Book I. 



GARPENING IN THE BRITISH ISLES. 



75 



S37. The Hrst examples of modem landscape-gardening were given by Pope and Addi- 

 son. In so far as was practicable on a spot of little more than two acres, Pope practised 

 what he wrote ; and his well-known garden at Twickenham contained, so early as 1716, 

 some highly picturesque and natural-like scenery ; accurately described by various con- 

 temporary writers. Only the soil of Pope's garden now remains. (See Beauties of 

 England and Wales. ) Addison had a small retirement at Bilton, near Rugby, laid out 

 in what may be called a rural style, and which still exists, with very little alteration be- 

 sides that of time. 



338. The first artists who practised in the modern style, were Bridgeman and Kent. 

 Bridgeman was the fashionable designer of gardens in the beginning of tlie 18th century, 

 and may be considered as having succeeded to London and Wise, London having died 

 in 1713. Lord Walpole conjectures Bridgeman to have been " struck and reformed" 

 by the Guardian, No. 173. He banished verdant sculpture, and introduced morsels of 

 a forest appearance in the gardens at Richmond ; " but not till other innovators had 

 broke loose from rigid symmetry." But it was reserved for Kent, the friend of Lord 

 Burlington, says Daines Barrington, to carry Pope's ideas more extensively into execu- 

 tion. It was reserved for him *' to realise the beautiful descriptions of the poets, for 

 which he was peculiarly adapted by being a painter ; as the true test of perfection in 

 modern gardening is, that a landscape-painter would choose it for a composition." Kent, 

 according to Lord Walpole, appeared immediately after Bridgeman began to make in- 

 novations on the old style. Among these innovations the capital stroke was the destruc- 

 tion of walls for boundaries, and the introduction of ha-has ; — the harmony of the lawn 

 with the park followed. Kent appeared at this moment, and saw that all nature was a 

 garden ; " painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough 

 to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system ; from the 

 twilight of imperfect essays, he realised the compositions of the greatest masters in paint- 

 ing." " Kent," continues his lordship, " was neither without assistance nor without 

 faults. Pope contributed to form his taste ; and the gardens at Carleton House were 

 probably borrowed from the poet's at Twickenham." 



339. The origin and establishment of the modem style of landscape-gardening in England 

 appears thus to have been effected by Addison, Pope, Bridgeman, and Kent. 



The various deviatiotis from rigid uniformity, or more correctly, the various attempts to succeed in the 

 Chinese manner, appear to have taken a new and decisive character under the guidance of Kent, a circum- 

 stance, in our opinion, entirely owing to his having the ideas of a painter ; for no mere gardener, occupied 

 in imitating the Chinese, or even Italian manner, would ever have thought of studying to produce pictu- 

 resque effect. Picturesque beauty, indeed, we consider to have been but little recognised in this country, 

 excepting by painters, previously to the time of Pope, who was both a painter and a poet. The continued 

 approbation of the modern style, as purified from the Chinese absurdities, originally more or less introduced 

 with it, and continued in many places long after Kent's time, we consider to be chiefly owing to the cir- 

 cumstance of the study of drawing and landscape-painting having become a part of the general system of 

 education ; and thus, as Alison observes, our taste for natural beauty was awakened ; " the power of 

 simple nature was felt and acknowledged, and the removal of the articles of acquired expression, led men 

 only more strongly to attend to the natural expression of scenery, and to study the means by which it 

 might be maintained or improved." 



340. The adoption and extension of the modern style in England may next be con- 

 sidered. The means which led to its popularity in Britain, and indeed over the whole of 

 Europe, were the examples of artists and authors, to which it gave rise. 



341. The country-seats in which the modern style was first employed are described by 

 Shenstone, G. Mason, and Wheatley, in their works on gardening, and incidentally by 

 some other authors. 



Stowe appears to have been the first extensive residence in which the modem style was adopted. 



Lord Cobh am seems to have been occupied in re-modelling the grounds at Stowe, about the same time 

 that Pope was laying out his gardens at Twickenham. His lordship began these improvements in 1714, 

 employing Bridgeman, whose plans and views for altering old Stowe from the most rigid character of the 

 ancient style to a more open and irregular design, are still in existence. Kent was employed a few years 

 afterwards, first to paint the hall, and afterwards in the double capacity of architect and landscape-gar- 

 dener ; and the finest buildings and scenes there are his creation. The character of Stowe is well known : 

 nature has done little ; but art has created a number of magnificent buildings, by which it has been at- 

 tempted to give a sort of emblematic character to scenes of little or no natural expression. The result 

 is unique ; but more, as expressed by Pope, " a work to wonder at," than one to charm the imagination. 

 The friends of Lord Cobham seem to have considered him as the first who exhibited the new style to his 

 country, if we may judge from the concluding lines of an epitaph to his memory, placed in the garden,— 



ET ELEGANTIORI HORTORUM CULTU HIS PRIMUM IN AORIS ILLUSTRATO PATRIAM ORNAVIT, 1747. 



Woburn Farm, near Weybridge, in Surrey, is supposed to have been one of the first small places, where 

 the new system struck out by Kent was adopted, Sonthcote, says G. Mason, possessed a genius in many 

 respects well suited to the purpose, but was rather too lavish of his flowery decorations. The extent 

 of the grounds was one hundred and fifty acres, thirty-five of which were ornamented to the highest 

 degree, two-thirds of the remainder were in pasture on rising grounds, and the rest in tillage. The 

 decorations consisted in having a broad margin of shrubbery and gravel-walk to almost every fence, 

 but varied by difference of style, views, buildings, &c. It is minutely described in Wheatley's Observatimis, 

 as an example of an ornamented farm. Q. Mason thinks the decorated strip often too narrow, and some- 

 times offensive, from the impossibility of concealing the fence. To this bordering walk, he thinks, may 

 probably be attributed the introduction of the belt. His remarks refer to the year 1768. In 1803, it had 

 repeatedly changed proprietors, and scarcely a vestige remained to distinguish it from a common farm. 



Pains Hill, the creation of the Hon. Charles Hamilton, ninth son of James, sixth earl of Abercorn, is 

 supposed to have been one of the next specimens exhibited of the modern style. Hamilton is said to have 

 studied pictures, with a view to the improvement of grounds. Pains Hill is a small park, surrounded on 



