LANDSCAPE GARDENING 249 
cedars. There was much rivalry between some of these newly 
laid out gardens, each having its own admirers. 
“ Some cry up Gunnesbury 
For Sion some declare 
And some say that with Chiswick 
No villa can compare 
But ask the beaux of Middlesex 
Who know the country well 
If Strawberry Hill—if Strawberry Hill 
Don’t bear away the bell.” 1 
Kent began life as an apprentice to a coachbuilder ; with the 
assistance of friends he went to Italy, and studied painting. 
He, however, never attained any good results in that art, but 
succeeded better as an architect, and designed temples and ruins 
for gardens. By the help of his patron, Lord Burlington, he was 
noticed by the Queen, and made Architect and then Painter to 
the Crown. He was looked up to by all the designers who 
followed as the originator of the idea, and founder of the 
School of Landscape-Gardening. At one time, his wish to 
follow Nature carried him so far that he planted dead trees 
in Kensington Gardens “ to give a greater air of truth to the 
scene.” But Walpole says “ he was soon laughed out of this 
excess.” Philip Southcote appears to have been one of the 
first of those in whom Kent's " Elysian scenes excited the idea 
of improving their own domains,” and “ the elegance of 
Wooburn Farm (designed by him) was so conspicuous that 
even its faults were imposing.” 2 Pain's Hill, in Surrey, begun 
about the same time by Charles Hamilton, was “ a perfect 
example of this mode.” 3 It was considered thoroughly typical 
of the best English taste, and for this reason is described by a 
foreigner who visited it in 1761, 4 who thus gives his views on 
1 Verse from a ballad by the Earl of Bath, which appears in A Cata¬ 
logue of the Classic Contents of Strawberry Hill Collected by Horace 
Walpole, for sale by auction April, 1842. 
2 George Mason, Essay on Design in Gardening, 1768. Wooburn 
Farm, near Chertsey, no longer existed when G. W. Johnson wrote his 
History of English Gardening in 1829. 
3 Walpole. 
4 Diary to England in the Years 1761-62, by Count Frederick Kiel- 
mansegge, translated by Countess Kielmansegge, 1902. Longman. 
