SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS 185 



Born at Stockholm ; employed by George III. to plan the gardens at Kew, 0/"SIR 

 which he published the 'Plans, Elevations and Views' in folio, 1763, having in WILLIAM 

 1757 issued f Designs of Chinese Buildings,' etc., drawn by him as a youth 

 in China. 1 772, appeared his ' Dissertation on Oriental Gardening ' and a 

 ' Treatise on Civil Architecture ' ; he built Somerset House. 



Gardens of Italy, France, Germany and Spain, and of 

 all the other countries where the antient style still pre- 

 vails, are in general mere cities of verdure; the walks are like 

 streets conducted in strait lines, regularly diverging from differ- 

 ent large open spaces, resembling public squares; and the 

 hedges with which they are bordered, are raised, in imitation 

 of walls, adorned with pilasters, niches, windows and doors, or 

 cut into colonades, arcades and porticos ; all the detached trees 

 are shaped into obelisks, pyramids and vases; and all the 

 recesses in the thickets bear the names and forms of theatres, 

 amphitheatres, temples, banqueting halls, ball rooms, cabinets 

 and saloons. The streets and squares are well manned with 

 statues of marble or lead, ranged in regular lines, like soldiers 

 at a procession ; which, to make them more natural, are some- 

 times painted in proper colours, and finely gilt. The lakes 

 and rivers are confined by quais of hewn stone, and taught to 

 flow in geometrick order; and the cascades glide from the 

 heights by many a succession of marble steps : not a twig is 

 suffered to grow as nature directs, nor is a form admitted but 

 what is scientific, and determinable by the line or compass. 



In England, where this antient style is held in detestation, 

 and where, in opposition to the rest of Europe, a new manner 

 is universally adopted, in which no appearance of art is tolerated, 

 our gardens differ very little from common fields, so closely 

 is common nature copied in most of them ; there is generally 

 so little variety in the objects, such a poverty of imagination 

 in the contrivance, and of art in the arrangement that these 

 compositions rather appear the offspring of chance than design ; 

 and a stranger is often at a loss to know whether he be walking 

 in a meadow, or in a pleasure-ground, made and kept at a very 

 considerable expence : he sees nothing to amuse him, nothing 

 to excite his curiosity, nor anything to keep up his attention. 



