THE "LANDSCAPE GARDEN." 131 



" Nature abhors lines. " Hence his mimicry can 



never rise above Nature. Indeed, if it remains 



faithful to the negative opinions of its practitioners, 



landscape-gardening will never construct any system 



of device. It has no creed, if you except that sole 



article of its faith, " I believe in the non-geometrical 



garden." A monumental style is an impossibility 



while it eschews all features that make for state 



and magnificence and symmetry ; a little park 



scenery, much grass, curved shrubberies, the 



" laboured littleness " of emphasised specimen plants 



the hardy ones dotted about in various parts 



wriggling paths, flower-borders, or beds of shapes 



that imply that they are the offspring of bad dreams, 



and its tale of effects is told. But as for " fine 



gardening," that was given up long ago as a bad 



job ! The spirit of Walpole's objections to the heroic 



enterprise of the old-fashioned garden still holds the 



" landscape-gardener " in check. " I should hardly 



advise any of those attempts," says Walpole ; "they 



are adventures of too hard achievement for any common 



hands. 11 



It is not so much at what he finds in the landscape- 

 gardener's creations that the architect demurs, but at 

 what he misses. It is not so much at what the 

 landscape-gardener recommends that the architect 

 objects, as at what moving in his own little orbit 

 he wilfully shuts out, basing his opposition to tradi- 

 tion upon such an ex parte view of the matter as this 

 " There are really two styles, one straitlaced, 

 mechanical, with much wall and stone, or it may be 



K 2 



