250 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



this class of gardens : " Pains hill near Cobham lo English 

 miles from Richmond. It belongs to Charles Hamilton, and 

 its garden is decidedly worth a visit. . . . The Garden, hke all 

 of English design, is arranged according to modem ideas of an 

 improvement on the beauty of Nature. The Principal features 

 of all English Gardens are gravel or grass walks, between 

 irregular high trees, or through wild growth consisting of all 

 kinds of trees, shrubs and flowers, native and foreign, summer 

 houses, seats and benches of all shapes and forms, placed in 

 high or otherwise convenient places, and heathen temples, 

 ruins, colonnades, hermitages, mosques, etc. An effort is 

 frequently made to bring in a natural watercourse, or faihng 

 that, to dig out one artificially with many windings and 

 turnings, waterfalls and bridges, so as to please the eye. 

 Pretty views are the principal aim in gardens here, and an 

 Englishman thinks nothing of a garden without water. . . . 

 You are sometimes in doubt whether you are looking at a 

 garden or at any ordinary landscape. ... All this part of the 

 garden is hilly, and is covered with high trees, thick shrubbery, 

 etc., leaving space only for narrow walks ; and it is difficult to 

 believe how art has been able to copy Nature to the extent 

 done here. The fruit and kitchen gardens are always quite 

 separate, and frequently so well hidden that you cannot 

 discover them without help." These last lines show how 

 complete the revulsion of feeling had been, and how far the 

 days when men refreshed their spirits by sitting in an orchard 

 had been left behind, Hagley, laid out by Lord Lyttleton, 

 was another garden, or ferme ornee, in the same style, 

 frequently referred to by contemporary writers, who praised 

 " the new modelhng of the shades and unfettering of the 

 rills. "^ In spite of the admiration lavished by many on this 

 place, Gilpin^ remarks that although " there are certainly 

 many beautiful views in these extensive gardens, yet we can 

 easily conceive the same variety of ground ... so combined 

 as to produce a much nobler whole." Hagley, in Worcester- 

 shire, was only a short distance from the Leasowes, already 



* George Mason, Essay on Design in Gardening. 



^ Observations on Picturesque Beauty made in 1772, Particularly the 

 Mountains and Lakes, by Wm. Gilpin. 



