246 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
the form of the ornamental sheets of water. “ Stone basons,” 
marble fountains, and straight canals, were swept away, or 
converted into miniature waterfalls, winding streams, or arti¬ 
ficial lakes. Lord Bathurst, at Ryskins, near Colebrook, 1 was 
the first to make a winding stream through a garden, and so 
unusual was the effect that his friend, Lord Stafford, could not 
believe it had been done on purpose, and supposing it to have 
been for economy, asked him “ to own fairly how little more 
it would have cost to have made the course of the brook in a 
strait direction.” About this time Queen Caroline “ threw a 
string of ponds in Hyde Park into one to form what is called 
the Serpentine River.” This is only one among many instances 
which show that these so-called reforms, undertaken with the 
aim of increased simplicity, resulted in greater stiffness and 
formality. This is not to be wondered at, when the influence 
of Chinese gardening on this school of design is taken into 
account. Sir William Chambers, one of this new class of 
gardeners, had, in his youth, made a voyage to China, and 
brought back from that country ideas which he set forth in his 
work entitled Dissertations on Oriental Gardening. The Pagoda 
at Kew, designed by him, is a well-known monument of this 
passing fashion. A Chinese writer, Lien-tschen, himself lays 
down the principles which ruled their gardening: “ The Art 
of laying out gardens consists in an endeavour to combine 
cheerfulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, 
and repose, in such a manner that the senses may be deluded 
by an imitation of rural Nature.” 2 Alluding to this supposed 
resemblance of English gardens to those of China, Oliver 
Goldsmith wrote : “ The English have not yet brought the art 
of gardening to the same perfection with the Chinese, but 
have lately begun to imitate them. Nature is now followed 
with greater assiduity than formerly: the trees are suffered to 
shoot out into the utmost luxuriance ; the streams, no longer 
forced from their native beds, are permitted to wind along the 
valleys : spontaneous flowers take the place of the finished 
parterre, and the enamelled meadow of the shaven green.” 
Batty Langley was one of the exponents of the principles 
1 Progress of Gardening, by Barrington. Archceologia, vol. v., 1782. 
2 Quoted in Praise of Gardens, by Albert F. Siveking, 1885. 
