318 



JOUKNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ May 18, 1871. 



from age to age, goo:l sense in this country Lad perceived the ivant of 

 somethiDg at once more grand and more natural. 



" At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms 

 of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and 

 born "with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of 

 imperfect essays. He leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a 

 garden. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing im- 

 perceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or 

 concave scoop, and remarlcecl how loose groves crowned an easy emi- 

 nence with happy ornament, and while they called in the distant view 

 between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective 

 by delusive comparison. 



" Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the arts of land- 

 scape on the scenes he handled. The great principles on which he 

 worked were perspective, and light and shade. Groupes of trees broke 

 too uniform or too estensive a lawn ; evergreens and woods were 

 opposed to the glare of the champain, ^nd where the view was less 

 fortunate, or so much exposed as to be beheld at once, he blotted out 

 some parts by thick shades, to divide it into variety, or to make the 

 richest scene more enchanting by reserving it to a farther advance of 

 the spectator's step. Thus selecting favourite objects, and veiling de- 

 formities by screens of plantation ; sometimes allowing the rudest 

 waste to add its soil to the richest theatre, he realised the compositions 

 of the greate.-t masters in painting. "Where objects were wanting to 

 animate his horizon, his taste as an architect could bestow immediate 

 termination. His buildings, his seats, his temples, were more the 

 works of his pencil than of his compasses. \Ye owe the restoration of 

 Greece and the diffusion of architecture to his skill in landscape. 



" But of all the beauties he added to the face of this beautiful 

 country, none surpassed his management of water. Adieu to canals, 

 circular basons, and cascades tumbling down marble steps, that last 

 absurd magnificence of Italian and French villas. The forced ele- 

 vation of cataracts was no more. The gentle stream was taught to 

 serpentise seemingly at its pleasure, and where discontinued by dif- 

 ferent levels, its course appeared to be concealed by thickets properly 

 interspersed, and glittered again at a distaDce where it might be sup- 

 posed naturally to arrive. Its borders were smoothed, but preserved 

 their waving irregularity. A few trees scattered here and there on its 

 edges sprinkled the tame bank that accompanied its mseanders ; and 

 when it disappeared among the hills, shades descending from the 

 heights leaned towards its progress, and framed the distant point of 

 light under which it was lost, as it turned aside to either hand of the 

 bine horizon. 



" Thus deal ng in none but the colours of nature, and catching its 

 most favourable features, men saw a new creation opening before their 

 eyes. The living landscape was chastened or polished, not transformed. 

 Freedom was given to the forms of trees ; they extended their branches 

 unrestricted, and where any eminent Oak, or master Beech had escaped 

 maiming and survived the forest, bush and bramble was removed, and 

 all its honours were restored to distinguish and shade the plain. Where 

 the united plumage of an ancient wood extended wide its undulating 

 canopy, and stood venerable in its darkness, Kent thinned the fore- 

 most ranks, and left but so many detached and scattered trees, as 

 softened the approach of gloom, and blended a chequered light with 

 the thus lengthened shadows of the remaining columns." 



The grounds he created about a residence, now especially 

 interesting, are thus described by "Whateley, another con- 

 temporary :^ 



" A regular plantation has a degree of beauty ; but it gives no satis- 

 faction, because we know that the same number of trees might be 

 more beautifully arranged. A disposition, however, in which the lines 

 only are broken, without varying the distances, is less natural than 

 any ; for though we cannot find strait lines in a forest, we are habitu- 

 ated to them in the hedgerows of fields ; but neither in wild nor in 

 cultivated nature do we ever see treea equidistant from each other : 

 that regularity belongs to art alone. The distances, therefore, should 

 be striMngly different ; the trees should gather into gronpes, or stand 

 in various irregular lines, and describe several figures : the intervals 

 between them should be contrasted both in shape and in dimensions : 

 a large space should in some places be quite open ; in others the trees 

 should be 80 close together, as hardly to leave a passage between them ; 

 and in others as far apart as the connection will allow. In the forms 

 and the varieties of these groupes, these lines, and these openings, 

 principally consists the interior beauty of a grove. 



"The force of them is most strongly iHustrated at Claremont;* 

 where the walk to the cottage, though destitute of many natural ad- 

 vantages, and eminent for none; though it commands no prospect; 

 though the water below it is a trifiiug pond ; though it has nothing, in 

 short, but inequality of ground to recommend it ; is yet the finest 

 part of the garden: for a grove is there planted in a gently curved 

 direction, all along the side of a hill, and on the edge of a wood, which 

 rises above it. Large recesses break it into several clamps, which 

 hang down the declivity ; some of them approaching, but none reach- 

 ing quite to the bottom. These recesses are so deep as to form great 

 openings in the midst of tho grove ; they penetrate almost to the 

 covert : but the clumps being all equally suspended from the wood ; 

 and a line of open plantation, though sometimes narrow, rnnniug con- 

 stantly along tie top; a continuation of gi'ove is preserved, and the 



* Near Esher, in Surrey. 



connection between the parts is never broken. Even a groupe, which 

 near one of the extremities stands out quite detached, is still in stile 

 so familiar to the rest, as not to lose all relation. Each of these 

 clamps is composed of several others still more intimately united : 

 each is full of groupes, sometimes of no more than two trees ; some- 

 times of four or five ; and now and then in larger clusters : an irregular 

 waving line, issuing from some little croud, loses itself in the niext; 

 or a few scattered trees drop in a more distant succession from the one 

 to the other. The intervals, winding here like a glade, and widening 

 there into broader openings, differ in extent, in figure, and direction ; 

 but all the groupes, the lines, and the intervals, are collected together 

 into large general clumps, each of which is at the same time both 

 compact and free, identical and various. The whole is a place wherein 

 to tarry with secure delight, or saunter with perpetual amusement." 



"We might add panegyrics from many more competent autho- 

 rities, such as both the Masons, Coventry, and others, but we 

 have quoted sufficiently. 



In addition to his extensive practice as an architect and 

 landscape gardener, he held several public appointments ; he 

 was master carpenter, architect, keeper of the pictures, and 

 principal painter to the Crown. He was also commissioner of 

 the Board of Works. He bad a pension oi £100 for his 

 alterations at EenEiagton Palace, raising bis receipts from 

 public appointments to £600 annually. He was indebted for 

 these appointments to the patronage of the Dakes of Grafton 

 and Newcastle, the Earl of Burlington, and Mr. Pelham ; to all 

 of whom and others who bad befriended bim be beq.ueathed 

 tokens of gratitude. We need particularise but two of these, 

 and they shall be named in bis own words — "To the Earl of 

 Burlington my two yellow marble vases with Vine leaves." 

 Pope met Kent at the Earl of Burlington's, and more than 

 once in his poems spoke favourably of bis taste. When men- 

 tioning Esher he tells that there 



" Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love." 

 The landscape gardener felt and did not forget the poet's 

 courtesy, as is thus testified—" To Mr. Alexander Pope Raphael's 

 bead busto, and the wooden terms, and the alabaster vase.'* 

 i Hogarth was the neighbour of the Earl of Burlington and 

 Kent, for he had a house at Chiswick, still remaining. He 

 resented their and Mr. Pope's neglect by publishing " The Man 

 of Taste." In this picture the gate of Burlington House, de- 

 signed by Kent, is represented as being whitev?asbed by Pope, 

 who in the act bespatters the coaeh of the Duke of Chandos. 

 This picture was the frontispiece of a satire on Pope's Epistle 

 to the Earl, and was soon suppres«ed, owing, probably, to a 

 threatened prosecution, for on one of the very few copies that 

 survive is an endorsement by an attorney that in the presence 

 of a witness he had purchased it of a bookseller, who acknow- 

 ledged he had it direct from the printer. 



To various of the Boyles, Arundels, and Pelhams Kent be- 

 queathed like remembrances, and lastly, one to the Duke of 

 Grafton, who was one of bis most trusting patrons. Walpole 

 telling Sir Horace Mann of bis visit to the Duke's residence, 

 Enston Hall, observed, " It is one of the most admired seats in 

 England— in my opinion, because Kent baa a most absolute 

 disposition of it. Kent is now so fashionable, that, Uke Addi- 

 son's Liberty, be 



' Can make bleak rocks and barren mountains smile.' 

 I believe the Duke wishes he could make them green, too." 



In the early spring of 1748, Kent was attacked by an in- 

 flammation which terminated in mortification of the bowels. 

 He died on the 20th of April, and evidence oi his still strong 

 will, kindly nature, and unclouded reason appears in his signa- 

 ture two days previously to a codicil, bestowing various tokens 

 of remembrance. The signa- 

 ture is misty and tremu- 

 lous, very different from his 

 usual neat, firm autograph of 

 which this is a fac-simile : — 



In accordance with the wieb expressed in the opening Een- 

 tenoee of his will, be was buried in the Earl of Burlington's vault 

 in Chiswick Church. Speedy interment was needful, and speedy 

 proof of the will followed, for it was registered on the 25th of 

 April. "His fortune," says Walpole, "which with pictures 

 and books, amounted to about £10,000, he divided between his 

 relations and an actress with whom he bad long lived in par- 

 ticular friendship." So worded it might be concluded that he 

 left her half his fortune, but it was not so. The actress ia 

 described in his will as "Elizabeth Butler, of St. Paul's, 

 Covent Garden," to whom he bequeathed £000, and to her two 

 children, whom he leniently appreciated as his own, £300 each, 

 to be raised by sale of some of his South-Sea stock. He be- 



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