iii 
Having long regretted the prevalence of this mistaken fashion, I was 
rejoiced to receive his Royal Highness’s commands to deliver my opinion 
concerning a place which was deemed by every body too small to admit 
of any improvements; and indeed such it actually was, according to the 
modern system, which required unconfined extent within itself, 
AND ABSOLUTE EXCLUSION FROM ALL WITHOUT. 
On my arrival at Brighton, I found the same system already begun 
by the preparation for a belt of shrubs close to the garden wall : and, in 
conformity to another fashion of modern gardening, there was to have 
been a coach-road, to enter by a pair of lodges, and to proceed to the 
house through a serpentine line of approach, as it is called. The prin- 
ciple on which this plan was suggested arose from confounding the 
character of a Garden" with that of a Park; and it is hardly possible 
to give a more striking example of the absurdity of applying a general 
system to every situation. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that 
the acknowledged good taste of his Royal Highness should see the 
necessity of having recourse to new expedients; what these are, will 
appear in the following pages: but I shall candidly acknowledge, that 
for many of them I am indebted to the elegance and facility of the 
Prince’s own invention, joined to a rapidity of conception, and correct- 
ness of taste, which I had never before witnessed. 
It was evident in the present instance, that every attempt to increase 
the apparent extent of ground on these- principles must have betrayed 
its real confinement; while, on the contrary, I trust it will appear that, if 
there were a thousand acres attached to the Pavilion, such a Garden as 
is here described would not reasonably occupy more than five or six. 
Although it may at first appear that the following observations are 
more especially applicable to the Garden of a Palace, under peculiar 
circumstances of confinement, yet they may be extended to every other 
place, from the ornamented Cottage to the most superb Mansion ; since 
every residence of elegance or affluence requires its Garden Scenery; 
the beauty and propriety of which belong to art, rather than to nature. 
In Forest Scenery we trace the sketches of Salvator and of Ridinger; 
J This error is so common, lhat there are few places in which the character of a Garden is preserved near the 
house ; and therefore a detached place called the Flower Garden has been set apart occasionally at such an 
inconvenient distance that it is seldom visited. Among those few in which the Garden Scenery has been admitted 
to form part of the landscape from the windows, I can only mention. Wilderness, Earl Camden; Bromley Mill, 
the Right Hon. Charles Long; St. Leonard's Hill, General Harcourt; Longleat, Marquis of Bath; and Ashridge, 
Earl Bridgewater. Out of some hundred places, these are all I can recollect where the views from the windows 
consist rather of Garden than of Park Scenery. 
