250 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
this class of gardens : “ Pains hill near Cobham io English 
miles from Richmond. It belongs to Charles Hamilton, and 
its garden is decidedly worth a visit. . . . The Garden, like all 
of English design, is arranged according to modern ideas of an 
improvement on the beauty of Nature. The Principal features 
of all English Gardens are gravel or grass walks, between 
irregular high trees, or through wild growth consisting of all 
kinds of trees, shrubs and flowers, native and foreign, summer 
houses, seats and benches of all shapes and forms, placed in 
high or otherwise convenient places, and heathen temples, 
ruins, colonnades, hermitages, mosques, etc. An effort is 
frequently made to bring in a natural watercourse, or failing 
that, to dig out one artificially with many windings and 
turnings, waterfalls and bridges, so as to please the eye. 
Pretty views are the principal aim in gardens here, and an 
Englishman thinks nothing of a garden without water. . . . 
You are sometimes in doubt whether you are looking at a 
garden or at any ordinary landscape. . . . All this part of the 
garden is hilly, and is covered with high trees, thick shrubbery, 
etc., leaving space only for narrow walks ; and it is difficult to 
believe how art has been able to copy Nature to the extent 
done here. The fruit and kitchen gardens are always quite 
separate, and frequently so well hidden that you cannot 
discover them without help.” These last lines show how 
complete the revulsion of feeling had been, and how far the 
days when men refreshed their spirits by sitting in an orchard 
had been left behind. Hagley, laid out by Lord Lyttleton, 
was another garden, or ferme ornee , in the same style, 
frequently referred to by contemporary writers, who praised 
“ the new modelling of the shades and unfettering of the 
rills.” 1 In spite of the admiration lavished by many on this 
place, Gilpin 2 remarks that although “ there are certainty 
many beautiful views in these extensive gardens, yet we can 
easily conceive the same variety of ground ... so combined 
as to produce a much nobler whole.” Hagley, in Worcester¬ 
shire, was only a short distance from the Leasowes, already 
1 George Mason, Essay on Design in Gardening. 
2 Observations on Picturesque Beauty made in 1772, Particularly the 
Mountains and Lakes , by Wm. Gilpin. 
