226 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND x 



tion good original ideas may come, but what 

 are we to expect from a mind stored with the 

 ideas of the Great Exhibition of 1 8 5 1 ? We 

 are to expect exactly what we have got in 

 most of our modern parks and public gardens, 

 and we cannot feel very sanguine as to any 

 prospects of improvement. The London 

 County Council have shown a wise anxiety to 

 secure public spaces whenever possible, but 

 when they have got them their advisers seem 

 very uncertain as to how they should deal with 

 them. They waste the public money in humps 

 and earthworks, and economise in kiosques 

 and cast-iron fountains, and this, though there 

 are admirable models to follow in the gardens 

 of the Luxembourg and the Tuileries and in 

 most of the important cities of Europe. No- 

 where is the provincialism of modern English 

 thought more clearly shown than in our State 

 and municipal dealings with art. 



In dealing with great spaces the landscape 

 gardener seems to have little idea of mass. He 

 is for ever breaking up the outline with little 

 knots of trees, and reducing the size of his 

 grounds by peppering them all over with 

 shrubs. The consequence is that though one 

 may feel weary with traversing his interminable 

 paths, no permanent impression of size is left 

 on the mind. Such a place^ for instance, as 

 Battersea Park is like a bad piece of architecture 

 full of details which stultify each other. The 



