LE JARDIN ANGLAIS 31 



classical lines a welcome relief. The classical 

 formality, at first so charming in its restrained 

 yet decorative outlines of house and garden, in 

 its turn sank to decadence after the period of 

 Versailles, where, to quote from Sir George 

 Sitwell's most valuable book. On the Making 

 of Gardens, — a book with no direct reference 

 to the East, yet so full of suggestion and ima- 

 ginative sympathy with beauty in every form 

 that one wishes it might be the text-book of 

 every garden -maker, whether in England or 

 in India — " The long drawn-out monotony of 

 the new style, which took no account of the 

 genius of the place, but sought everywhere to 

 overwhelm nature, was bound to provoke a 

 reaction. As under Louis XIV. the garden 

 had encroached upon the park so now the park 

 swept back over the garden, bringing the one 

 unending sweep of the bare English lawn up to 

 the very windows of the house. . . . The garden 

 was deprived first of its boundaries and then of 

 its flowers, sham rivers, dead trees, and broken 

 bridges were planted in appropriate positions, 

 while over the country-side in the neighbourhood 

 of the great houses there broke out a dreadful 

 eruption of Gothic temples and Anglo-Saxon 



