fntro&uction 23 



established principles, and to confirm long received 

 opinions, I can only plead in my excuse that true 

 taste, in every art, consists more in adapting tried 

 expedients to peculiar circumstances than in that 

 inordinate thirst after novelty, the characteristic of 

 uncultivated minds, which from the facility of in- 

 venting wild theories, without experience, are apt 

 to suppose that taste is displayed by novelty, genius 

 by innovation, and that every change must neces- 

 sarily tend to improvement. " 



There may have been less perfection and variety of 

 finish in the use of trees and shrubs and flowers, and of 

 other details of the garden and lawn, but the actual art 

 work, the design, is hardly finer to-day than in the days 

 of Repton and Prince Puckler. It might be well to note 

 here that it is a mistake to think that a superior know- 

 ledge of plants gives a paramotmt advantage to the 

 landscape gardener. His main strength should pri- 

 marily lie in the exercise of the actual art, in the ability 

 to design a park or country place on principles funda- 

 mental and long recognized; this is where the highest 

 genius of landscape gardening should find scope. 



Repton died in 18 18, and in England he has had no 

 successor who has conquered such a comparatively wide 

 area of practice and such universal acceptance as an 

 authority. J. C. Loudon and Wm. Robinson have each 

 contributed in their own way much to the adoption of 

 sound views in landscape gardening. The same state- 

 ment appUes to Andrew J. Downing, and to F. L. 01m- 



