LANDSCAPE GARDENING. EARLY ENGLISH STYLE. 
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kitchen-garden — its extent and necessary 
buildings, as required by the proprietor. 
While this mode or fashion of improving 
old places existed, many ridiculous things 
were executed by men of no taste or ability, 
as well in the management of water, as in their 
incongruous combinations of shrubs and trees. 
Among the herd 01 these ground workmen, 
there rose up one who soon earned for himself 
golden opinions of a great majority of the 
nobility and gentry of this country. This was 
the famous L. Brown, Esq., royal gardener 
at Hampton Court. He was a self-taught 
genius : not indeed for his refined taste as a 
landscape gardener, but for his extensive and 
accurate knowledge of the most judicious ar- 
rangement of the various divisions of a country 
residence, whether on a small or on the largest 
scale. He was long the leader of his class of 
improvers, and had many imitators ; so that 
the business became at last a distinct pro- 
fession. 
About this time the beauties of landscape 
began to be studied by every well-informed 
mind, and the art of laying out ground was 
discussed in every genteel company: and when 
the lately created scenery of British parks was 
compared with the painted landscapes of the 
old masters, the disparity was so evident that 
a conclusion was soon come to, — namely, that 
no man could ever be capable of forming real 
landscape, who was ignorant of the principles 
of landscape painting. As soon as this*' im- 
pression became general, a thousand faults 
were seen in many of Brown's works. The 
keenest satire and most virulent abuse were 
levelled against him, both in prose and verse; 
and it appeared to many competent judges, 
that the profession of ground workmanship 
ought to take a higher station among the arts, 
and be rescued from the illiterate hands that 
then practised it, and be transferred to a 
superior order of men, who by classical educa- 
tion, and a study of the principles of painting, 
and beauties of sylvan scenery, would be 
competent to establish the true character of 
the English style, and purify it from the 
blemishes which had been introduced by 
Brown and his followers. 
The most prominent fault of Brown's im- 
provements was his endeavour to make every 
thing, especially the ground, as smooth as 
possible ; banishing all undergrowths ; intro- 
ducing a profusion of round compact clumps 
over all the lawn ; and surrounding the whole 
park with a narrow belt of plantation, includ- 
ing a ride or drive. His plantations were 
chiefly composed of beech and larch, planted 
in very close order, with a sprinkling of 
Scotch fir. For groups or single trees, he 
preferred the fir, horse-chestnut, sycamore, 
and lime; and for open groves, he chose the 
oak and elm. He disallowed all undergrowths, 
so that in a few years his belts and clumps 
became naked at bottom, and mere assemblages 
of bare poles ; an accident which he did not 
foresee, and which could have only been pre- 
vented by a liberal allowance of holly and 
thorns. It is probable, however, that Brown 
left proper orders, that the plantations should 
be gradually thinned: which, if this was neg- 
lected, as it often appeared to be, the fault of 
compactness cannot fairly be laid to his 
charge. 
The call for more talented and ingenious 
men in the profession of groundwork called 
forth several after the death of Mr. Brown. 
Some of those had been his foremen, and suc- 
ceeded to finish what was begun by Brown 
himself. But the most eminent of his succes- 
sors was the celebrated Mr. Repton, who was 
a gentleman by birth and education ; greatly 
superior to Brown as an artist, and as a man 
of the most refined taste ; but inferior as a 
practical ground workman. Mr. Repton was 
very generally employed, and in many places 
which had been laid out and completed by 
Brown. In those places Mr. Repton had little 
else to do but to lighten some of the masses 
of planting, and, especially, of the Scotch fir 
and larch, which had given a spotty character 
to the woods, which was not intended. He at 
the same time stood forward as the champion 
of Brown, and his system, against the pub- 
lished attacks of Messrs. Knight and Price, 
both talented men and powerful writers. It 
was amusing to observe in reading what 
passed in this controversy, that the then gentle- 
men were all enamoured of fine paintings, 
and all were agreed that the principles of the 
painter, and the landscape gardener, were the 
same ; each, they said, would endeavour to 
produce the same effects : and it was insisted 
on by Mr. Repton's opponents, that it was 
equally in the gardener's, as in the painter's 
power to make as fine pictures. Mr. Repton, 
who had had some experience in his attempts 
to produce immediate effect, denied this 
position, unless, as he said, the gardener was 
employed in the natural forests of America, 
or any other well-wooded country, because 
there his task would be only to clear away. 
He could clear his lawns, open his vistas and 
glades, and preserve the most beautiful or 
picturesque single trees, which together would 
form the most pleasing combinations. But in 
a naked country, as many of our British parks 
were, before they were planted, it is impos- 
sible to give, within a few years, those marks 
of antiquity and accident, which a painter can 
lay upon his canvass in an instant. 
Here the contest ended : the two accom- 
plished amateurs continued to condemn the 
style introduced by Brown, and Mr. Repton 
