80 



HISTORY OF OARDENING. 



Paut I. 



349. The taste of the present day in landscape-gardening may be considered as com- 

 paratively chastened and refined by so much discussion, so many errors and corrections, 

 and a great many fine examples. It is also more liberal than it was half a century ago ; 

 admitting the use of the beauties of every style, even the geometric, as occasion requires ; 

 in short, considering beauty as always relative to the state of society ; and in gardening, 

 even to the state of the surrounding country. The principal artist of the present period, 

 or that which has intervened since the death of Brown and Eames, was the late H. Repton, 

 Esq. This gentleman, from being an amateur, began his career as professor of landscape- 

 gardening about thirty years ago (1788) ; and till a sort of decline or inactivity of taste 

 took place ten or twelve years since, he was extensively consulted. Though at first an 

 avowed defender and follower of Brown, he has gradually veered round with the change 

 effected in public opinion by the Essays on the Picturesque, so that now, comparing his 

 earlier works of 1795 and 1805, with his Fragments on Landscape Gardening, published 

 in 1817, he appears much more a disciple of Price than a defender of his " great self- 

 taught predecessor. " Repton was a beautiful draftsman, and gave, besides plans and 

 views, his written opinion in a regular form, generally combining the whole in a manu- 

 script volume, which he called the red book of the place. He never, we believe, undertook 

 the execution of his plans ; nor has, as far as we are aware, been employed out of Eng- 

 land, but Valleyfield, in Perthshire, was visited by his two sons, and arranged from their 

 father's designs. The character of this artist's talent seems to be cultivation rather than 

 genius, and he seems more anxious to follow than to lead, and to gratify the preconceived 

 wishes of his employers, and improve on the fashion of the day, than to strike out grand 

 and original beauties. This, indeed, is perhaps the most useful description of talent both 

 for the professor and his employers. Repton's taste in Gothic architecture, and in ter- 

 races, and architectural appendages to mansions, is particularly elegant. His published 

 Observations on this subject are valuable, though we think otherwise of his remarks on 

 landscape-gardening, which we look upon as puerile, wanting depth, often at variance 

 with each other, and abounding too much in affectation and arrogance. On the whole, 

 however, we have no hesitation in asserting, that both by his splendid volumes, and ex- 

 tensive practice among the first classes, he has supported the credit of this country for 

 taste in laying out grounds. Repton was bom near Felbrig, in Norfolk, and died at 

 Hare-street, in Essex, in 1817. 



350. The principal country-seats which disjilay the modem taste of laying out grounds, 

 will be found arranged in the order of the counties in Part IV. of this work, Book I. 

 and Chapter II. 



SuBSECT. 2. Gardening in Scotland, as an Art of Dedgn and Taste. 



351. Gardening was introduced into Scotland by the Romans, and revived by the reli- 

 gious establishments of the dark ages. 



352. I7i the sixth century, is supposed to have been formed, the garden of the abbey 

 of Icolmkill, in the Hebrides. It is thus noticed by Dr. Walker (Essays, vol. ii. p. 5.), 

 from its remains as they appeared in the end of the eighteenth century. " On a plain 

 adjoining the gardens of the abbey, and surrounded by small hills, there are vestiges of a 

 large piece of artificial water, which has consisted of several acres, and been contrived both 

 for pleasure and utility. Its banks have been formed by art into walks, and though now 

 a bog, you may perceive the remains of a broad green terrace passing through the middle 

 of it, which has been raised considerably above the water. At the place where it had 

 been dammed up, and where there are the marks of a sluice, the ruins of a mill are still 

 to be seen, which served the inhabitants of the abbey for grinding the corn. Pleasure- 

 grounds of this kind," adds Dr. Walker, " and a method of dressing grain still un- 

 practised in these remote islands, must, no doubt, have been considered in early times, 

 as matters of very high refinement." 



353. Iji the twelfth century, Chalmers informs us [Caledonia Depicta, vol. i. p. 801.), 

 " David I. had a garden at the base of Edinburgh castle. This king," he adds, 

 " had an opportunity of observing the gardens of England under Henry I. when Norman 

 gardening would, no doubt, be prevalent;" and we may reasonably suppose that he was 

 prompted by his genius to profit from the useful, and to adopt the elegant, in that agree- 

 able art. 



354. During the greater part of the fourteenth ceyitury, Scotlaiid was in a state of intes- 

 tine war ; but in that succeeding, it is generally believed architecture and gardening 

 ■were encouraged by tlie Jameses. James I., as we have seen (319.) admired the gar- 

 dens of Windsor, in 1420, and having been in love there, and married an English woman, 

 would in all probability imitate them. He is described in the Chronicles of Scotland as 

 " an excellent man, and an accomplished scholar. At his leisure hours he not only in- 

 dulged himself in music, in reading and writing, in drawing and painting ; but when 

 the circumstances of time and place, and the taste and manners of those about him made 

 it proper, he would sometimes instruct them in tlie art of cultivating kitchen and pleasure 



