Holland, is incapable of landscape. In France and Italy the nobility do not reside much, and make small expence at their villas. I should think the little princes of Germany, who spare no profusion on their palaces and country-houses, most likely to be our imitators; especially as their country and climate bears in many parts resemblance to ours. In France, and still less in Italy, they could with difficulty attain that verdure which the humidity of our clime bestows as the ground-work of our improvements. As great an obstacle in France is the embargo laid on the growth of their trees. As after a certain age, when they would rise to bulk, they are liable to be marked by the crown's surveyors as royal timber: it is a curiosity to see an old tree. A landscape and a crown-surveyor are incompatible. I have thus brought down to the conclusion of the last reign [the period I had marked to this work] the history of our arts and artists, from the earliest æra in which we can be said to have had either. Though there have been only gleams of light and flashes of genius, rather than progressive improvements, or flourishing schools; the inequality and insufficience of the execution have flowed more from my own defects than from those of the subject. The merits of the work, if it has any, are owing to the indefatigable industry of Mr. Vertue in amassing all possible materials. As my task is finished, it will, I hope, at least excite others to collect and preserve notices and anecdotes for some future continuator. The æra promises to furnish a nobler harvest. Our exhibitions, and the institution of a Royal Academy, inspire the artists with emulation, diffuse their reputation, and recommend them to employment. The public examines and reasons on their works, and spectators by degrees become judges. Nor are persons of the first rank meer patrons. Lord Harcourt's etchings are superior in boldness and freedom of stroke to any thing we have seen from established artists.* Gardening and architecture owe as much to the nobility and to men of fortune as to the professors. I need but name General Conway's rustic bridge at Park-place, of which every stone was placed by his own direction in one of the most beautiful scenes in nature; and the theatric staircase designed and just erected by Mr. Chute at his seat of the Vine in Hampshire. If a model is sought of the most perfect taste in * [Four large etchings of the Priory of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, were made by the late George Earl of Harcourt, then Lord Nuneham. Mr. W. must surely have put on his aristocratic spectacles to discover a claim to such exclusive praise-but, as Pope had before said of Addison, excuse some courtly stains." Epist. 2, p. 179.] architecture, where grace softens dignity, and lightness attempers magnificence; where proportion removes every part from peculiar observation, and delicacy of execution recalls every part to notice; where the position is the most happy, and even the colour of the stone the most harmonious; the virtuoso should be directed to the new front* of Wentworth-castle: the result of the same elegant judgment that had before distributed so many beauties over that domain, and called from wood, water, hills, prospects and buildings, a compendium of picturesque nature, improved by the chastity of art. Such an æra will demand a better historian. With pleasure therefore I resign my pen; presuming to recommend nothing to my successor, but to observe as strict impartiality. August 2, 1770. * The old front, still extant, was erected by Thomas Wentworth late Earl of Strafford; the new one was entirely designed by the present Earl William himself. [In Yorkshire. William Wentworth the second Earl of Strafford, of the creation of 1711. He died S. P. 1791.] Supplementary Anecdotes of Gardening in England. By the Editor. Ut possit videri nulla sorte nascendi, ætas felicior quam nostra, cui docendæ priores elaboraverunt. Quintil. L. 12, c. 11. Mr. Walpole's Essay on Modern Gardening, when it first appeared, was considered to be, at once, so elegantly written, and so comprehensive in his mode of treating the subject, that it was not then surmised, so much remained to be said. But he has excited many discussions, concerning both the theory and the practice. The world of Taste has been informed by the principles of many authors in didactic poetry or controversial prose; the latter conducted with so much acrimony, as to have interrupted friendships, like disputes in the Church or State. The dissention between Addison and Steele found its parallel in that between Knight and Price. A task which the Editor has undertaken, with diffidence of his own judgement, is to offer an historical review of the practice of ornamental gardening, in this country, with its transitions, during the lapse of the two last centuries; an account of its successive professors; and a literary sketch of the different theories of the art, which have prevailed to the present day, in various publications. The gardens, in the early part of the Norman dynasty, were certainly not different from what we now term orchards. Comparatively, few fruittrees or esculent plants were known in England 'till even the later centuries.* But near to castles, as at Conway, and monasteries, there was reserved a small inclosure for the ladies, or for the abbot, which was surrounded by lofty walls, "I saw a garden right anone, Full long and broade, and everidele Pourtrayed without and wele entayled, With many riché pourtraitures, And both yet images, and peintures. Romant of the Rose. Than this nothing can be more artificial; and in the Merchaunt's Tale, " A garden walled all with stone." Of the shape of these gardens-- "The garden was by measuring Right even and square by compassing. It as long was, as it was large." Romant of the Rose. He then enumerates the fruit trees it contained. The old Poet offers another description which implies a knowledge of horticulture, O closet garden all void of weede's wické ! full of leves and flowers And crafté of mannes hande, so curiously Arraied had this gardaine, truelie; That never was there garden of such prise, But if it were the very paradise. and in the Franklin's Tale, he speaks of the "Odour of the floweris." |