THE STORY OF THE GARDENS 95 



menagerie, a maze, and, of course, a grotto, to 

 gratify "heav'nly Caroline's" admiration for 

 what "royal George" bluntly denounced as 

 "childish silly stuff." Rival poets celebrated 

 "the much sung grotto of the Queen," one 

 under the sly pseudonym of "Peter Drake, a 

 fisherman of Brentford," making fun of Stephen 

 Duck, the so-called thresher-poet 



The widowed Princess of Wales, prompted 

 by her friend Bute, showed a warm interest in 

 horticulture ; and under her was nursed the 

 Botanic Garden of exotic plants that became 

 the special feature of the Kew grounds. They 

 were laid out by Lancelot Brown, a self-taught 

 gardener, so celebrated in his day as to be 

 known by the name of "Capability" Brown. 

 He, indeed, rather than Kent, is sometimes 

 styled the father of landscape improvers, among 

 whom Repton, for one, speaks of him as his 

 master or forerunner. Brown appears to have 

 insisted masterfully on the carrying out of his 

 own ideas, if we are to believe the story of 

 George III. chuckling over his death to an 

 under - gardener : "Now you and I can do as 

 we please here ! " In Mason's Heroic Epistle, 

 Brown is said to have had a free hand over the 



