English Gardens 
remained practically unchanged for a couple of centuries. 
With the beginning of this century, when taste in architecture 
and art was distinctly declining towards its final depth in the 
thirties, there came first, a carelessness for the beauty of the 
old gardens, which resulted in neglect; and then the period 
when, under the guidance of Brown, the imitation of nature 
and the making of pictures was the aim everywhere. This 
resulted not only in the destruction of many fine gardens, but 
A TERRACE AT MONTECUTE 
in a general perversion of taste which it has taken many years 
to counteract. 
The reaction from Brown’s hopeless endeavor to imitate 
nature and to avoid everything pertaining to formality was 
very quick, and yet it is indicative of the English temper that 
it was not a violent swing of the pendulum to the other ex¬ 
treme. Kemp, writing between fifty and sixty, laid down rules, 
or rather suggested principles which seem thoroughly sound 
and sensible. He urged the necessity for formal treatment in 
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