74 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Part I. 



333. In this irief outline of tJie progress of the ancient style in England, we have not 

 had room to notice numerous fine gardens formed by private individuals, preferring rather 

 to notice what had been done in the gardens of the court, which, as they generally lead 

 the fashion in every country, may be considered as a tolerably exact index of the state of 

 a nation's taste. The reader who is desirous of tracing more minutely the progress of 

 tliis branch of gardening among the landed proprietors of England, will find himself 

 amply gratified by consulting The Beauties of England and Wales ; a work in which is 

 exhausted every source of antiquarian and topographical research, up nearly to the present 

 time. The histories of gardening, by Lord Walpole and Daines Barrington, and the 

 prefaces to the gardening works of Miller and Switzer, may also be referred to. 



334. The modern style of landscape- gardenijig was introduced during the early part of 

 the eighteenth century. The origin of this style, and by whom and where it was first 

 exliibited, have given rise to much discussion, and various opinions and assertions. 



T7ie continental nations in general assert that we borrowed it from the Chinese ; or with Gabriel Tliouin 

 and Malacarne, deny us the merit of being the first either to borrow or invent it, by presenting claims of 

 originality (166. and 78.) for their respective countries. Gabriel Thouin asserts {Plans Raisonnes, preface, 

 &c.) that the first example was given by Dufresnoy (166.), a Parisian architect, in the Faubourg Saint 

 Antoine, in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The claims of Malacarne of Padua, in behalf of 

 Charles I. Duke of Savoy, about the end of the sixteenth century, have been already adverted to. In as 

 far as literature is concerned, we think that Tasso's claim to priority is indisputable. "(See Dissertaxione su 

 i Giardini Inglese, by Hippolyto Pindemonte, Verona, 1817, or a translation of part of it by us in the 

 Kcw Monthly Magazine, Feb. 1820.) Deleuze, the historian of botany and ornamental plants, {Annates du 

 Musee, torn. viii. 1806,) endeavours, at some length, to prove that the new style of gardening arose from 

 the necessity of finding room for the great number of ornamental shrubs and trees introduced from Ame- 

 rica, during the first half of the eighteenth century. Boettinger, in his Racemazioneiii zur GarienJcunst 

 der A/ten, &c. carries us back to the descriptions of the grotto of Calypso by Homer, the vale of Tempe 

 by iElian, and of Vaucluse by Petrarch. 



335. British authors are of various opinions as to the origin of the modern style. 



The poet Gray {Life and Letters, &c. Letter to Mr. How, dated 1763) is of opinion, that " our skill in 

 gardening, or rather laying out grounds, is the only taste we can call our ovm ; the only proof of original 

 talent in matters of pleasure. This is no small honor to us ; since neither France nor Italy have ever 

 had the least notion of it." 



Wai-ton and Lord Walpole, the former in his Essay on Pope, and the latter in his History of Modern 

 Gardening, agree in referring the first ideas to Milton ; and Warton adds, that the Seasons of Thomson 

 may have had a very considerable influence. 



George Mason, the author of an Essay on Design in Gardening, which appeared in 1768, and is one of the 

 earliest prose works on the modern style, states, that " were only classical authorities consulted, it would 

 hardly be supposed that even from the earliest ages any considerable variation in taste had ever prevailed." 

 {Essay on Design, Sec. p. 27.) Speaking of the Chinese style he says, " little did Sir William Temple 

 imagine, that in not much more than half a century, the Chinese would become the nominal taste of his 

 country ; or that so many adventurers in it would do great justice to his observation, and prove by their 

 works, how difficult it is to succeed in the undertaking. Yet to this whimsical exercise of caprice, the 

 modern improvements in gardening may chiefly be attributed." {Essay on Design, &c. p. 50.) No man 

 could be a more enthusiastic admirer of the classics, a warmer patriot, or a more rigid critic, than this 

 author ; and it appears from another part of his work {Discussion on Kent, p. 105.) that he was well aware, 

 when he wrote the above passage, that the origin of the modern style was generally traced to Kent. That 

 he should derive it from our attempt at the Chinese manner, we consider as a proof of candor and 

 impartialitj'. 



Mason the poet states, in a note to the English Garden, that " Bacon was the prophet, Milton the herald, 

 of modern gardening; and Addison, Pope, and Kent, the champions of true taste." The efficacy of 

 Bacon's ideas, G. Mason considers to have been " the introduction of classical landscapes," though this 

 does not very clearly appear from his essay, the object of which seems to be, to banish certain littlenesses 

 and puerilities, and to create more variety, by introducing enclosures of wild scenery, as well as of culti- 

 vation. The title of champion, applied to Addison, alludes to his excellent paper in the Spectator, No. 414. 

 " On Uie causes of the pleasures of the imagination arising from the works of nature, and their sui)eriority 

 over those of art," published in 1712 ; and when applied to Pope, it refers to his celebrated Guardian, 

 No. 173. published the following year. Boettinger, however, affirms that the bishop of Avranches had 

 thrown out similar ideas, previously to the appearance of the Spectator. (See Huetiana, Pensee 51. 

 " Beautes naturelles preferahles aux beautes de I'art y" and p. 72. " Des jardins d la mode.") 



The Rev. Dr. Alison, author of the Analysis of Beauty, seems to consider the modem stjle as derived 

 from our taste for the classic descriptions of the poets of antiquity. " In this view," (alluding to the pro- 

 gress of art from the expression of design to the expression of variety and natural beaut}-,) he observes, 

 *' I cannot help thinking that the modern taste in gardening (or what Walpole very justly, and very em- 

 phatically, calls the art of creating landscape,) owes its origin to two circumstances, which may, at first, 

 appear paradoxical, viz. to the accidental circumstances of our taste in natural beauty being founded upon 

 foreign models ; and to the difference or inferiority of the scenery of our own country to that which we 

 were accustomed peculiarly to admire." 



Eustace, the Italian tourist, considers Tasso's garden of Armida as more likely to have given rise to the 

 English style than any classical work, or even the Paradise of Milton. 



Our own opinion inclines to that of G. Mason, without doubting that examples of wild scenery, with 

 walks, may have been exhibited long before both in Italy and this country. The general progress of ideas 

 in matters of taste and refinement, required the creation of such a style ; and the highlj'-cultivated state 

 of the country, the accoimts of Chmese gardens, and the descriptions of the poets, would aU conspire to 

 its production. 



336. The jn-incijjles of modern lajidscape-gardening were unquestionably first laid down 

 by English writers. It is allowed on all sides, that Addison and Pope " prepared for 

 the new art of gardening the firm basis of philosoplucal principles." Addison's paper on 

 Imagination, Avas published so early as 1712; and Pope's celebrated Guardian on Ver- 

 dant Sculpture, in 1713. Pope attacked the verdant sculpture, and formal groves of the 

 ancient style, with the keenest shafts of ridicule ; and in his epistle to Lord Burlington, 

 laid down the justest principles of art ; the study of nature, of the genius of the place, 

 and never to lose sight of good sense. 



