PART II 

 CHAPTER I 



OF FORMAL GARDENS 



" GOD ALMIGHTY first planted a garden. And 

 indeed it is the purest of human pleasures." 



FRANCIS BACON. 



OF late years we have been so busily engaged 

 in getting rid of the worst types of formality in 

 the laying-out of gardens that it is difficult for 

 us now to recall what used to be in the days of 

 oblongs and squares and stiff trees set " all of a 

 row." Moreover, we are apt, in the revulsion of 

 feeling, to do less than justice to that formal plant- 

 ing ; for how beautiful are the remains of it all, 

 as it still lingers in some of the ancestral domains 

 of England ! To that passion for straight lines 

 do we not owe some of the grandest and most 

 distinctive features of English landscape the mag- 

 nificent avenues of lime and elm and beech and 

 Scotch fir which tower, like columns of some vast 

 cathedral of Nature, above our heads, and fill 

 our hearts with awe and reverence? The massive 

 garden walls of weathered brick or stone, the 

 arched gateways, the broad grass paths and smooth 



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