May 18, 1871. 1 



JOUENAL OF HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



347 







WEEKLY 



CALENDAR. 











Day 



of 



MoBtb 



Day 

 of 



Week. 





Average Tempera- | Rain in Sun Suu 







Clock 1 Day 

 after of 

 Sun. 1 Year. 





ture near London. 43 years. Rises. , Sets. 



Rises. 



8ets. 



Age. 









Day. 



Nidhl. 



Mean.l Days. 



m. h. i m. h. 



m. h. 



m. h. 



Days. 



m, a. 1 



18 



Th 



Ascension Day. 



662 



42.2 



54.2 17 



6af4 47af7 



5at4 44af6 



28 



3 50 138 



19 



F 





67.0 



42.7 



549 



14 



5 4 1 48 7 



25 4 51 7 



• 



3 48 : 139 



20 



S 



Crystal Palace Show. 



66.9 



43 4 



55.2 



20 



4 4 ' 49 7 



51 4 



56 8 



1 



3 45 ! 140 



21 



SCN 



1 Sunday after .Ascension. 



66.3 



44.7 



66.5 



19 



3 4 1 60 7 



21 5 



57 9 



2 



3 42 141 



22 



M 



Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Geogra- 



65.4 



42.4 



63.9 



19 



2 4 52 7 



59 6 



53 10 



3 



3 38 , 142 



23 



Tu 



[ phical Society, 8 SO p.m. 



67.3 



43.6 



55.5 



15 



4 , 53 7 



44 6 



41 11 



4 



3 34 143 



24 



W 



Queen Victoria Born, 1819. Anniversary 



67.4 



48.0 



65.2 



12 



59 3 i 55 7 



39 7 



morn. 



5 



3 29 144 







[Meeting of Linnean Society, 3 p.m. 







1 



1 











From observations taken near London dnring fortv-three years, the average day temperature of the week is 66.6 



', and its night tem- 



peratnre 43.1=. The greatest heat was 89', on the 22nd, 18i7 ; and the lowest cold 25°, on the 23rd and 24th, 1867. 



The greatest fall of 



rain was 0.76 inch. 







OUR FIRST LANDSCAPE GARDENER. 



E was a painter, an architect, and the father 

 of modern gardening. In the first character 

 he was below mediocrity; in the second, he 

 was a restorer of the science ; in the last, 

 an original, and the inventor of an art 

 that realises painting and improves nature. 

 Mahomet imagined an elysium, but Kent 

 created many." So wrote Horace Walpole 

 of WiLLt.4M Ken't, his contemporary, but we 

 know full well that Walpole's judgment 

 failed in controlling his love of superlatives, and we have 

 from time to time inquired for and noted down other testi- 

 monies. We will now reduce these to a somewhat regular 

 and connected order. 



If, as we sometimes think, there are names that never 

 could be ennobled, then such a name is Gant. Certain is 

 it that in IfiSo it was borne by a very humble family at 

 Bridlington, in Yorkshire, in which year and place, and 

 of which family the subject of our notes was born. We 

 once knew a family who sought by adding an e final to 

 form a little eddy of themselves in the iiood of Smiths, 

 but a bolder course was adopted by William Cant ; he 

 assumed that Cant was a contraction of Cantium, implying 

 that his ancestors were of the Roman period, so he trans- 

 lated it and passed through life as Willt.\m Kext 



He was apprenticed to a coach painter at Hull, and 

 though he soon showed superior abilities as a draughtsman, 

 yet the colouring of his first tuition abided with him, and 

 to the last was so oflfensive that though Sir Robert Wal- 

 pole allowed him to employ his pencil on ceilings and 

 staircase walls at Houghton, he only permitted him to 

 draw and shade. The severest oriticiser of his colouring 

 was Hogarth, and we remembered this when we visited 

 Kent's place of sepulture at Chiswick, for Hogarth is his 

 near neighbour in death, resting in the adjoining church- 

 yard, and Garrick's verse is not inapplicable to each — 

 " If genius fire thee, reader, stay ; 



I£ nature- touch thee, drop a tear ; 

 If neither move thee, turn away. 



For Hogarth's honoured dnst lies here." 



It is said to be a characteristic of genius to rise superior 

 to the laws and rules which duller minds submit to, and 

 Kent early exhibited this characteristic by escaping with- 

 out permission from his apprenticeship, "and proceeding 

 to London. That he had shown artistic ability has the 

 strong evidence that some gentlemen of his native county 

 raised a sum suificient to pay his expenses to Rome, and 

 thither he proceeded in 1710. That his friends were not 

 deceived is shown by his obtaining, after two years' study 

 under Cavalier Luti, a prize for drawing in the Academy of 

 St. Luke, and two medals from the Pope. These honours, 

 however, did not add to his resources, and he was only 

 extricated from difficulties by the liberality of Sir William 

 Wentworth and the Earl of Burlington, of whom the last- 

 named became his munificent patron, and with whom he 

 returned to England in 1719. Kent was then in his thirty- 

 fourth year, and from that time until his death, thirty 



Ho. 589.— Vol. XX., Nsw SiaiES. 



years subsequently, he resided with the Earl. That noble- 

 man, says Walpole, who knew them both, " discovered the 

 rich vein of genius that had been hid from the artist him- 

 self " — that vein of genius was of architecture and garden 

 designing ; yet there was a fashion to employ him in all 

 kinds of ornamental work, and, says Walpole — 



" Kent's style predominated authoritatively dnrinf^ his life ; and his 

 oracle was so much consulted by all who affected taste, thai nothing 

 was thought compleat without his assistance. He was not only con- 

 sulted for furniture, as frames of pictures, glasses, tables, chairs, ttc, 

 but for plate, for a barge, for a cradle. And so impetuous was fashion, 

 that two great ladies prevailed on him to make designs for their birth- 

 day gowns. The one he dressed in a petticoat decorated with columns 

 of the five orders : the other like a bronze, in a copper-coloured Eattia 

 with ornaments of gold." 



But as an architect his taste was with more justice 

 admired, and many specimens as evidence remain besides 

 Holkham, which he considered his masterpiece. Con- 

 nected with architecture is his only published work. In 

 this he was assisted by the Earl of Burlington. It ap- 

 peared first in 1727, and is entitled " The Designs of Inigo 

 Jones, with some Additions." His professional success 

 was aided by his genial humour, polished probably by 

 continued intercourse with the leaders of high society. 

 He is frequently mentioned as being in that high circle, 

 and Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, relates that 

 " Lady Townsend told him she was forced to have an issue 

 on one side of her head for her eyes, and that Kent advised 

 her to have another on the other side for symmetry !" 



As a designer and planter of gardens and extensive 

 pleasure grounds he is entitled to our notice in these 

 columns. In our notes relative to Mr. George London 

 we quoted Switzer's opinion that he was not so excelling 

 as a garden designer as he was as a horticulturist. 

 Switzer repeats this estimate of Mr. London more than 

 once, and, as an illustration, tells that at Castle Howard 

 Mr. London wished to have a star-form plantation, but 

 the Earl of Carlisle would not consent ; and it became so 

 evident that it would have spoiled the effect of the wood, 

 that it was a proverb in liis time and at the place, " York 

 against London.'' It is remarkable, but not unusual, that 

 the critic was not superior to him he flagellated, for Switzer, 

 in his " Icnographia," has published numerous designs of 

 pleasure gardens which no ingenuity could surpass in 

 mathematical formality and sameness. 

 " No pleasing intricacies intervene 



No artful wildness to perplex the scene ; 

 Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother. 

 And half the platform just reflects the other." 



We will now briefly show how Kent excelled his two 

 immediate predecessors and partly contemporaries. 



Walpole thus sketches the kind of garden they con- 

 structed : — 



"At ladj Orford's, at Piddletown, in Dorsetshire, there was, when 

 my brother married, a double inclosnre of thirteen gardens, each I 

 suppose not much above an hundred yards square, with an enfilade of 

 correspondent gates ; and before yon arrived at these, you passed a 

 narrow gut between two stone terrasses, that rose above your head, and 

 which were crowned by a line of pyramidal Yews. A bowling-green 

 was all the lawn admitted in those times, a circular lake the extent of 

 magnificence. 



" Yet though these and such preposterous inconveniencies prevailed 

 No 1181.— Vol. XL v.. Old Series. 



