PARK AND CEMETERY, 
91 
went to London, attempted portrait and histori- 
cal painting and was sent to Rome to study. Bur- 
lington brought him back to England and secured 
work for him in portrait and wall painting. In this, 
he was not particularly successful. In character, his 
works were pronounced contemptible daubs, even 
Mason, the poet, and Robert Walpole, who ad- 
mired his landscape gardening, pronouncing them 
“void of every merit.” His winning manners and 
authoritative speech upon questions of art made him, 
however, the fashionable oracle in all matters of 
taste. According to Walpole, “he was not only 
consulted for furniture, as frames of pictures, 
glasses, tables, chairs, etc., but for plate, tor a 
barge, for a table. So impetuous was fashion that 
two ladies prevailed upon him to make designs for 
their birthday gowns.” As an architect, his work 
was more successful, and had considerable patron- 
age. The staircase of Kensington Palace which he 
altered and decorated was thought by Walpole to 
be the “least defective work of his pencil.” Despite 
his poor ability, he was selected to execute the 
statue of Shakespeare for the Poet’s Corner in West- 
minster Abbey, and was appointed principal painter 
to the crown. Besides, he held the offices of mas- 
ter-carpenter, architect, and keeper of pictures. He 
was considered so highly that “his style,” says 
Walpole, “predominated authoritatively during his 
life.’’ Otherwise than as landscape gardener, his 
artistic reputation to-day depends upon this work 
which he did as an architect. He died in 1748. 
Walpole and Mason speak highly of him and by 
general consent he is regarded as the first general 
practitioner in landscape gardening. Walpole calls 
him “the father of modern gardening.” 
Lancelot Brown, known as “Capability” Brown, 
was born in 1715 in Northumberland. He was first 
employed as a kitchen-gardener, and was afterwards 
gardener at Stowe. Becoming Chief of Gardeners 
of the Duke of Grafton, his judicious formation of 
a lake brought him into notice as a designer and 
laid the foundation of his reputation. Having pro- 
cured the Royal Gardenship of Windsor, he was 
consulted by all the nobility and gentry. At Blen- 
heim, his easy completion in a week of one of the 
finest artificial lakes in the world, and other im- 
provements brought him to the zenith of popularity. 
The fashion of employing him continued until his 
death in 1783. There was scarcely a country-gen- 
tleman who did not consult him. He himself never 
went outside of England but his designs which were 
drawn not by himself, but by his assistants, were 
applied for in Scotland, Ireland, and even in Rus- 
sia. Mason, the poet, praises him and Walpole 
apologizes for not praising him. He must have 
been of considerable talent as his reputation attests, 
but he could hardly, Lrudon says, have been im- 
bued with much of that taste for picturesque beauty 
which distinguished the work of Kent, Hamilton 
and Shenstone. In 1770, having amassed a large 
fortune, he fi led the office of High .Sheriff and be- 
came a leading man in his county. He received the 
name “Capability’’ Brown from the frequency with 
which he used the term in the study of his planta- 
tions. 
As France and the French garden of Le Notre 
predominated over all Europe during the seven- 
teenth century, so England and the English garden 
stood foremost in the eighteenth. The French 
garden was the offspring of the old classic style of 
antiquity and the Italian garden, and was charac- 
terized by the straight line, the rectangular form 
and general symmetry. The English garden, of the 
modern or landscape style, on the other hand, is 
characterized by the absence of formality, and a 
more or less complete adaptation of nature and na- 
ture’s principles to the adornment of home and 
pleasure grounds. As Downing says, “it is the 
artistical combination of the beautiful in nature and 
art.” Although the English are imbued to a high 
degree with a love of nature and the garden, they 
did not develope any distinctive type of ornamental 
gardening until the time of Brown and Kent, but 
were rather imitators of other styles. In their ear- 
lier days, war prevented all home improvement. 
Later, as woodland was removed for tillage, parks 
for hunting appeared, while orchards without the 
castle walls permitted some ornamentation in the 
way of labyrinths, and plants cut into monstrous 
figures. Labyrinths were so in accordance with the 
taste of this period that scarcely a garden was de- 
signed without one. Henry the First in 1123 formed 
the first real park at Woodstock, on a plan borrowed 
from the East, it is said, though the park was de- 
signed chiefly for game. The Eastern style was con- 
tinued and improved upon through the time of 
Henry the Eighth when the gardens of Nonesuch 
were planted. French horticulture was introduced 
through wars with France, and through increased 
navigation, exotics from foreign lands. In the 
course of time, the garden became more extensive 
and on a more expensive scale. Bacon then recom- 
mended his ideal garden and James First planted 
and improved Theobald's and Greenwich. Then 
Charles Second became enamored with the French 
gardening of Le Notre. There is a story of which 
the truth is not known, that Le Notre came to En- 
gland and laid out Greenwich and St. James. The 
style was certainly adopted over all England. 
Whether Le Notre came to England or not, his in- 
fluence showed itself, but principally in the increased 
scale of English gardens and in greater elaboration 
