Essay on the Making of Gardens

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. To many excellent people who take a gloomy view of life, studies of art and beauty seem to be but trifling; I must therefore urge as an excuse for this essay that the greater part of it was written during a period of broken health, when slowly recovering from the effects of over-work. Further, I would plead that a serious purpose lies behind it, namely, that of influencing the newly recovered art of garden design. The revival of garden-craft is the work of English architects, more particularly of Sedding, R. Blomfield and F. Inigo Thomas. But still, as in the days of Fynes Moryson, the formal garden in England falls short of the great examples of the Italian Renaisssance; it is seldom related as it should be to the sorrounding scenery; it is often wanting in repose and nearly always in imagination.