1 84 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



landscape-painting ; beauty which results from a well-chosen 

 variety of curves, in contradistinction to that of architecture, 

 which arises from a judicious symmetry of right lines, and which 

 is thus shown to have afforded the principle on which that formal 

 disposition of garden ground, which our ancestors borrowed from 

 the French and Dutch, proceeded : a principle never adopted by 

 nature herself, and therefore constantly to be avoided by those 

 whose business it is to embellish nature. . . . 



The picturesque principle being thus established, the second 

 book proceeds to a more practical discussion of the subject, but 

 confines itself to one point only, the disposition of the ground 

 plan, and that very material business immediately united with it, 

 the proper disposition and formation of the paths and fences. 

 The necessity of attending constantly to the curvilinear principle 

 is first shown, not only in the formation of the ground plan, with 

 respect to its external boundary, but in its internal swellings and 

 sinkings where all abruptness or angular appearances are as much to 

 be avoided, as in the form of the outline that surrounds the whole. 



The pathways or walks are next considered, and that peculiar 

 curve recommended for their imitation, which is so frequently 

 found in common roads, footpaths, etc., and which being casually 

 produced appears to be the general curve of nature. 



The rest of the book is employed in minutely describing the 

 method of making sunk fences, and other necessary divisions of 

 the pleasure-ground or lawn from the adjacent field or park. . . . 



The third book proceeds to add natural ornament to that 

 ground-plan, which the second book has ascertained, in its two 

 capital branches, wood and water. . . . Factitious or artificial 

 ornaments (apparently including flowers) in contradistinction 

 to natural ones last treated, form the general subject of the 

 fourth book, and conclude the plan. 



I had before called Bacon the prophet, and Milton the herald, 

 of true taste in Gardening (on account of their introducing 'natural 

 wildness '). I here call Addison, Pope, Kent, etc., the champions 

 of this free taste, because they absolutely brought it into execution. 

 General Postscript to the 'English Garden.'' 



