Book I. 



(JABDENING IN THE BRITISH ISLESy 



73 



villa at Deptford, a fine garden for walks and hedges, and a pretty little green-house with 

 an indifferent stock in it. He has four large round philareas, smooth-clipped, raised on a 

 single stalk from the ground, a fashion now much used. Part of his garden is very 

 woody and shady for walking ; but not being walled, he has little of the best fruits." 



329. During the reign of William and Mary, gardening, Switzer says, arrived at its 

 highest perfection. King William, Daines Barrington inlForms us, gave vogue to dipt 

 yews, with magnificent gates and rails of iron, not unfrequent in Holland, and about 

 this time (see Huetiana) introduced into France, and, in reference to the opaque stone- 

 walls which they supplanted, called there dairs-voyees. The most extensive iron screens 

 of this sort in England, next to those of Hampton Court, were formed by Switzer, at 

 Leeswold, in Flintshire, laid out by that artist in a mixed style, or what is called 

 Bridgeman's first manner. Hampton Court being at this time the actual residence of 

 the royal family, the gardens underwent considerable improvement. An elegant alcove 

 and arched trellis were added at the end of one of the alleys, and four urns placed before 

 the principal part of the house, supposed by Daines Barrington (Archceologia) to be the 

 first that were thus used in England. Towards the end of this century, vegetable sculp- 

 tures, and embroidered parterres, were probably in their highest vogue, a conjecture 

 confirmed by the works of Le Blond, James, Switzer^ &c. published during this and the 

 following reign. Sir William Temple's Essay on the Gardens of Epicurus appeared 

 about the same time. His picture of a perfect garden, is that of a flat, or gentle de- 

 clivity of an oblong shape, lying in front of the house, with a descent of steps from a 

 terrace, extending the whole length of the house. This enclosure is to be cultivated as a 

 kitchen-garden and orchard. Such a garden he found at Moor Park, Hertfordshire, 

 laid out by the Countess of Bedford, celebrated by Dr. Donne, " the sweetest place, I 

 tliink, that I have seen in my life, before or since, at home or abroad." Lord Walpole, 

 in his enthusiasm for the modern style, observes on this description, that any man might 

 form as sweet a garden, who had never been out of Holborn. — It has long since been 

 destroyed, and its place occupied by lawn and trees. 



330. During Queen Anne's reign the principal alteration mentioned by Daines Bar- 

 rington, as having taken place in the royal gardens, was that of covering the parterre 

 before the great terrace at Windsor with turf. Switzer mentions, that her Majesty finished 

 the old gardens at Kensington, begun by King William. Wise, who had been apprentice 

 to Rose, and succeeded him as royal gardener, turned the gravel-pits into a shrubbery, 

 with winding walks, with which Addison was so struck, that he compares him to an epic 

 poet, and these improved pits as episodes to the general effect of the garden. Wise and 

 London afterwards turned nurserymen, and designers of gardens, in which last capacity 

 they were nearly in as great demand as was afterwards the celebrated Brown. To 

 London and Wise, as designers, succeeded Bridgeman, who appears to have been a more 

 chaste artist than any of his predecessors. He banished vegetable sculpture, and intro- 

 duced wild scenes and cultivated fields in Richmond park ; but he still dipt his alleys, 

 though he left to their natural growth the central parts of the masses through which they 

 were pierced. Blenheim, Castle Howard, Cranbourne, Bushy Park, Edger, Althorpe, 

 New Park, Bowden, Hackwood, Wrest, and indeed almost all the principal noblemen's 

 seats in the ancient style, were laid out during this, the preceding, and part of the latter 

 reigns, or between the years 1660 and 1713. Blenheim was laid out by Wise in three 

 years ; Wansted and Edger were the last of London's designs. (Switzer.) 



331. During the reign of George I. nothing of consequence appears to have been done 

 to the royal gardens ; though, near the end of it, Vanbrugh was appointed surveyor of 

 the waters and gardens of the crown , but continued only a year or two in ofiice. 



332. During the reign of George II. Queen Caroline enlarged and planted Kensington 

 Gardens, and formed what is now called the Serpentine River, by uniting a string of 

 detached ponds. Tliis was a bold step, and led the way to subsequent changes of taste. 

 Lord Bathurst informed Daines Barrington, that ke was the first who deviated from the 

 straight l^ne in pieces of made water, by following the natural lines of a valley, in widen- 

 ing a brook at Ryskins, near Colebrook ; and that Lord Strafford thinking that it was 

 done from poverty or economy, asked him to own fairly, how little more it would have 

 cost him to have made it straight. From Lord Walpole's correspondence (published 

 1819) we learn that Queen Caroline proposed to shut up St. James's Park, and convert 

 it into a noble garden for the palace of that name. When her Majesty asked Lord 

 Walpole's father what it might probably cost, he answered " only three crowns." 



Cannons, the magnificent seat of the Duke of Chandos, is one of the principal places laid out in the 

 ancient style during this reign. We are ignorant of the name of the French artist who gave the design, 

 but the execution was superintended by Dr. Blackwell, a physician and agriculturist of some note. The 

 Duke is mentioned by Miller, as one of the principal encouragers of gardening. As far as we have been 

 able to learn, the last extensive residence laid out in the ancient style, in England, was Exton Park, in 

 Rutlandshire, then the property of the Earl of Gainsborough, the Maecenas of his age. It was finished 

 about the year 1730. Kent had already returned from Italy, and been employed as a painter and architect, 

 and he began to display his genius a few years afterwards as a landscape-gardener. 



