246 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



the form of the ornamental sheets of water. " Stone basons," 

 marble fountains, and straight canals, were swept away, or 

 converted into miniature waterfalls, winding streams, or arti- 

 ficial lakes. Lord Bathurst, at Ryskins, near Colebrook,^ was 

 the first to make a winding stream through a garden, and so 

 unusual was the effect that his friend, Lord Stafford, could not 

 beheve it had been done on purpose, and supposing it to have 

 been for economy, asked him " to own fairly how little more 

 it would have cost to have made the course of the brook in a 

 strait direction." About this time Queen Caroline " threw a 

 string of ponds in Hyde Park into one to form what is called 

 the Serpentine River." This is only one among many instances 

 which show that these so-called reforms, undertaken with the 

 aim of increased simplicity, resulted in greater stiffness and 

 formality. This is not to be wondered at, when the influence 

 of Chinese gardening on this school of design is taken into 

 account. Sir William Chambers, one of this new class of 

 gardeners, had, in his youth, made a voyage to China, and 

 brought back from that country ideas which he set forth in his 

 work entitled Dissertations on Oriental Gardening. The Pagoda 

 at Kew, designed by him, is a well-known monument of this 

 passing fashion. A Chinese writer, Lien-tschen, himself lays 

 down the principles which ruled their gardening : " The Art 

 of laying out gardens consists in an endeavour to combine 

 cheerfulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, 

 and repose, in such a manner that the senses may be deluded 

 by an imitation of rural Nature."^ Alluding to this supposed 

 resemblance of English gardens to those of China, Oliver 

 Goldsmith wrote : " The English have not yet brought the art 

 of gardening to the same perfection with the Chinese, but 

 have lately begun to imitate them. Nature is now followed 

 with greater assiduity than formerly : the trees are suffered to 

 shoot out into the utmost luxuriance ; the streams, no longer 

 forced from their native beds, are permitted to wind along the 

 valleys : spontaneous flowers take the place of the finished 

 parterre, and the enamelled meadow of the shaven green." 

 Batty Langley was one of the exponents of the principles 



^ Progress of Gardening, by Barrington. Archcsologia, vol. v., 1782. 

 * Quoted in Praise of Gardens, by Albert F. Siveking, 1885. 



