1 70 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



wealth gave him almost exclusive pretensions. Clumps and belts 

 were multiplied to a disgusting monotony, and abounded in every 

 part of the kingdom. The ancient avenues disappeared, as if 

 before the wand of a magician ; every vestige of the formal or the 

 reformed taste was forcibly removed. Whatever approached to 

 a right line was held in abhorrence. Brown's influence upon 

 public opinion produced, in time, two memorable contro- 

 versies, which may be styled the "Chinese," and the 

 " Picturesque." 



Yet during his high career, he found some of the most 

 approved theorists to gratify him with no measured praise. 

 Walpole is courtly and discreet, as far as not becoming his 

 partizan. Whately treats him with bare allusion; but Mason 

 gives an unequivocal encomium, whilst he afterwards combats 

 his principles. 1 



By his partizans, Brown has been complimented as ' the living 

 leader of the powers of nature, and the realiser of Kent's Elysian 

 scenes ' ; an immoderate praise which has excited the most severe 

 contempt. But, in candour, he should not have been charged 

 with all the faults of his numerous followers. He was not likely 

 to form himself upon the pictures of Salvator, Claude, or Poussin, 

 who was himself ignorant of mechanical drawing. His principles 

 were known, and his plans manufactured by others. His manage- 

 ment of water was more worthy of admiration than of grounds or 

 plantations, in which his mind appears to have been occupied by 

 a single object, not consulting, in some instances, the genius of 

 the place. The uniformity of ' clumps and belts ' (as he called 

 them) by such constant repetition has lost its claim to our surprise 

 or approbation ; and that claim originated as much in the novelty 

 as the beauty of the objects. Unlike the instance of the prophet 

 of old, his mantle has been appropriated to themselves by numer- 

 ous successors; unless indeed, the precedence claimed by 



1 ' Bards yet unborn 



Shall pay to Brown, that tribute fitliest paid 

 In strains the beauty of his scenes inspire.' 



English Garden^ Book /. 



