538 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. ". 



Mason the 



Hiwory. ble ; and the descriptions with which his investigations 

 *"" "Y"" 1 '' are accompanied, have been copied and praised by 

 Mr. Alison in the first edition of his work on taste. 

 The book was soon translated into the continental lan- 

 guages, and is judiciously praised in the Mercure de 

 France, Journal Encydopedique, and Wieland's Journal. 

 Mr. G. Mason alone dissents from the general opinion, 

 enlarging on the very few faults or peculiarities which 

 are to be found in the book. Mr. Wheatley was secre- 

 tary to Lord Grenville, and published only this work, 

 soon after which he died. After his death, some re- 

 marks on Shakespeare, from his pen, were published 

 in a small 12mo. volume. 



The English Garden was published in four different 

 books, the first of which appeared in 1772. With the ex- 

 ception of the fourth book, it was received with very 

 great applause. The precepts for planting are particular- 

 ly instructive. On the whole, the work may be classed 

 with the " Observations" of Wheatley ; and these two 

 books may be said to exhibit a clear view of the modern 

 style, as first introduced and followed by liberal and cul- 

 tivated minds ; whilst the Dissertation on Oriental Gar- 



Cliambere. dening," by Sir William Chambers, published in 1772, 

 holds up to ridicule the absurd imitations of unculti- 

 vated amateurs and professors, who had no other 

 qualifications than those acquired in labouring with the 

 spade under some celebrated ground worker. 



Professors. We shall now proceed to notice the principal pro- 

 fessors to which the demand for the new style gave 

 rise ; and by whom it was, in a short time, extended 

 over the whole country ; not indeed in so chaste, va- 

 ried, and original a taste as is exhibited in the places 

 and publications we have enumerated, but according 

 to their different degrees of talent for imitating what, 

 with one or two exceptions, it does not appear they un- 

 derstood. 



The first of these is Wright, who seems to have 

 been in some repute at the time of Kent's death. His 

 birth and education, Mr. G. Mason informs us, " were 

 above plebeian ; he understood drawing, and sketched 

 plans of his designs ; but never contracted for work, 

 which might occasion his not being applied to by those 

 who consider nothing so much as having trouble taken 

 off their hands." At Becket, the seat of Lord Barring- 

 ton, he produced an admired effect on a lawn ; and at 

 Stoke near Bristol, he is supposed to have decorated a 

 copse wood with roses in the manner advised in the 

 fourth book of the English Garden. He also designed 

 the terrace walk and river at Oatlands, both deservedly 

 admired ; the latter being not unfrequently mistaken 

 for the Thames itself. 



The next professor, in the order of time, is the cele. 

 brated Mr. Brown. He was bred a kitchen gardener 

 at a small place near Woodstock in Oxfordshire; and 

 was afterwards head gardener at Stowe till 17.50. He was 

 confined (see Beauties of England and Wales, Bucks,) 

 to the kitchen garden, by Lord Cobham, who, however, 

 afterwards recommended him to the Duke of Grafton 

 at Wakefield Lodge, Northamptonshire, where he di- 

 rected the formation of a large lake, which laid the 

 foundation of his fame and fortune. Lord Cobham af- 

 terwards procured for him the situation of royal gar- 

 dener at Hampton Court and Windsor. He now at- 

 tained the summit of his popularity. The fashion of 

 employing him continued, says Mr. G. Mason, not on- 

 ly to 1768, but to the time of his death, many years af- 

 terwards. Mr. Repton has given a list of his principal 

 works, among which Croome and Fisherwick are the 

 two fargest new places which he formed, including at 



Wright 



Brown. 



Croome the mansion and offices, as well as the grounds. History. 

 The places he altered are beyond all reckoning. Im- ^~"~ Y ~ 1 " 

 provement was the passion'of the day ;* and there was 

 scarcely a country gentleman who did riej, on some 

 occasion or other, consult the royal gardener. Mason, 

 the poet, praises this artist, and Lord Walpole apolo- 

 gises for not praising him. Daines Barrington says, 

 " Kent hath been succeeded by Brown, who hath un- 

 doubtedly great merit in laying out pleasure grounds ; 

 but I conceive that, in some of his plans, I see rather 

 traces of the kitchen gardener of old Stowe, than of 

 Poussin or Claude Lorrain. I could wish therefore 

 that Gainsborough gave the design, and that Brown 

 executed." The works and memory v of Brown have 

 been severely attacked by Mr. Knight and Mr. Price, 

 and strenuously defended by Mr. Repton, who styles 

 him his great self-taught predecessor. " Brown," ob- 

 serves Mr. G. Mason, " always appeared to myself in 

 the light of an egregious mannerist ; who, from having 

 acquired a facility in shaping surfaces, grew fond of 

 exhibiting that talent, without due regard to nature, 

 and left marks of his intrusion wherever he went. His 

 new plantations were generally void of genius, taste, 

 and propriety ; but I have seen instances of his ma- 

 naging old ones much better. He made a view to Che- 

 ney's church, from Latimer, (Bucks) as natural and pic- 

 turesque as can well be imagined. Yet at the same 

 place, he had stuffed a very narrow vale, by the side of 

 an artificial river, with those crowded circular clumps 

 of firs alone, that Mr. Price attributes to him. The in- 

 congruity of this plan struck most of the neighbouring 

 gentlemen, but was defended by the artist himself un- 

 der shelter of the epithet playful totally misapplied." 

 (Essay on Design, p. 130, 2d edit. 1795.) 



That Brown must have possessed considerable ta- 

 lents, the extent of his reputation abundantly proves ; 

 but that he was imbued with much of that taste for 

 picturesque beauty which distinguished the works of 

 Kent, Hamilton, and Shenstone, we think, will hardly 

 be asserted by any one who has observed attentively 

 such places as are known to be his. creations. What- 

 ever be the extent or character of the surface, they are all 

 surrounded by a narrow belt, and the space within is 

 distinguished by numbers-of round or oval clumps, and 

 a reach or two of a tame river on different levels. This 

 description, in short, will apply to almost every place 

 in Britain laid out from the time (about 1 740) when the 

 passion commenced for new modelling country seats, to 

 about 1785 or 1790, when it in a great measure ceas- 

 ed. The leading outline of this plan of improvement 

 was easily recollected, and easily applied ; the great de- 

 mand produced abundance of artists ; and the general 

 appearance of the country so rapidly changed under 

 their operations, that in 1 772, Sir William Chambers 

 declared, that if the mania were not checked, in a few 

 years longer there would not be found three trees in a 

 line from the Land's-end to the Tweed. Brown, it is 

 said, never went out of England, but he sent pupils and 

 plans to Scotland and Ireland ; and Paulowsky, a seat 

 of the late Emperor Paul, near Petersburgh, is said to 

 be from his design. Potemkin's gardener, Gould, was 

 also one of his pupils. Brown, as far as we have learn- 

 ed, could not draw, but had assistants, who made out 

 plans of what he intended. He generally contracted 

 .for the execution of the work. 



The immediate successor of Brown, was his nephew, 

 Mr. Holland, who was more employed as an architect 

 than as a landscape gardener ; though he generally di- 

 rected the disposition of the grounds when he was em- 



