European and Japanese Gardens 



PLAN OF THE PARK OF MARLY 



poetry, and of Le Notre in gardening. ;Of what immense inter- 

 est it would be to show how this principle holds through the 

 history of all the arts, — that he is greatest who can take what 

 other men have done and better it, perfect it, — not he who pre- 

 sumptuously shatters traditions, essaying, as it were, what no 

 one has ever succeeded in doing, anew and alone to construct 

 an art out of his own inner consciousness. 



Andre Le Notre was born at Paris in 1613. He was the 

 son of the King's sun'titendant, as his title was : what 

 would correspond, I suppose, in our time and tongue, to 

 Director of Works, — head gardener and outside man. The 

 father was anxious to have his son become a painter, though in 

 those days the natural course of events was for a man's son to 

 follow in his father's footsteps. We are forced to draw the 

 conclusion that the surinicndant had found his calling none 

 too much like the beds of roses his business was to cultivate, 

 since he went so far out of his wav to induce his son not to 



"5 



