compared with that of England. 199 



the rank of a fine art; and even the old beautiful models of 

 gardening iu the natural style, I found, had been compelled, in 

 obedience to modern taste, to draw the veil of fashionable orna- 

 ment over their original charms. 



Such, at least, was the state in which English gardening ap- 

 peared to me, when I saw it in practice some fifteen years ago : 

 whether there is now a return to the former simplicity ; whether 

 the employment of the new productions of foreign regions has 

 been directed with more aesthetic [exalted] judgment, and with a 

 more artist-like feeling of the beautiful; in a word, whether the 

 noble simplicity of the old masters is again in vogue, I know 

 not; but I most earnestly wish it to be so. If I have been far 

 from estimating our Munich gardens in point of art above the 

 English, it must be regarded as only conditionally; for I repeat 

 that here the question is respecting the grand works of the early 

 period, and not the later productions of modern confusion in the 

 gardening style. The former only were the sublime examples 

 whereby the artist who created the great structures of art here 

 was guided. These were the examples which were always in his 

 mind as guides, in the path he had cut out for himself, for carry- 

 ing the early taste in English gardening to perfection, and thus 

 creating a new style, which I call the German, and consider the 

 foundation of classical garden art. 



That thus our German landscape-garden style, though built 

 on the English, as the English was on the Chinese [ ? ], is yet, in 

 its best models, essentially distinct from the English, is what I 

 shall here endeavour farther to illustrate. 



The old English garden style, even at the period when it was 

 most flourishing, was always exposed to the reproach of a too 

 great simplicity, and too little alternation in its pictures, scenes, 

 forms, and colours ; and this reproach, which was perhaps cor- 

 rect, had reference to some of the greatest works of the kind. 

 The wish to avoid these faults may be the main cause why, at a 

 more recent period, the English garden became so superfluously 

 overloaded with petty forms, and too great a variety of plant- 

 ations and flower ornaments; as, in avoiding one error, a greater 

 is often committed. In this respect, I can say, with confidence, 

 that we Germans have been fortunate. Whether it is to be 

 accounted for by our not having within our power the endless 

 variety of plants which the English gardener possesses, many of 

 which cannot be grown in our soil and climate, or by more cor- 

 rect views having guided our gardeners, I do not pretend to 

 determine. 



Be this, however, as it may, I believe I can venture to assert 

 that the true German garden style exhibits, in its classical purity, 

 a just medium between the too great simplicity and excessive 

 ornament of English gardens : but that here I only mean the 



o 4 



