222 PROGRESS AND STYLE OF ORNAMENTAL GARDENING. 
vegetation into all the most fantastic regular figures his ingenuity could 
invent. Geometry, with its lines and rules, was his text-book ; without 
this he could not trace a line, or prune a tree, or trim a hedge. On 
the other hand. Nature, in all her varied forms, and habits, and hues, 
was seized and imitated by the painter, tracing her on the mountain 
steep, or in the secluded dell—by the sparkling river side, or on the 
banks of the placid lake. 
Thus, at one time, were painters and gardeners employed, both occu¬ 
pied in arranging the same objects; the one forming real, the other 
pictorial scenery, but with very different views : the first was enamoured 
of “ neglect and accident;” the other seriously annoyed if a single leaf 
projected from the smooth surface the shears had made. 
The love of gardening and of fine pictures, however, kept pace with 
each other, and were often united in the same cultivated mind ; indeed, 
we seldom meet a virtuoso who is not equally enamoured of all the fine 
arts. Both gardeners and painters were employed in the embellishment 
of regal, noble, ecclesiastical, and manorial residences. While the 
exterior was graced and adorned by the former, the interior was deco¬ 
rated and enriched by the latter. The painter’s landscape at last “ bore 
away the bell;” the admirable scenes presented on canvas were extolled 
by every unsophisticated eye, and merely because they were more true 
to nature; and when compared with the most laboured garden disposi¬ 
tions, the latter sunk in public estimation, and was soon followed by 
the cry —Why is not every gardener a painter ? 
This impression was so strong after the new light broke in upon 
the minds of the cognoscenti , that Kent, a painter by profession, was 
actually induced to become landscape gardener. His new task was not 
a pleasant one; he aimed at producing immediate effect , as he used to 
do in his studio ; but this was impracticable, as he found he must wait 
many years before he could possibly see the full effects of his disposi¬ 
tions of trees, shrubs, &c. 
The first attempt by Kent was certainly a failure, because, in 
straining to do on the naked lawn what is so easily done on the 
canvas, he made himself ridiculous, by planting dead trees, and 
several other freaks, which, however unobjectionable as the effects of 
time or accident in real scenery, become quite ludicrous if imitated by 
.art and labour. 
But as many places at that period were capable of great improve¬ 
ment by merely clearing away redundant growths, the painter’s ideas 
were in such cases highly valuable, and their assistance was duly 
acknowledged; and consequently improvement by abstraction, or 
simply clearing away, became the rage. Hence a reformation (by far 
