GARDEN DESIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS 



195 



visited the garden, it had been alread)^ replanned in accordance with the 

 ideas that had recently been introduced from England. " I returned to- 

 wards The Hague," he writes, " and looked into the country house of the 

 late Count Bentinck, with parterres and bosquets by no means resembling 

 one should conjecture, the gardens of the Hesperides. But, considering 

 that the whole group of trees, terraces and verdure were in a manner created 

 out of hills of sand, the place may claim some portion of merit. The walks 

 and alleys have ...,..;,., 



all the stiffness and 

 formality which 

 our ancestors ad- 

 mired, but the in- 

 termediate spaces, 

 being dotted 

 with clumps and 

 sprinkled with 

 flowers, are im- 

 agined in Holland 

 to be in the Eng- 

 lish style. An 

 Englishman ought 

 certainly to behold 

 it with partial eyes, 

 since every pos- 

 sible attempt has 

 been made to twist 

 it into the taste of 

 his country. ":.:"'. 



"I need hardly say how liberally I bestowed my encomiums on 

 Count Bentinck's tasteful invention ; nor how happy I was, when I had 

 duly serpentized over his garden, to find myself once more in the grand 

 avenue. 



" All the way home I reflected upon the unyielding perseverance of the 

 Dutch, who raise gardens from heaps of sand, and cities out of ,the bosom of 

 the waters." 



" The House in the Wood " was originally built as a dower house by Amelia 



SORGVLIET. 



