THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING 



with the character of the picture itself, but will serve especially as 

 a neutral zone to separate the painting sharply from the wall on 

 which it hangs ; any idea of gradually connecting the picture with 

 the wall-paper by means of the frame would be voted absurd, and 

 would be treated as a fad unworthy to be taken seriously. The 

 real purpose of the formal garden is to create this kind of neutral 

 zone round the house, and therefore its boundaries must be as 

 distinct as those of the picture frame. 



Yet many of the earlier designers seem to have been unable to 

 appreciate the artistic significance of this limitation. After the 

 movement began in the direction of landscape gardening the men 

 who still professed to support the formal tradition made a sort of 

 compromise, and while they kept the formality immediately round 

 the house they slid by gradations into wild nature as they got 

 further away. Sir Uvedale Price, for instance, recommended a 

 division into compartments. A formal garden first, a landscape 

 garden next, and a park beyond allowed to grow as it pleased ; and 

 much the same arrangement was advocated by Repton, the suc- 

 cessor and follower of " Capability" Brown. Like all compromises, 

 these attempts to combine divergent styles of gardening in a 

 limited space could hardly fail to be anything but unsatisfactory ; 

 such a collection of examples of different schools of garden design 

 could be successfully made only in some large place where there 

 would be room to treat each section as an entirely separate specimen 

 of technical practice. 



Certainly it is better, in the ordinary way, to make the formal 

 garden as absolutely as possible a distinct creation, and to relate it 

 clearly to the house rather than to attempt futilely to bring it even 

 remotely into touch with untutored nature. There is, of course, 

 no need to carry formality into excess or extravagance, or to re-intro- 

 duce any of those topiary absurdities which in the past brought 

 discredit upon this form of garden-making ; and on the whole 

 there is little danger of any such departures from good taste 

 while the designing of the formal garden remains in the hands 

 of men who are properly conscious of the value of architectural 

 refinement. In our modern efforts to revive an art which, partly 

 by its own fault and partly by misuse, has fallen into a bad con- 

 dition we can base our practice upon what is best in the ancient 

 tradition, and can refer to well-established records for guidance 

 as to what we should avoid. We have a clearer view of what is 

 desirable than the men who, a couple of centuries ago, mistook a 

 mere departure from custom for judicious and progressive originality ; 

 xxiv 



