258 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



lead in civilized Europe, and now there was an attempt to 

 shake off the shackles of its exaggerated formalism. The poets 

 of the age were also pioneers of this school of Nature. Dyer, 

 in his poem of *' Grongar Hill," and Thomson, in his Seasons, 

 called up pictures which the gardeners and architects of the 

 day strov^e to imitate in the scenery they planned. The idea 

 was to create a landscape such as poets celebrated or as Claude 

 immortalized on canvass. But the lovers of the beauties of 

 Nature soon became as hopelessly fettered by rules and theories 

 as had been the designers of the more formal schools. The 

 gardens they laid out were planned to produce a set impression 

 on the beholder : — " Garden scenes," wrote the poet Shenstone, 

 " may perhaps be divided into the sublime, the beautiful, and 

 the melancholy or pensive." '^ " Art," says this same writer, 

 " should never be allowed to set foot in the province of Nature," 

 and yet these gardeners advocated everj- sort of artifice to 

 impose on the spectator, and to make the landscape appear 

 different from what it really was. Shenstone himself suggests 

 a means by which an avenue may be made to appear longer 

 than its true length. " An avenue that is widened in front and 

 planted there with yew trees, then firs, then with trees more 

 and more fad}^ till they end in the almond willow or silver 

 osier ; will produce a very remarkable deception." His own 

 garden at Leasowes was held by all who practised this " art 

 of gardening " to be a most perfect specimen of this style. 

 There was a lake, and small streams, and cascades, which 

 George Mason describes as " living fountains," and says they 

 were here " carried to the pitch of perfection." A seat over- 

 looking one of these streams was inscribed with a poem in its 

 praise, which ends thus : — 



" Flow, gentle stream, nor let the vain 

 Thy small unsullied stores disdain : — 

 Nor let the pensive sage repine 

 Whose latent course resembles thine." 



All through the garden, in the dingle, or by the side of the 

 serpentine walks^ seats, grottoes, ruins or urns, appeared at 



* Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening. By Wm. Shenstone. 



