PRIVATE GARDENS 
339 
genus Collinsonia was named after him—and he must 
have been pleasant and good besides, for his biographer 
says to him was attached “all that respect which is due 
to benevolence and virtue.” He was in correspondence 
with leading men in America, and was constantly receiv¬ 
ing seeds and plants, and his own garden contained “ a 
more complete assortment of the orchis genus than, 
perhaps, had ever been seen in one collection before.” 
No doubt some found their way to the gardens of his 
friend, Lord Holland. How astonished they both would 
be could they peep for a moment at the orchids dis¬ 
played in the tents of the Horticultural Society’s shows, 
which have been allowed to take place in the park 
where Cromwell conversed ? At this time the gardens 
must have been considerably remodelled, as the taste 
for the formal was waning, and the “ natural ” school 
taking its place. One of the pioneers of the natural 
style, Charles Hamilton, assisted the new design. His 
own place, Painshill, near Cobham, in Surrey, embraced 
all the newest ideas, groves, thickets, lakes, temples, 
grottos, sham ruins, and hermitages. A contemporary 
admirer, Wheatley, says of Painshill, it “ is all a new 
creation ; and a boldness of design, and a happiness of 
execution attend the wonderful efforts which art has 
there made to rival nature.” No doubt this adept in 
the new art would introduce many changes. The 
“ Green Lane ” was a road shut up by Lady Holland, 
and Hamilton is said to have suggested turfing it. He 
appears to have been fond of woodland glades and turfed 
the shaded walks in his own creation, so it seems very 
likely that the idea of grass was his. In the Green Lane, 
Charles James Fox, son of the first Lady Holland, who 
closed the road, loved to walk, and still the Green Lane 
