The art of landscape gardening /

and rational development of the so-called land- scape school of England, a school whose influence spread rapidly to the Continent of Europe and whose principles still control the treatment of large areas in the informal or naturalistic style.This change in taste was not confined to gar- dening.It manifested itself in all the artistic The work of Repton as landscape gardener is one of the most notable achievements in that pro- fession.He has to his credit the creation, trans- formation, or improvement of over two hundred important places.His clients were in all parts of England and included men of nearly every degree and station.And to appreciate the scope of Repton's practice we must call to mind the extent and character and marvellous beauty of the typical English country-place of the eighteenth century.It included not only all that is best in the private places ofour own time, but also the adequate setting cal man.He appreciated the principle of utility.He, like his American successor, Olmsted, had no sympathy with a design that did not provide adequately and frankly for the plain necessities of human living.Half-hearted compromises did not meet his favour ; nevertheless he took pains to reconcile these necessary and artificial features with the artistic aims of the design as a whole.Repton's most permanent contribution to his art, however, is to be found not in his works of in every art, consists more in adapting tried expedients to peculiar circumstances than in that inordinate thirst after novelty, the characteristic of uncultivated minds, which from the facility of inventing wild theories, without experience, are apt to suppose that taste is displayed by novelty, genius by innovation, and that every change must necessarily tend to improvement.""The Theory and Practice of Landscape Gar- dening," "the whole of this work has been written in a carriage during professional journeys from one place to another, and being seldom more than three days together in one place, the diffi- volume is published to supply the demand for Repton's counsel.It is issued under the title of "The Art of Landscape Gardening," and contains his two best works : ** Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening," published in 1795, and "The Theory and Practice of Landscape Gar- dening," published in 1803.These two books, reprinted and illustrated in modern form and edited the better to serve modern conditions, constitute, it is believed, one of the most valuable works in English upon the principles of laying- out ground.To make his designs intelligible Repton found that a mere map or plan was insufficient; it could no more convey an idea of the landscape than the ground-plan of a house could of its elevation.To remedy this deficiency he invented a method of showing the proposed improvements by means of two illustrations or slides, as he called them.Repton and his work occupy a unique and per- manently important place in the history of land- scape gardening.He came at a time of significant development in his profession, and by his native genius and attainments he secured the patronage of all England.He had opportunity to work out his ideas and ideals under unusually congenial conditions.Le Notre himself, with the support