30 ON SOME EARLY GARDEN HISTORY 



Nothing could be more charming or more suited 

 to the climate than these country houses round 

 Delhi as seen by Bernier in 1660, and the ill- 

 adapted, modern Anglo-Indian bungalows, with 

 their sloping roofs, haphazard-shaped compounds, 

 and dusty gardens open to the public gaze, can- 

 not be said to be a great advance in appro- 

 priateness or taste. 



The second cause which led to the decline of 

 Indian gardening was less obvious but more 

 destructive. It was the introduction of the 

 English landscape garden, le Jardin Anglais., of the 

 eighteenth century, "the mock wild garden" 

 which surrounded the English classic houses of that 

 period. This change was a revolt of the garden 

 alone against some of the final absurdities of the 

 Dutch designs and a lifeless formalism which 

 had become dreary, a change which may be 

 partly traced to the East, for it was to some 

 extent inspired by travellers' tales of the land- 

 scape gardens of China and Japan. 



All styles have their weak points, which in 

 the end bring about their decadence and make 

 for change. In Europe, Gothic architecture, 

 degenerating in France to a riot of flamboyant 

 curves, made the renaissance of the severer 



