mounds, and made the most curiously un- 

 reasonable paths ; and went his way, having 

 destroyed one of the few square gardens in 

 London with any pretence to design. Instead 

 of trying to treat the square as a whole, or, 

 better still, instead of leaving it alone, he de- 

 liberately turned his back on the adjacent archi- 

 tecture, and produced a result vvhich has no dis- 

 tinction but that of immense vulgarity. 



Much more might be done in the wav of 

 planting avenues of trees along the approaches 

 to towns and in the towns themselves. Evelyn 

 mentions the road from Heidelberg to Darm- 

 stadt, which was planted all the way with walnuts, 

 and an avenue of 4 leagues long and 50 paces 

 wide, " planted with young oaklings, as straight 



