CHAPTER II. 



ON ART IN A GARDEN. 



" O world, as God has made it ! All is beauty." 



ROBERT BROWNING. 



IN dealing with our second point the ornamental 

 treatment that is fit and right for a garden we are 

 naturally brought into contact with the good and bad 

 points of both the old and the new systems of 

 gardening. This being so, it may be well at once 

 to notice the claims of the modern " Landscape- 

 gardener" to monopolise to himself all the right 

 principles of garden-craft : all other moods than his 

 are low, all figures other than his are symbols of 

 error, all dealings with Nature other than his are 

 mere distortions. 



If you have any acquaintance with books upon 

 landscape-gardening written by its professors or 

 their admirers, you will have learnt that in the first 

 half of the eighteenth century, two heaven-directed 

 geniuses Kent and Brown all of a sudden 

 stumbled upon the green world of old England, and, 

 perceiving its rural beauties, and the hitherto unex- 

 plored opportunities for ornamental display that the 

 country afforded, these two put their heads together, 



