DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0305
LANDSCAPE GARDENING.
283
become the recognized National style of England, and it was
copied on the Continent, in France, Italy and Germany. “ Eng-
lish gardens ” became the fashion, and books were written abroad
to extol the English taste, and invite other nations to copy
it,* and old gardens were destroyed to give place to the
new style. But on the Continent one thing was lacking,
which was the redeeming point in all these landscapes, and
that was the green turf. Nowhere is the grass so fair and
green as in England, and landscape-gardeners appreciated
this great advantage.
It is strange the way in which the writers of this school
pointed to Milton and Bacon as the founders of their taste.
They claimed Bacon because he devotes a part of his ideal
garden to a “natural wildness,” and also praises “green
grass kept finely shorn,” and Milton, because he says that
in Paradise there were :—
“ Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.” f
Yet how opposed to all ideas of landscape gardeners
would these two men have been. Bacon, who loved the
green grass, and yet would have his garden full of flowers in
bloom in every month of the year, would have been shocked
by the idea of “ a garden . . . disgracing by discordant
character the contiguous lawn,” or by being told that “ the
flower-garden ought never to be visible from the windows of
the house.” Sir Walter Scott,J in one of his charming articles
on landscape gardening, points out that Milton never intended
to censure the “trim gardens” of his own day, although he
pictured the natural beauties in the newly-created Paradise.
Scott well understood the great mistake that had been made
in destroying such a large number of old gardens. He saw
how perfectly an Elizabethan garden harmonized with the
house, and while he could not vindicate the “ paltry imitations
* Dell Arte dei Giardini Inglesi, Milan, 1801. Plan de Jardins dans le
gout Anglais. Jean Louis Mansa, Copenhague, 1798. Ob. folio, &c.
t Paradise Lost—Book IV.
f Quarterly, Vol. 37, 1828, and Criticism, Vol. V.
283
become the recognized National style of England, and it was
copied on the Continent, in France, Italy and Germany. “ Eng-
lish gardens ” became the fashion, and books were written abroad
to extol the English taste, and invite other nations to copy
it,* and old gardens were destroyed to give place to the
new style. But on the Continent one thing was lacking,
which was the redeeming point in all these landscapes, and
that was the green turf. Nowhere is the grass so fair and
green as in England, and landscape-gardeners appreciated
this great advantage.
It is strange the way in which the writers of this school
pointed to Milton and Bacon as the founders of their taste.
They claimed Bacon because he devotes a part of his ideal
garden to a “natural wildness,” and also praises “green
grass kept finely shorn,” and Milton, because he says that
in Paradise there were :—
“ Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.” f
Yet how opposed to all ideas of landscape gardeners
would these two men have been. Bacon, who loved the
green grass, and yet would have his garden full of flowers in
bloom in every month of the year, would have been shocked
by the idea of “ a garden . . . disgracing by discordant
character the contiguous lawn,” or by being told that “ the
flower-garden ought never to be visible from the windows of
the house.” Sir Walter Scott,J in one of his charming articles
on landscape gardening, points out that Milton never intended
to censure the “trim gardens” of his own day, although he
pictured the natural beauties in the newly-created Paradise.
Scott well understood the great mistake that had been made
in destroying such a large number of old gardens. He saw
how perfectly an Elizabethan garden harmonized with the
house, and while he could not vindicate the “ paltry imitations
* Dell Arte dei Giardini Inglesi, Milan, 1801. Plan de Jardins dans le
gout Anglais. Jean Louis Mansa, Copenhague, 1798. Ob. folio, &c.
t Paradise Lost—Book IV.
f Quarterly, Vol. 37, 1828, and Criticism, Vol. V.