Horace Walpole's essay On Modern Gardening: The Ha Ha
Introduction Ancient
gardens Roman gardens Renaissance
gardens John Milton Sir
William Temple William Kent Early
18th century gardens Ha Ha Thomas
Whately Landscape Gardens Lancelot
'Capability' Brown
The Ha Ha (sometimes spelt HaHa)
But the capital stroke, the leading step to all that, has
followed, was (I believe the first thought was Bridgman'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! Ha's! to express their
surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk. One of
the first gardens planted in this simple though still formal style was my
father's at Houghton. It was laid out by Mr. Eyre, an imitator of
Bridgman. It contains three-and-twenty acres, then reckoned a considerable
portion.
I call a sunk fence the leading step for these reasons. 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. The sunk fence ascertained the specific garden,
but that it might not draw too obvious a line of distinction between the
neat and the rude, the contiguous outlying parts came to be included in a
kind of general design: and when nature was taken into the plan, under
improvements, every step that was made pointed out new beauties and
inspired new ideas. 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.
Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the arts
of landscape on the scenes he handled. The great principles on which he
worked were perspective, and light and shade. Groups of trees broke too
uniform or too extensive a lawn; evergreens and woods were opposed to the
glare of the champaign, and where the view was less fortunate, or so much
exposed as to be beheld at once, he blotted out some parts to thick
shades, to divide it into variety, or 'to make the richest scene more
enchanting by reserving it to a farther advance of the spectator's step.
Thus selecting favourite objects, and veiling deformities by screens of
waste to add its foil to the richest theatre, he realized the compositions
of the greatest masters in painting. Where objects were wanting to animate
his horizon, his taste as an architect could bestow immediate termination.
His buildings, his seats, his temples, were more the works of his pencil
than of his compasses. We owe the restoration of Greece and the diffusion
of architecture to his skill in landscape.
But of all the beauties he added to the face of this
beautiful country, none surpassed his management of water. Adieu to
canals, circular basins, and cascades tumbling down marble steps, that
last absurd magnificence of Italian and French villas. The forced
elevation of
cataracts was no more. The gentle stream was taught to
serpentize seemingly at its pleasure, and where discontinued by different
levels, its course appeared to be concealed by thickets properly
interspersed, and glittered again at a distance where it might be supposed
naturally to arrive. Its borders were smoothed, but preserved their waving
irregularity. A few trees scattered here and there on its edges sprinkled
the tame bank that accompanied its meanders; and when it disappeared among
the hills, shades descending from the heights leaned towards its progress,
and framed the distant point of light under which it was lost, as it
turned aside to either hand of the blue horizon.
Thus dealing in none but the colours of nature, and
catching its most favourable features, men saw a new creation opening
before their eyes. The living landscape was chastened or polished, not
transformed. Freedom was given to the forms of trees; they extended their
branches unrestricted, and where any eminent oak or master beech had
escaped maiming and survived the forest, bush and bramble was removed, and
all its honours were restored to distinguish and shade the plain. Where
the united plumage of an ancient wood extended wide its undulating canopy,
and stood venerable in its darkness, Kent thinned the foremost ranks, and
left but so many detached and scattered trees as softened the approach of
gloom and blended a chequered light with the thus lengthened shadows of
the remaining columns.
Succeeding artists have added new master-strokes to these
touches; perhaps improved or brought to perfection some that I have named.
The introduction of foreign trees and plants, which we owe principally to
Archibald, Duke of Argyle, contributed essentially to the richness of
colouring so peculiar to our modern landscape. The mixture of various
greens, the contrast of forms between our forest-trees and the northern
and West Indian firs and pines, are improvements more recent than Kent, or
but little known to him. The weeping-willow and every florid shrub, each
tree of delicate or bold leaf, are new tints in the composition of our
gardens. The last century was certainly acquainted with many of those rare
plants we now admire. The Weymouth pine has long been naturalized here;
the patriarch plant still exists at Longleat. The light and graceful
acacia was known as early; witness those ancient stems in the court of
Bedford House in Bloomsbury Square; and in the Bishop of London's garden
at Fulham are many exotics of very ancient
date. I doubt therefore whether the difficulty of preserving them in a
clime so foreign to their nature did not convince our ancestors of their
inutility in general; unless the shapeliness of the lime and
horse-chestnut, which accorded so well with established regularity, and
which thence and from their novelty grew in fashion, did not occasion the
neglect of the more curious plants.
But just as the encomiums are that I have bestowed on
Kent's discoveries, he was neither without assistance or faults. Mr. Pope undoubtedly contributed to form his taste.
The design of the Prince of Wales's garden at Canton House was evidently
borrowed from the poet's at Twickenham. There was a little of affected
modesty in the latter, when he said, of all his works he was most proud of
his garden. And yet it was a singular effort of art and taste to impress
so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres. The passing through
the gloom from the grotto to the opening day, the retiring and again
assembling shades, the dusky groves, the larger lawn, and the solemnity of
the termination at the cypresses that lead up to his mother's tomb, are
managed with exquisite judgment; and though Lord Peterborough assisted him
'To form his quincunx and to rank his vines', those were not the most
pleasing ingredients of his little perspective. I do not know whether the
disposition of the garden at Rousham, laid
out for General Dormers, and in my opinion the most engaging of all Kent's
works, was not planned on the model of Mr. Pope's, at least in the opening
and retiring shades of Venus's vale. The whole is as elegant and antique
as if the emperor Julian has selected the most pleasing solitude about
Daphne to enjoy a philosophic retirement.
That Kent's ideas were but rarely great, was in some
measure owing to the novelty of his art. It would have been difficult to
have transported the style of gardening at once from a few acres to
tumbling of forests: and though new fashions like new religions (which are
new fashions) often lead men to the most opposite excesses, it could not
be the case in gardening, where the experiments would have been so
expensive. Yet it is true too that the features in Kent's landscapes were
seldom majestic. His clumps were puny, he aimed at immediate effect, and
planted not for futurity. One sees no large woods sketched out by his
direction. Nor are we yet entirely risen above a too great frequency of
small clumps, especially in the elbows of serpentine rivers. How common to
see three or four beeches, then as many larches, a third knot of
cypresses, and a revolution of all three! Kent's last designs were in a
higher style, as his ideas opened on success. The north terrace at Claremont was much superior to the rest of the
garden.
A return of some particular thoughts was common to him
with other painters, and made his hand known. A small lake edged by a
winding bank with scattered trees that led to a seat at the head of the
pond, was common to Claremont, Esher and others of his designs. At Esher,
'Where Kent and nature vied for Pelham's love', the prospects more than
aided the painter's genius-they marked out the points where his art was
necessary or not; but thence left his judgment in possession of all its
glory.
Having routed professed art, for the modem gardener exerts
his talents to conceal his art, Kent, like other reformers, knew not how
to stop at the just limits. He had followed nature, and imitated her so
happily, that he began to think all her works were equally proper for
imitation. In Kensington garden he planted dead trees, to give a greater
air of truth to the scene-but he was soon laughed out of this excess. His
ruling principle was, that nature abhors a straight line. His mimics, for
every genius has his apes, seemed to think that she could love nothing but
what was crooked. Yet so many men of taste of all ranks devoted themselves
to the new improvements, that it is surprising how much beauty has been
struck out, with how few absurdities. Still in some lights the reformation
seems to have been pushed too far. Though an avenue crossing a park or
separating a lawn, and intercepting views from the seat to which it leads,
are capital faults, yet a great avenue cut through woods, perhaps before
entering a park, has a noble air, and 'Like footmen running before coaches
To tell the inn what lord approaches, announces the habitation of some man
of distinction. Of this kind one of the most noble is that of Stanstead,
the seat of he Earl of Halifax, traversing an ancient wood for two miles
and bounded by the sea. The very extensive lawns at that seat, richly
enclosed by venerable beech woods, and chequered by single beeches of vast
size, particularly when you stand in the portico of the temple and survey
the landscape that wastes itself in rivers of broken sea, recall such
exact pictures of Claude Lorraine, that it
is difficult to conceive that he did not paint them from this very spot.
In other places the total banishment of all particular neatness
immediately about a house, which is frequently left gazing by itself in
the middle of a park, is a defect. Sheltered and even close walks in so
very uncertain a climate as ours, are comforts ill exchanged for the few
picturesque days that we enjoy: and whenever a family can purloin a warm
and even something of an old-fashioned garden from the landscape designed
for them by the undertaker in fashion, without interfering with the
picture, they will find satisfactions on those days that do not invite
strangers to come and see their improvements.
Fountains have with great reason been banished from
gardens as unnatural; but it surprises me that they have not been allotted
to their proper positions, to cities, towns, and the courts of great
houses, as proper accompaniments to architecture, and as works of grandeur
in themselves. Their
decorations admit the utmost invention and when the waters
are thrown up to different stages, and tumble over their border, nothing
has a more imposing or a more refreshing sound. A palace demands its
external graces and attributes, as much as a garden. Fountains and
cypresses peculiarly become buildings; and no man can have been at Rome,
and seen the vast basins of marble dashed with perpetual cascades in the
area of St. Peter's, without retaining an idea of taste and splendour.
Those in the piazza Navona are as useful as sublimely conceived.
Grottos in this climate are recesses only to 'be looked at
transiently. When they are regularly composed within of symmetry and
architecture, as in Italy, they are only splendid improprieties. The most
judiciously, indeed most fortunately placed grotto, is that at Stourhead, where the river bursts from the urn
of its god and passes on its course through the cave.
But it is not my business to lay down rules for gardens,
but to give the history of them. A system of rules pushed to a great
degree of refinement, and collected from the best examples and practice,
has been lately given in a book entitled Observations on modern
gardening [by Thomas Whateley]. The
work is very ingeniously and carefully executed, and in point of utility
rather exceeds than omits any necessary directions. The author will excuse
me if I think it a little excess, when he examines that rude and
unappropriated scene of Matlock Bath and criticizes nature for having
bestowed on the rapid river Derwent so many cascades. How can this censure
be brought home to gardening? The management of rocks is a province can
fall to few directors of gardens; still in our distant provinces such a
guide may be necessary.
The author divides his subject into gardens, parts, farms
and ridings. I do not mean to find fault with this division. Directions
are requisite to each kind, and each has its department at many of the
great scenes from whence he drew his observations. In the historic light,
I distinguish them into the garden that connects itself with a park, into
the ornamented farm, and into the forest or savage garden. Kent, as I have
shown, invented or established the first sort. Mr. Philip Southcote founded the second, or ferme
ornée (at Woburn farm in Surrey), of which is a very just description in
the author I have been quoting. The third I think he has not enough
distinguished. I mean that kind of alpine scene, composed almost wholly of
pines and firs, a few birch, and such trees as assimilate with a savage
and mountainous country. Mr. Charles Hamilton,
at Painshill, in my opinion has given a
perfect example of this mode in the utmost boundary of his garden. All is
great and foreign and rude; the walks seem not designed, but cut through
the wood of pines; and the style of the whole is so grand, and conducted
with so serious an air of wild and uncultivated extent, that when you look
down on this seeming forest, you are amazed to find it contains a very few
acres. In general, except as a screen to conceal some deformity, or as a
shelter in winter, I am not fond of total plantations of evergreens. Firs
in particular form a very ungraceful summit, all broken into angles.
Sir Henry Englefield was one of the first improvers on the
new style, and selected with singular taste that chief beauty of all
gardens, prospect and fortunate points of view: we tire of all the
painter's art when it wants these finishing touches. The fairest scenes,
that. depend on themselves alone, weary when often seen. The Doric
portico, the Palladian bridge, the Gothic ruin, the Chinese pagoda, that
surprise the stranger, soon lose their charms to their surfeited master.
The lake that floats the valley is still more lifeless, and its lord
seldom enjoys his expense but when he shows it to n visitor. But the
ornament whose merit soonest fades is the hermitage or scene adapted to
contemplation. It is almost comic to set aside a quarter of one's garden
to be melancholy in. Prospect, animated prospect, is the theatre that will
always be the most frequented. Prospects formerly were sacrificed to
convenience and warmth. Thus Burleigh stands
behind a hill, from the top of which it would command Stamford. Our
ancestors who resided the greatest part of the year at their seats, as
others did two years together or more, had an eye to comfort first, before
expense. Their vast mansions received and harboured all the younger
branches, the dowagers and ancient maiden aunts of the families, and other
families visited them for a month together. The method of living is now
totally changed, and yet the same superb palaces are still created,
becoming a pompous solitude to the owner, and a transient entertainment to
a few travelers.
If any incident abolishes or restrains the modern style of
gardening, it will be this circumstance of solitariness. The greater the
scene, the more distant it is probably from the capital; in the
neighbourhood of which land is too dear to admit considerable extent of
property. Men tire of expense that is obvious to few spectators. Still
there is a more imminent danger that threatens the present, as it has ever
done all taste. I mean the pursuit of variety. A modern French writer has
in a very affected phrase given a just account of this, I will call it,
distemper. He says, l'ennui du beau amene le gout du singulier. The
noble simplicity of the Augustan age was driven out by false taste. The
gigantic, the puerile, the quaint, and at last the barbarous and the
monkish, had each their successive admirers. Music has been improved, till
it is a science of tricks and sleight of hand: the sober greatness of
Titian is lost, and painting since Carlo Maratti has little more relief
than Indian paper. Borromini twisted 'and curled architecture (in
particular, he inverted the volutes of the Ionic order), as if it was
subject to the change of fashions like a head of hair. If we once lose
sight of the propriety of landscape in our gardens, we shall wander into
all the fantastic Sharawadgis of the Chinese. We have discovered the point
of perfection. We have given the true model of gardening to the world; let
other countries mimic or corrupt our taste; but let it reign here on its
verdant throne, original by its elegant simplicity, and proud of no other
art than that of softening nature's harshnesses and copying her graceful
touch.
|