DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0286
264
A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND.
lie wrote, “ the leading step to all that has followed, was (I
believe the first thought was Bridgeman’s) the destruction of
walls for boundaries, and the invention of fosses . . an attempt
then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called
them Ha I Ha’s ! to express their surprise at finding a sudden
and unperceived check to their walk.” “ No sooner was this
simple enchantment made, than levelling, mowing, and rolling,
followed. The contiguous ground of the park without the
sunk fence, was to be harmonized with the lawn within; and
the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prim
regularity, that it might assort with the wilder country without.
. . . At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste
the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to
dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a
great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped
the fence, and saw that all Nature was a garden. He felt
the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly
into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or
concave scoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an
easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in
the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and
extended the perspective by delusive comparison.”
This shows the ideal which Kent was striving after. To copy
Nature was the aim of the new school :—“ Nature abhors a
straight line,” was one of Kent’s ruling principles, so avenues
and straight walks and hedges were an eyesore to him, and
this feeling of dislike was shared by other landscape gardeners.
Batty Langley wrote, “ To be condemned to pass along the
famous vista from Moscow to Petersburg, or that other from
Agra to Lahor in India, must be as disagreeable a sentence, as
to be condemned to labour at the gallies. I conceiv’d some
idea of the sensation . . . from walking but a few minutes,
immured, betwixt Lord D- ’s high shorn yew hedges.”
This is but a specimen of the exaggerated language in which
the new school of gardeners expressed their contempt for the
work of their predecessors.
This passion for the imitation of Nature, was part of
the general reaction which was taking place, not only in
A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND.
lie wrote, “ the leading step to all that has followed, was (I
believe the first thought was Bridgeman’s) the destruction of
walls for boundaries, and the invention of fosses . . an attempt
then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called
them Ha I Ha’s ! to express their surprise at finding a sudden
and unperceived check to their walk.” “ No sooner was this
simple enchantment made, than levelling, mowing, and rolling,
followed. The contiguous ground of the park without the
sunk fence, was to be harmonized with the lawn within; and
the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prim
regularity, that it might assort with the wilder country without.
. . . At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste
the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to
dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a
great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped
the fence, and saw that all Nature was a garden. He felt
the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly
into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or
concave scoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an
easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in
the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and
extended the perspective by delusive comparison.”
This shows the ideal which Kent was striving after. To copy
Nature was the aim of the new school :—“ Nature abhors a
straight line,” was one of Kent’s ruling principles, so avenues
and straight walks and hedges were an eyesore to him, and
this feeling of dislike was shared by other landscape gardeners.
Batty Langley wrote, “ To be condemned to pass along the
famous vista from Moscow to Petersburg, or that other from
Agra to Lahor in India, must be as disagreeable a sentence, as
to be condemned to labour at the gallies. I conceiv’d some
idea of the sensation . . . from walking but a few minutes,
immured, betwixt Lord D- ’s high shorn yew hedges.”
This is but a specimen of the exaggerated language in which
the new school of gardeners expressed their contempt for the
work of their predecessors.
This passion for the imitation of Nature, was part of
the general reaction which was taking place, not only in