xii PREFACE 



young architects to set their own house in 

 artistic order ! 



As regards ''formal gardening" the 

 state of some of the best old houses tn 

 England — Longleat, Compton - Wynyates, 

 Brympton, and many others, where trees tn 

 formal lines, clipped or otherwise, are not 

 seen in connection with the architecture — 

 is proof against the need of the practice. 

 As regards the best new houses. Clouds, 

 so well built by Mr. Philip Webb, is not 

 any the worse for its picturesque surround- 

 ings, which do not meet the architects 

 senseless craving for " order and balance " / 

 while Batsford, certainly one of the few 

 really good new houses in England, is not 

 disfigured by the fashions in formality the 

 authors wish to see revived, and of which 

 they give an absurd example in a cut of 

 Badminton. There is, in short, ample 

 proof, furnished both by the beautiful old 

 houses of England and by those new ones 



