2o GARDEN DESIGN 



whether they are as pleasant to live with as a 

 clear calm surface with its reflections of sky and 

 flowers. 



The formal garden was designed at its best in 

 the Elizabethan time, simultaneously with the 

 fine domestic architecture of the period. The 

 garden was then a setting to the house, and 

 planned by the same hand. To see the principle 

 developed on a large scale one must turn to the 

 French garden designers of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, and their imitators. In their work, long 

 after the house had ceased to be visible or exert 

 any control on the direction of paths, the ground 

 was cut up into sections, each of which was laid 

 out with as much wealth of detail as though it 

 were in the immediate view of the most important 

 windows. A classic temple generally gave an 

 attempt at accounting for such elaboration. The 

 gardens of Versailles are typical of the elaborate 

 formal garden, and being the work of Le Notre 

 are a fine example of the style. On flat ground 

 belonging to a grandiose building, where much 

 people live, or are entertained, this extensive 

 scale has its advantages, but otherwise the best 

 method seems to be to keep the garden lines under 

 control of the architecture of the house while the 

 latter is the dominant feature, and on the out- 

 skirts to blend with the natural beauties of the 

 place. 



The plan of a garden laid out at Beaconsfield by 



