March 13.J 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
303 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
D D 
MARCH 13—19, 1851. 
Weather near London in 1850. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
Barometer. Thermo. 
Wind. 
Rain in In. 
13 Th 
Elder flowers. 
30.302 — 30 . 060 ! 59—36 
S.W. 
22 a. 6 
58 a. 5 
4 
0 
10 
9 
47 
72 
14 F 
Peacock screams. 
30.308 — 30.268 50—40 
s.w. 
— 
19 
VI 
4 
47 
11 
9 
30 
73 
15 S 
Black Ants seen. 
30.312 — 30.2921 53—45 
N.W. 
— 
17 
2 
5 
28 
12 
9 
13 
74 
16 Son 
2 Sunday in Lent. 
30.337 — 30.309 57—28 
N.E. 
— 
15 
3 
6 
2 
13 
8 
56 
75 
17 M 
St. Patrick. 
30.305 — 30.201 59—30 
N. 
— 
13 
5 
rises. 
© 
8 
39 
76 
18 To 
Princess Louisa born, 1848. 
30.159 — 30.057 49—38 
W. 
0.01 
10 
7 
7 
31 
15 
8 
21 
77 
19 W 
Elm flowers. 
'30.032 — 30.025 51—26 
E. 
— ! 
8 
8 
8 
52 
16 
8 
3 
78 
We remember, many years ago, during a political contest in Essex, that 
a candidate of unimpeachable life and good reasoning powers, happened 
to have had a linen manufacturer for his father, and a wily antagonist, 
I who could not impeach either his character or his arguments, directed 
that he should be clamoured down with a cry of “ No Dowlas.” This 
clamouring-down system is too usually adopted on all occasions ; and we 
have lived long enough to ascertain, that whether the clamour be raised 
against a peasant girl's virtue, or a Prime Minister’s capacity ; whether 
against the genius of a gardener, or the orthodoxy of a Bishop—the cla- 
mourers are almost invariably wrong; and whenever we have been 
tempted to join in the scare-whoop, we have always paused when we 
thought it might be like the cry of “ No Dowlas;” and when we have 
not so paused, we have invariably found ourselves wrong. This was 
never more the case than when we once published, concerning Sir Wil¬ 
liam Chambers, “ His Chinese Gardening was puerile in the extreme.” 
! We joined, without consideration, in the clamour raised against him by 
i Horace Walpole, Mason, and others ; but a more careful examination has 
I brought the conviction that this also, was a “ No Dowlas ” cry. Let us 
make the best amends within our power, by paying a just tribute to the 
merit we heedlessly depreciated. Sir William Chambers may be quoted 
as another example of one who was the architect of his own fortune. By 
birth a Swede, he was by descent a Scotchman, for his father, a Scotch 
merchant, was, in 1726 , the date of his birth, prosecuting a claim at the 
Swedish court, for money and stores furnished to its Quixotic monarch, 
Charles XII. We believe that that claim was never satisfied, and that 
Sir William’s father remained a man of ruined fortune, the only recom¬ 
pense being an appointment for his son, who was removed from Ripon 
' School, in Yorkshire, whilst still a youth, to be supercargo of some 
1 Swedish ships voyaging to China. In this employment he was engaged, 
probably, no longer than one voyage ; but on the insight he thus obtained 
| of the gardening of the Chinese, he based that fiction, the publication of 
which entitles him to our notice. Upon quitting his supercargoship, he 
| devoted himself to his favourite pursuits, designing and architecture, and 
I so marked by talent were the published evidences of his skill, that they 
: speedily obtained the notice of Lord Bute, whose interest procured for 
j him the appointment of drawing master to the future George III., then 
| Prince of Wales. This led to more lucrative employments, among the 
j earliest of which was the erection of Lord Besborough’s villa, at Roe- 
j hampton, and his success in that was an introduction to many more 
architectural engagements. Upon the accession of George III., the 
j royal grounds and buildings at Kew were placed under his care, and in 
l/’63, he published Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Perspective Views 
! of the Gardens and Buildings at Kew, in Surrey, the seat of H. R. H. 
j the Princess Dowager of Wales. This work testifies that his designs 
I were adapted to the place, but we have no means of judging how the 
I plantations succeeded, so as to realize all the effects he purposed to pro- 
I duce. “ The noble Orangery,” and “ the very elegant Temple of the Sun,” 
' as they are called by Sir W. Hooker, are the principal remnants of Sir W. 
' Chambers’ decorations of Kew Gardens—“ gardens which, he justly ob¬ 
serves, are in a situation not by any means advantageous, as it is low, and 
commands no prospects. Originally the ground was one continued dead 
flat; the soil was in general barren, and without either wood or water. 
J With so many disadvantages, it was not easy to produce anything even 
, tolerable in gardening, but princely munificence, and an able director, 
I have overcome all difficulties, and converted what was once a desert into 
| an Eden.” The style Sir William adopted for arranging these Gardens, 
j he unfortunately designated “Chinese Gardening;” we say unfortu- 
! nately, because it is our firm opinion that if he had not called it by any 
j special name, and had not published the Dissertation we shall mention 
I presently, his arrangement of the Kew Gardens would have been looked 
j upon as an example, or at most, as a variety, of the English or picturesque 
j gardening, then so much in vogue. The work we have alluded to, ap- 
I peared in 1772, with the title of A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening. 
! In this, under the fiction that he was describing Chinese gardening, he 
in reality advocated the principles which he considered should regulate 
the disposition of the grounds about our residences, and those who read 
through that Dissertation, separating the rules for designing from the 
description of Chinese erections, merely introduced by him to sustain the 
fiction, will find that Sir William’s taste and judgment in the art of 
garden plotting, excelled that of most of his contemporaries. This, of 
itself, was sufficient to arouse their envy, but as he adopted that most in¬ 
judicious of all roads to reformation—that which commences by pulling- 
down the labours of others—he stirred these up to active hostility. If he 
had been content to advocate his own views, they would have gradually 
prevailed, as they have since prevailed, but he preferred violent, and totally 
undisguised attack, and in his very preface wrote thus :— 
“ Is it not singular then, that an art with which a considerable part of 
our enjoyments is so universally connected, should have no regular 
professors in our quarter of the world ? Upon the continent it is a col¬ 
lateral branch of the architect’s employment; who, immersed in the 
study and avocations of his own profession, finds no leisure for other dis¬ 
quisitions ; and, in this island, it is abandoned to kitchen-gardeners, well 
skilled in the culture of sallads, but little acquainted with the principles 
of ornamental gardening. It cannot be expected that men, uneducated, 
and doomed by their condition to waste the vigour of life in hard labour, 
should ever go far in so refined, so difficult a pursuit. To this unaccount¬ 
able want of regular masters, may, in a great measure, be ascribed the 
scarcity of perfect gardens. There are, indeed, very few in our part of 
the globe, wherein nature has been improved to the best advantage, or 
art employed with the soundest judgment. The gardens of Italy, France, 
Germany, Spain, and of all the other countries where the ancient style 
still prevails, are, in general, mere cities of verdure; their walks, like 
streets, all conducted in strait lines, diverge from different large open 
spaces, resembling public squares; and the hedges with which they are 
bordered, rise in imitation of walls, adorned with pilasters, niches, win¬ 
dows, and doors ; or they are cut into colonades, arcades, and porticos ; 
all the detached trees are shaped like obelisks, pyramids, and vases ; and 
all the recesses in the thickets bear the names and forms of theatres, 
amphitheatres, temples, banqueting-halls, ball-rooms, cabinets, and 
saloons. The streets and squares are well manned with statues of marble 
or lead, ranged in regular lines, like soldiers at a procession ; which, to 
make them more natural, are sometimes painted in proper colours, and 
finely gilt. The lakes and rivers, confined by quais of hewn stone, are 
taught to flow in geometric order; and the cascades glide from the 
heights by many a succession of marble steps : not a twig is suffered to 
grow as nature directs ; nor is a form admitted but what is scientific, and 
determinable by the rule or compass. In England, where this ancient 
style is held in detestation, and where, in opposition to the rest of the 
world, a new manner is universally adopted, in which no appearance of 
art is tolerated, our gardens differ very little from common fields, so 
closely is vulgar nature copied in most of them ; there is generally so little 
variety, and so much want of judgment, in the choice of the objects, such 
a poverty of imagination in the contrivance, and of art in the arrange¬ 
ment, that these compositions rather appear the offspring of chance, than 
design ; and a stranger is often at a loss to know whether he be walking 
in a common meadow, or in a pleasure ground, made and kept at a very 
considerable expence : he finds nothing either to delight or to amuse him; 
nothing to keep up his attention, or excite his curiosity; little to flatter 
the senses, and less to touch the passions, or gratify the understanding. 
At his first entrance, he sees a large green field, scattered over with a few 
straggling trees, and verged with a confused border of little shrubs and 
flowers ; on farther inspection, he finds a little serpentine path, twining 
in regular esses amongst the shrubs of the border, upon which he is to go 
round, to look on one side at what he has already seen, the large green 
field; and on the other side at the boundary, which is never more than a 
few yards from him, and always obtruding upon his sight. From time to 
time he perceives a little seat or temple stuck up against the wall: happy 
in the discovery, he sits down to rest his wearied limbs, and then reels on 
again, cursing the line of beauty; till, spent with fatigue, half-roasted 
by the sun, for there is never any shade, and dying for want of entertain¬ 
ment, he resolves to see no more : vain resolution ! there is but one path ; 
he must either drag on to the end, or return by the tedious way he came. 
Such is the favourite plan of all our smaller gardens : and our larger 
works are only a repetition of the small ones ; more green fields, more 
shrubberies, more serpentine walks, and more temples ; like the honest 
batchelor’s feast, which consisted in nothing but a multiplication of his 
own dinner; three legs of mutton and turnips, three roasted geese, and 
three buttered apple-pies. It would be teaious to enumerate all the 
errors of a false taste ; but the havoc it has made in our old plantations 
must ever be remembered with indignation. The axe has often, in one 
day, laid waste the growth of several ages ; and thousands of venerable 
plants, whole woods of them, have been swept away, to make room for a 
little grass, and a few American weeds. Our virtuosi have scarcely left 
an acre of shade, nor three trees growing in a line, from the Land’s-end 
to the Tweed; and if their humour for devastation continues to rage 
much longer, there will not be a forest-tree left standing in the whole 
kingdom.” 
“ He who sows the whirlwind, shall reap the storm,” and Sir William 
enjoyed no exemption from this rule, applicable to all controversy. His 
Dissertation appearing immediately after Mr. Mason's poem of The 
English Garden , noticed by us at page 29, of our last volume, and con¬ 
taining such a sweeping condemnation of our gardening and garden de¬ 
signs, he ought not to have been surprised that they assailed him with his 
own weapons. An heroic Epistle to Sir W. Chambers, was published, 
doubtless from the pen of Mason, in which the puerilities of the Chinese 
gardeners are most successfully ridiculed; but these do not involve the 
principles advocated by Sir William—principles now generally admitted 
to be correct. We have no space sufficient to enter upon these in detail, 
but they are epitomised in this one quotation from An Explanatory 
Discourse, which he found it needful to publish, in refutation of those 
“ united to raise a clamour ” against him. 
“ Your servant Chet-qua has no aversion to natural gardening ; but is, 
on the contrary, a zealous advocate in its favour, wherever there is room 
to expand, and work upon a great scale, or where it can conveniently, and 
with propriety be introduced. The style which in England has been 
adopted, preferable to others, is not what appears to him reprehensible; 
but he laments the little use you have made of your adoption, and ap¬ 
prehends your partiality is too excessive, while you obstinately refuse the 
assistance of almost every extraneous embellishment, and persist in an 
indiscriminate application of the same manner, upon all occasions, how¬ 
ever opposite, or ill adapted; and often where no probability of success 
No. CXXVIIL, Vol. V. 
