by the absence of everything having the appearance of a terrace, or of architectural forms, or lines, immediately adjoining the house. The house, in short, rose abruptly from the lawn; and the general surface of the ground was characterized by smoothness and bareness. This constituted the first school of the Landscape Style; and, as it appears to have been introduced by Kent, it may not improperly bear his name, and be called Kent's School. The publications which illustrate this school are chiefly those of Shenstone, G. Mason, Whately, and Mason the poet, all of which may be included in one closely-printed octavo volume, forming another of the proposed series.

The smooth, bare, and almost bald appearance, which characterized Kent's School, soon gave rise to one distinguished by roughness and intricacy, which may be called the Picturesque School; and the principles of which will be found in the writings of the Rev. W. Gilpin and Mr. Uvedale Price. These writings are full of the most valuable instruction for the gardener, relative to the general composition of landscape scenery, and landscape architecture; and may, very properly, form another volume of the series.

The rage for destroying avenues and terraces having subsided, and the propriety of uniting a country house with the surrounding scenery, by architectural appendages, having been pointed out, in a masterly manner, by Uvedale Price, Kent's School gave way; not, however, as may be supposed, to the Picturesque School (which, though adopted in many instances, in some parts of an estate, yet, in very few cases was exclusively employed), but to what may be called Repton's School, and which may be considered as combining all that was excellent in the former schools, and, in fact, as consisting of the union of an artistical knowledge

of the subject with good taste and good sense. The principles of this school, and their application in practice, are exhibited in the five volumes published by Mr. Repton (see p. 22), which, with copies of all the numerous plates by which they were illustrated, are included in the present volume, forming one of the series.

As all arts are necessarily progressive, and, as the spread of Kent's and Repton's Schools was materially accelerated by the taste for landscape painting, pictures, and poetry, which prevailed, more or less, during the last century among the higher classes of society in this country, so the present prevailing taste for botany and horticulture, and the introduction, from other countries, of many new plants which thrive in the open air in our climate, have called for such a change in the manner of laying out and planting grounds as shall display these new plants to a greater advantage than hitherto. This change has given rise to a school which we call the Gardenesque; the characteristic feature of which, is the display of the beauty of trees, and other plants, individually. According to the practice of Kent and Repton, and, more especially, to that of all the followers of the Picturesque School, trees, shrubs, and flowers were indiscriminately mixed, and crowded together, in shrubberies or other plantations; and they were generally left to grow up and destroy one another, as they would have done in a natural forest; the weaker becoming stunted, or distorted, in such a manner as to give no idea of their natural forms and dimensions; though forming picturesque groups and masses highly pleasing to the admirers of natural landscape. According to the Gardenesque School, on the contrary, all the trees and shrubs planted are arranged in regard to their kinds and dimensions; and they are

planted at first at, or, as they grow, thinned out to, such distances apart as may best display the natural form and habit of each: while, at the same time, in a general point of view, unity of expression and character are aimed at, and attained, as effectually as they were under any other school. In short, the aim of the Gardenesque is to add, to the acknowledged charms of the Repton School, all those which the sciences of gardening and botany, in their present advanced state, are capable of producing.

The Gardenesque School of Landscape has been more or less adopted in various country residences, from the anxious wish of gardeners and botanical amateurs to display their trees and plants to the greatest advantage. Perhaps it may be said to have always existed in botanic gardens; and to have been first applied, in the case of a country residence, by the present Duke of Marlborough, when Marquis of Blandford, at White Knights. It may now be seen in its most decided character, as far as respects trees and shrubs, wherever Arboretums have been properly planted: as, for example, at Chatsworth; and, in the case of flowers, wherever there is a flower-garden in an airy situation, and the flowers are grown in beds, unmixed with trees and shrubs. The Gardenesque School of Landscape is particularly adapted for laying out the grounds of small villas; and it is nowhere better exemplified than in the villa of W. Harrison, Esq., at Cheshunt, described in detail, with numerous engravings, in the fifteenth volume of the Gardener's Magazine. An entire volume is not required to describe this school; but one of our proposed series will be devoted to giving a systematic view of the whole art of Landscape Gardening, including all the styles and schools: and, among the latter, the Gardenesque. In this volume.

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will be shewn how all the materials of the art, such as ground, wood, water, rocks, buildings, &c., may be managed according to the Geometric and Landscape Styles, and to all the different schools which we have enumerated of these styles. This volume will also contain a history of the art, and of its literature; and a descriptive catalogue of all the remarkable country residences that have ever been formed, so far as we can obtain any account of them.

As the number of engravings in the other volumes we contemplate, will be much less numerous than in that now published, it is expected that the price of all the five will not exceed £5; and, as each volume will be complete in itself, the possessor of only one of them never need consider himself as having an incomplete work. The original works, which will thus be included in five octavo volumes, would have cost, at their published prices, above £50.

Our first idea was to amalgamate the contents of the proposed five volumes into one general treatise; but a little reflection convinced us that the different schools would not be so distinctly marked by this mode of proceeding, and that the result would have a tendency to present only one system of laying out grounds to the young gardener, instead of several. There is a beautiful unity of system and manner of thinking in most of the works which we intend to reprint, which would have been, in a great measure, destroyed, by breaking them up into fragments, and scattering these under the different heads, which must necessarily have been done in forming a general treatise. The great advantage of treating of the different schools separately, and so as strongly to impress each on the mind of the young gardener, is, that he will thereby acquire a knowledge how to effect the same object according to different systems; and hence, in practice, he

will be able either to adopt the style or school best calculated for the situation, climate, and circumstances in which he is placed, or to adopt and combine such parts of different styles and schools as may best attain the object in view in the given locality. This we consider to be the most effectual mode of preventing mannerism, or the adoption of one style, school, or system, as better than all the others, and employing it indiscriminately in every situation, though under widely different circumstances. This last mode was

always adopted in the time of Kent and Brown; and hence that sameness which characterizes the artificial features of all the places laid out by those artists. The only safeguard against the continuance of this system, especially among gardeners, is the dissemination of a knowledge of different styles and schools; by which the idea that any one of them is better than another will be neutralized, and the true art of laying out grounds shewn to consist in the choice and application of a school, or of parts of different schools, adapted to the particular case under consideration. Art and Nature would thus be more harmoniously combined, and country residences produced of a more distinctive and interesting character.

Such is the plan and the intention of our series of five volumes; which, if carried into execution, with such improvements as may from time to time suggest themselves, will form, we think, as complete an Encyclopædia of Landscape Gardening as the present state of our knowledge, in that art, will admit.

After this slight outline of our general design, it remains only to say a few words respecting the arrangement of that part of it which constitutes the present volume. The reader is first presented with a systematic