76 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Part I. 



three sides by garden and picturesque scenery. Excepting ft-om the house, there is no distant prospect ; 



but the surface being considerably undulated, the views from the walks across the park have some variety, 

 and are always agreeable. This place is one of the few, described by Wheatley, which is still in perfect 

 preservation. 



Hagley seems to have been improved about the same time as Pains Hill, in eiFecting which, Lord 

 Lyttelton might probably receive some hints from the poet Thomson, who was then his guest. The 

 grounds are much varied, and the distant prospects picturesque. A very small rill, which passed through 

 the grounds in a sort of dell, was surrounded with shrubbery and walks, from which the park-scenery 

 formed a sort of foreground, and sometimes a middle distance to the ofFscape ; thus, in the language of 

 Wheatley, " blending the excellencies of the park and the garden." The fine trees, the distant prospects, 

 and the principal buildings, still remain ; but the garden-scenery has been long since choked by the 

 growth of the forest-trees; and some years ago the fence was removed, and the whole thrown into 

 the park. 



South Lodge comes next in order. Soon after the improvements of Hamilton and Lyttelton, " the great 

 Pitt," G. Mason informs us, " turned his mind to the embellishment of rural nature," and exercised his 

 talent at the South Lodge upon Enfield Chace. " The first ground surrounding the enclosure was then 

 wild and woody, and is diversified with hill and dale. He entertained the idea (and admirably realised 

 it) of making the interior correspond with the exterior scenery. His temple of Pan is mentioned in Observ- 

 ations. But the singular effort of his genius was a successful imitation of the picturesque appearance of a 

 by-lane, on the very principles Price supposes it might be practicable." 



The Leasowes were improved about the same time. It v/as literally a grazing-farm, with a walk, in 

 imitation of a common field, conducted through the several enclosures. Much taste and ingenuity was dis- 

 played in forming so many points of view in so confined an extent, and with so few advantages in point of 

 distance. But root-houses, seats, urns, and inscriptions, were too frequent for the whole to be classed with 

 a common, or even an improved or ornamented English farm. It was, in fact, intended as an emblematical 

 scene in which constant allusion was made to pastoral poetry ; and if we consider it in this light, in that of 

 a sentimental farm, it was just what it ought to have been. W'e regret to find that Repton should attack 

 the taste of this amiable man, from a misconception, as we presume, of his intentions, by blaming him for 

 not " surrounding his house with such a quantity of ornamental lawn or park only, as might be consistent 

 with the size of the mansion or the extent of the property." We fear that if Shenstone had adopted this 

 mode of improvement, the Leasowes had never been distinguished from places got up by the common rou- 

 tine of professorship. Shenstone broke his heart through the infamous conduct of a Birmingham attorney, 

 in whose hands he had placed the title-deeds of his estate. The farm is now much neglected, though the 

 paths, and many of the seats and root-houses, still remain. 



Claremont and Esher are well known. Both were laid out by Kent and Claremont, afterwards enlarged, 

 and the house and kitchen-gardens added by Bro^vn. Walpole and Wheatley have celebrated both, and 

 also Garth. Esher is praised by Warton, in his poem " The Enthusiast or Lover of Nature " 1740. Esher 

 no longer exists ; but Claremont is kept up in tolerable style by Prince Leopold. 



Persjield was laid out so late as 1750. It is a small park, with an interesting walk, carried along the brow 

 of a romantic rocky bank of the river Wye, perhaps as faultless as the nature of the place admits of " I 

 cannot recollect," says G. Mason, writing of this place in 1768, " that any of the scenes on the Wye are 

 the least adulterated by the introduction of any puerile appendage whatever." 



342. The artists or professors who established the modern style were, Bridgeman, Kent, 

 Wright, Brown, and Eames. 



Of Bridgeman we have been able to procure no information. 



Kent was born in Yorkshire, and apprenticed to a coach-painter in 1719. He soon afterwards came to 

 London, discovered a genius for painting, was sent to Italy, patronised there by Lord Burlington, returned 

 with his lordship, and lived with him in Burlington House till 1748, when he died at the age of 63 years. 

 On his first return, he was chiefly employed to paint historical subjects and ceilings ; and the hall at Stowe 

 is from his pencil. Soon afterwards he was emplo}-ed as an architect ; and, lastly, as a landscape-gardener. 

 It is not known where he first exercised his genius as a layer-out of grounds ; probably at Claremont and 

 Esher, two of his designs, both minutely described by Wheatley, and, judging from the age of the trees, 

 laid out some time between 1725 and 1735. Kent was also employed at Kensington Gardens, where he is 

 said to have introduced parts of dead trees to heighten the allusion to natural woods. Mason, the poet, 

 mentions Kent's Elysian scenes in the highest style of panegyric, and observes in a note, that he prided 

 himself in shading with evergreens in his more finished pieces, in the manner described in the 14th and 

 15th sections of Wheatley's Observations. " According to my own idea," adds G. Mason, " all that has 

 since been done by the most deservedly admired designers, by Southcote, Hamilton, Lyttelton, Pitt, Shen- 

 stone, Morris, for "themselves, and by Wright for others, all that has been written on the subject, even the 

 Gardening Didactic Poetn and the Didactic Essay on the Picturesque, have proceeded from Kent. Had 

 Kent never exterminated the bounds of regularity, never actually traversed the way to freedom of man- 

 ner, would any of these celebrated artists have' found it of themselves ? Theoretical hints from the 

 highest authorities had evidently long existed without sufficient eflfect. And had not these great masters 

 actually executed what Kent's e"xample first inspired them with the design of executing, would the subse- 

 quent writers on gardening have been enabled to collect materials for precepts, or stores for their ima- 

 ginations ?" {Essay, &c. p. 112.) 



Wright seems to have been in some repute at the time of Kent's death. " His birth and education," 

 G. Mason informs us, " were above plebeian ; he understood drawing, and sketched plans of his designs ; but 

 never contracted for work, which might occasion his not being applied to by those who consider nothing so 

 much as having trouble taken off their hands." At Becket, the seat of Lord Barrington, he produced an 

 admired effect on a lawn ; and at Stoke, near Bristol, he is supposed to have decorated a copse- wood with 

 roses, in the manner advised in the fourth book of the English Garden, and extensively displayed at 

 Fonthill Abbey. He also designed the terrace- v/alk and river at Oatlands, both deservedly admired ; the 

 latter being not unfrequently mistaken for the Thames itself 



Brown is the next professor, in the order of time. He was a native of Northiunberland, fiUed the situation 

 of kitchen-gardener at a small place near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire ; and was afterwards head-gardener at 

 Stowe tiU 1750. He was confined (see Beauties of E. and W. Bucks) to the kitchen-garden, by Lord Cobham, 

 who, however, afterwards recommended him to the Duke of Grafton, at Wakefield Lodge, Northampton- 

 shire, where he directed the formation of a large lake, which laid the foundation of his fame and fortune. 

 Lord Cobham afterwards procured for him the situation of royal gardener at Hampton Court and Windsor. 

 He was now consulted by the nobility, and among other places at Blenheim. There he threw a dam across 

 the vale, and the first artificial lake in the world was completed in a week. By this he attained the summit 

 of his popularity. The fashion of employing him continued, says G. Mason, not only to 1768, but to the 

 time of his death, many years afterwards. Repton has given a Mst of his principal works, among which 

 Croome and Fisherwicke are the two largest new places which he formed, including at Croome the man- 

 sion and offices, as well as the grounds. The places he altered are beyond all reckoning. Improvement 

 was the passion of the day ; and there was scarcely a country-gentleman who did not, on some occasion 

 or other, consult the royal gardener. Mason, the poet, praises this artist, and Lord Walpole apologises 

 for not praising him. Daines Barrington says, " Kent hath been succeeded by Brown, who hath un- 

 doubtedly great merit in laying out pleasure-grounds ; but I conceive that, in some of his plans, I see 

 rather traces of the kitchen-gardener of old Stowe, than of Poussin or Claude Lorrain, I cordd wish, there- 



