112 
THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA 
over tu wild nature. "As for the making of knots and 
figures," said he, "with divers colored earth, they be but 
toys. I do not like images cut out in junipers and other 
garden stuff, they are for children." 
Sir Francis Bacon was a most distinguished philoso- 
pher in the reign of King James I, of England. He was 
horn in 1560 and died in 1626. 
Certain passages in John Milton's "Paradise Lost,' 
published in 1669; are considered as a prophesy of the 
coming change of garden art. Horace Walpole said of 
Milton: "One man, one great man we had. on whom nor 
education nor custom could impose their prejudices; who, 
on evil days though fallen, and with darkness and soli- 
tude compassed round, judged the mistaken and fantastic 
ornaments he had seen in gardens, were unworthy of 
the almighty hand that planted the delights of Paradise. 
He seems with the prophetic eye of taste ( as I have heard 
taste well defined ) to have conceived, to have foreseen, 
modern gardening : as lord Bacon announced the discov- 
eries since made by experimental philosophy. What 
Coloring, what freedom of pencil, what landscape, in 
these lines" : 
" from that saphire fount the crisped brooks. 
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, 
With mazy error under pendant shades 
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed 
Flozv'rs worthy of Paradise, which not nice art 
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon 
Pour'd forth profuse on hill and dale and plain. 
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote 
The open field, and where the unpiere'd shade 
Imbrown'd the noontide bozv'rs. Thus zvas 
this place 
A happy rural seat of various viae." 
John Milton was born in 160S and died in 1674. 
Ornamental gardening, as practiced at this period in 
France, is described and illustrated in the work : "Theorie 
et la Practique du Jardinage." Paris, 1709. by D'Argen- 
ville. This work was pirated by Le Blond and trans- 
lated into German and English, and published in many 
editions. The illustrations and detail descriptions of this 
work are very interesting. Sir William Temple's essay 
"On the Gardens of Epicurus," 1685, is interesting as it 
tells what was considered a perfect garden in England, 
at this time. He pictures a perfect garden on a flat, 
gentle slope, lying in front of the house, with a descent 
of steps from a terrace extending the whole length of the 
house. The inclosure is to be cultivated as a kitchen 
garden and orchard. Such a garden he found in Moor 
Park, Herefordshire, which he describes with consider- 
able detail, calling it, "the sweetest place, I think, that I 
have seen in my life, before or since, at home or abroad." 
It is allowed on all sides that Joseph Addison and 
Alexander Pope prepared for the new art of gardening 
the firm basis of philosophical principles. Joseph Addi- 
son, a statesman and writer, was born in 1672 and died 
in 1719. He had a small retirement at Bilton, which he 
laid out in the natural style. His protests against the 
prevailing style of gardening were published in the 
"Spectator." "( >n the causes of the Pleasures of the 
Imagination arising from the works of Nature and their 
superiority over those of Art," and "A description of a 
Garden in the Natural Style." 
Alexander Pope, celebrated English poet, was born in 
1688 and died in 1744. He attacked the verdant sculpture 
and formal groves of the time with the keenest shafts 
of ridicule in his article in the. Guardian "On verdant 
Sculpture," published 1713, and in his "Epistle to Lord 
Burlington," 1731, laid down the most just principles of 
art, the study of the place, and never to lose sight of 
good sense. 
The following is from his "Epistle to Lord Burling- 
ton" : 
" To build to plant whatever you intend. 
To rear the column, or the arch to bend. 
To swell the Terrace, or to sink the grot. 
In all. let nature never he forgot, 
But treat the Goddess like a modest fair. 
Nor over-dress, nor leave Iter wholly bare. 
Let not each beauty ev'ry where be spy'd. 
Where half the skill is decently to hide. 
He gains all points, ivho pleasingly confounds. 
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds. 
Consult the genius of the place in all. 
That tells the waters or to rise or fall; 
Or helps th' ambitious hill the Heaz/ns to scale 
Or scoops in circling theatres the rale; 
Calls in the country, catches op'ning glades, 
Joins willing woods, and 'caries shades from shades; 
Nozv breaks, or nozv directs, th' intending lines. 
Paints as you plant, and as you work designs. 
Still follow sense, of every art the soul. " 
Pope practiced what he wrote, in his garden at Twick- 
enham, as far as was possible on an extent of two acres. 
It was reserved for William Kent to carry the ideas of 
Addison and Pope more extensively into execution. It 
was reserved for him, says Daines P.arrington "to realize 
the beautiful descriptions of the poets, for which he was 
particularly adapted by being a painter, as the true test 
of perfection in modern gardening is. that a landscape 
painter would choose it as a composition. Kent was 
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 realized the compositions of the 
greatest masters." 
Kent was born in Yorkshire. England, in 1675. and 
apprenticed to a coach-painter. He soon afterward came 
to London, discovered a genius for painting, was sent to 
Italy by Lord Burlington, with whom he afterwards lived 
till his death, in 1748. He was first employed to paint 
historical objects on ceilings, afterwards he became archi- 
tect, and lastlv landscape gardener. It is not known 
where he first exercised his genius as a layer-out of 
grounds ; probablv at Claremont or Esher, two of his 
designs both minutely described by Whately. Kent was 
also employed at the Kensington Gardens. 
William Shenstone, the poet, born in 1714. died in 
1763, was the first to give a name to the new art of gar- 
dening, when he said, in his "I nconnected Thoughts on 
Gardening"; published 1764: "Gardening may be divided 
into three species : kitchen gardening, parterre gardening 
and landskip or pictoresque gardening." 
In the same volume is published a plan and description 
of his country-seat, the Leasowes, laid out in the natural 
style by Shenstone. 
Mention should also be made of Lord Kame's "Garden- 
ing and Architecture" in his "Elements of Criticism," 
Vol. II. published in \7(i2, where he calls attention to the 
value of both the formal and natural style of gardening 
in design. 
Kent had many imitators, but these, lacking the artistic 
qualifications of Kent, not only failed, but caused much 
destruction of ancient gardens. They created a system of 
gardening, absolutely void of genius, taste and propriety. 
Their creations were all surrounded by a narrow belt of 
plantations, and the space within was distinguished by a 
number of round and oval clumps, and a reach of one or 
two artificial rivers on different elevations. This descrip- 
