i io GARDEN-CRAFT. 



buildings mentioned are " peculiarly adapted to a 

 garden scene." In front of a wood three pavilions 

 joined by arcades, all of the Ionic order, " character- 

 istically proper for a garden, and so purely orna- 

 mental." Then a Temple of Bacchus, the Elysian 

 fields, British remains ; misshaped elms and ragged 

 firs are frequent in a scene of solitude and gloom, 

 which the trunks of dead trees assist. Then a large 

 Gothic building, with slated roofs, " in a noble con- 

 fusion " ; then the Elysian fields, seen from the other 

 side, a Palladian bridge, Doric porticoes, &c., the 

 whole thing finished off with the Temple of Concord 

 and Victory, probably meant as a not-undeserved 

 compliment to the successfully chaotic skill of the 

 landscape-gardener, who is nothing if not irregular, 

 natural, non-formal, non-fantastical, non-artificial, and 

 non-geometrical. 



Two other points about Whately puzzle me. 

 How comes he to strain at the gnat of formality in 

 the old-fashioned garden, yet readily swallow the 

 camel at Stowe ? How can he harmonise his appre- 

 ciation of the elaborately contrived and painfully 

 assorted shams at Stowe, with his recommendation 

 of a sheep-walk in your garden "as an agreeable 

 relief, and even wilder scenes " ? 



Whether the beauty of the general disposition of 

 the ground at Stowe is to be attributed to Kent or 

 to Bridgman, who began the work, as Whately says, 

 "when regularity was in fashion," I cannot say. It 

 is right to observe, however, that the prevailing 

 characteristic of Kent's and Brown's landscapes was 



