6 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND i.

considerations evolved from your inner con-
sciousness, you alter the surrounding scenery to
bring out these characteristics. For instance,
the characteristics of rocks are determined to
be "dignity, terror, and fancy." By way of
enhancing dignity, Wheatly tells us to cut away
the ground to make them steeper ; and to
refine their appearance we are to cover them up
with u shrubby and creeping plants." Or
again, if the scenery is wild, we may make
it wilder by making a ruined stone bridge.
Straight lines and unbroken masses of foliage
are to be avoided at all costs, in order to secure
variety of effect, " and the planter is to plant
trees of different foliage at stated intervals, by
way of reproducing the colours of the painter's
palette." These views are repeated in modern
treatises on landscape gardening, with, however,
a curious inversion. Wheatly's idea was that
we should saturate our minds with the composi-
tions of the old masters, and then proceed to
alter actual scenery till it resembled their
pictures ; but the modern landscapist tells us
that we are to copy nature—that is, study a
piece of scenery of natural formation, and
then reproduce this in our gardens. Wheatly
admitted design of some sort, while his
successors direct every effort to imitating the
absence of design. The latter insist that we
are not to copy nature literally, but only in her
spirit, whatever that may mean. Mr. Robinson