DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19489#0048
16 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND i.
an ass. When we find him talking of " quite
second-rate types of vegetation" (Mr. Robin-
son), and finding fault with nature for having
put a running stream like the Derwent among
rocks instead of " a more temperate river"
(Wheatly), we begin to suspect that his " truth "
is a mere convention. Sainte-Beuve said of the
Abbe Delille that he sincerely believed in his
love of the fields " c'etait la mode de la nature,
on admirait la campagne du sein des boudoirs."
Our landscape gardeners take themselves too
seriously ; as the late Charles Blanc pointed out,
their pretensions to be natural have landed them
in the worst of all vices—" le faux naturel."
Two other charges are brought against the
formal garden : first, that it involves much
building and statuary ; secondly, that it requires
much space. Neither the one nor the other
is more necessary to the English formal garden
than it is to the landscape garden. In regard
to the first, Mr. Milner gives some very
remarkable designs of rustic boat-houses, and
summer - houses, and porticoes, as part and
parcel of the landscape garden ; and it will
appear that the wholesale use of temples,
statues, grottoes, made ruins, broken bridges
and the like, originated with the landscape
gardener, not with the formal school. In point
of fact, though statuary was used in the old
English garden, it was used much less than in
the French and Italian gardens. Those who
an ass. When we find him talking of " quite
second-rate types of vegetation" (Mr. Robin-
son), and finding fault with nature for having
put a running stream like the Derwent among
rocks instead of " a more temperate river"
(Wheatly), we begin to suspect that his " truth "
is a mere convention. Sainte-Beuve said of the
Abbe Delille that he sincerely believed in his
love of the fields " c'etait la mode de la nature,
on admirait la campagne du sein des boudoirs."
Our landscape gardeners take themselves too
seriously ; as the late Charles Blanc pointed out,
their pretensions to be natural have landed them
in the worst of all vices—" le faux naturel."
Two other charges are brought against the
formal garden : first, that it involves much
building and statuary ; secondly, that it requires
much space. Neither the one nor the other
is more necessary to the English formal garden
than it is to the landscape garden. In regard
to the first, Mr. Milner gives some very
remarkable designs of rustic boat-houses, and
summer - houses, and porticoes, as part and
parcel of the landscape garden ; and it will
appear that the wholesale use of temples,
statues, grottoes, made ruins, broken bridges
and the like, originated with the landscape
gardener, not with the formal school. In point
of fact, though statuary was used in the old
English garden, it was used much less than in
the French and Italian gardens. Those who