THE STORY OF THE GARDENS 97 



disappeared. He also built the Observatory 

 where Richmond Lodge came to be demolished. 

 His innovations were not confined to buildings, 

 as appears in Mason's satire : 



Now to our lawns of dalliance and delight, 

 Join we the groves of horror and affright. 



The architect -gardener declared himself very 

 complacent about the dealings with Nature here 

 carried out. " Originally the ground was one 

 continued dead flat, the soil was in general 

 barren, without either wood or water. With so 

 many disadvantages it was not easy to produce 

 anything even tolerable in gardening ; but 

 princely munificence overcame all difficulties. 

 What was once a desert is now an Eden ! " 



As controller of the works actively pushed 

 on at Kew, Chambers prospered so much as to 

 be knighted, and to buy Whitton Place, near 

 Hounslow, where the third Duke of Argyll, 

 brother and heir of Jeanie Deans's protector, 

 himself better known as Lord Islay, had 

 established a nursery of exotic trees, which 

 it was his hobby to naturalise in England. 

 On the death of this duke the cream of his 

 collection seems to have been transplanted to 

 Kew, now become a truly royal botanic garden, 



13 



