DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0287
LANDSCAPE GARDENING.
265
gardening, but in the world of letters and of fashion.
The extremely artificial French taste had for long taken the
lead in civilized Europe, and now there was an attempt to
shake off the shackles of its exaggerated formalism. The poets
of the age were also pioneers of this school of Nature. Dyer,
in his poem of “ Grongar Hill,” and Thomson, in his Seasons,
called up pictures which the gardeners and architects of the
day strove to imitate in the scenery they planned. The idea
was to create a landscape such as poets celebrated or as Claude
immortalized on canvas. But the lovers of the beauties of
Nature soon became as hopelessly fettered by rules and theories
as had been the designers of the more formal schools. The
gardens they laid out were planned to produce a set impression
on the beholder:—“ Garden scenes,” wrote the poet Shenstone,
“ may perhaps be divided into the sublime, the beautiful, and
the melancholy or pensive.”* “Art,” says this same writer,
“ should never be allowed to set foot in the province of Nature,”
and yet these gardeners advocated every sort of artifice to
impose on the spectator, and to make the landscape appear
different from what it really was. Shenstone himself suggests
a means by which an avenue may be made to appear longer
than its true length. “An avenue that is widened in front and
planted there with yew trees, then firs, then with trees more
and more fady, till they end in the almond willow or silver
osier; will produce a very remarkable deception.” His own
garden at Leasowes was held by all who practised this “ art
of gardening ” to be a most perfect specimen of this style.
There was a lake, and small streams, and cascades, which
George Mason describes as “ living fountains,” and says they
were here “ carried to the pitch of perfection.” A seat over-
looking one of these streams was inscribed with a poem in its
praise, which ends thus :—
“ Flow, gentle stream, nor let the vain
Thy small unsullied stores disdain :—
Nor let the pensive sage repine
Whose latent course resembles thine.”
* Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening. By Wm. Shenstone.
265
gardening, but in the world of letters and of fashion.
The extremely artificial French taste had for long taken the
lead in civilized Europe, and now there was an attempt to
shake off the shackles of its exaggerated formalism. The poets
of the age were also pioneers of this school of Nature. Dyer,
in his poem of “ Grongar Hill,” and Thomson, in his Seasons,
called up pictures which the gardeners and architects of the
day strove to imitate in the scenery they planned. The idea
was to create a landscape such as poets celebrated or as Claude
immortalized on canvas. But the lovers of the beauties of
Nature soon became as hopelessly fettered by rules and theories
as had been the designers of the more formal schools. The
gardens they laid out were planned to produce a set impression
on the beholder:—“ Garden scenes,” wrote the poet Shenstone,
“ may perhaps be divided into the sublime, the beautiful, and
the melancholy or pensive.”* “Art,” says this same writer,
“ should never be allowed to set foot in the province of Nature,”
and yet these gardeners advocated every sort of artifice to
impose on the spectator, and to make the landscape appear
different from what it really was. Shenstone himself suggests
a means by which an avenue may be made to appear longer
than its true length. “An avenue that is widened in front and
planted there with yew trees, then firs, then with trees more
and more fady, till they end in the almond willow or silver
osier; will produce a very remarkable deception.” His own
garden at Leasowes was held by all who practised this “ art
of gardening ” to be a most perfect specimen of this style.
There was a lake, and small streams, and cascades, which
George Mason describes as “ living fountains,” and says they
were here “ carried to the pitch of perfection.” A seat over-
looking one of these streams was inscribed with a poem in its
praise, which ends thus :—
“ Flow, gentle stream, nor let the vain
Thy small unsullied stores disdain :—
Nor let the pensive sage repine
Whose latent course resembles thine.”
* Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening. By Wm. Shenstone.