PREFACE. xiii 



verdant mountains, these lovely meadows, were once 

 possessed by families now gone to decay. Let not the 

 present possessors exult too much ; others after them 

 may be masters in their turn.' 



I offer nearly all the following pages, meagre as 

 they are, as a skeleton, or a very loose sketch, and in 

 the hope that some spirited and affluent person may 

 publish what I have in the first page of the following 

 work suggested ; and that such person may be induced 

 to make application to the descendants of some of 

 those families who may have preserved vestiges, or 

 drawings, of gardens, which were once the pride and 

 delight of their ancestors. That oil paintings of our 

 ancient gardens now exist in the mansions of many of 

 our nobility and gentry there can be no doubt. If 

 such a work as the above proposed one should ever 

 strike the mind of the author of the Essay on the Life, 

 Character, and Talents of Thomas Chatterton, and 

 whose rich plates so grandly exhibit that 



' . . . . mysterie of a human hand, 

 The pride of Bristowe and the western land,' 



there can be no doubt but that the engravings which 

 would then be produced of our ancient gardens would 



