“行”胜于“言”

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Chinese pagoda Kew Garden,London,UK,which built by William Chambers,1759

William Chambers, A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening (London, 1772)

Amongst the decorative arts, there is none of which the influence is so extensive as that of Gardening. The productions of other arts have their separate classes of admirers, who alone relish or set any great value upon them; to the rest of the world they are indifferent, sometimes disgusting. A building affords no pleasure to the generality of men, but what results from the grandeur of the object, or the value of its materials; nor doth a picture affect them, but by its resemblance to life. A thousand other beauties, of a higher kind, are lost upon them; for in Architecture, in Painting, and indeed in most other arts, men must learn before they can admire; their pleasure keeps pace with their judgement and it is only by knowing much, that they can be highly delighted. [p. i]

But gardening is of a different nature; its dominion is general; its effects upon the human mind certain and invariable; without any previous information, without being taught; al men are delighted with the gay luxuriant scenery of summer, and depressed at the dismal aspects of autumnal prospects; the charms of cultivation are equally sensible to the ignorant and the learned, and they are equally disgusted at th rudeness of neglected nature; lawns, woods, shrubberies, rivers and mountains, affect them both in the same manner; and every combination of these will excite similar sensations in the minds of both.

Nor are the productions of this At less permanent than general in their effects. Pictures, statues, buildings, soon glut the sight, and grow indifferent to the spectator; but in gardens there is a continual state of fluctuations that leaves no room for satiety; the progress of vegetations, the vicissitudes of sea ons, the changes of the weather, the different directions of the sun, the passage of clouds, the agitation and founds produced by winds, [p. ii] together with the accidental intervention of living or moving objects, vary the appearance so often, and so considerably, that it is almost impossible to be cloyed, even with the same prospects.

Is it not singular then, that an Art with which a considerable part of our enjoyments is so universally connected, should have no regular professor in our quarter of the world? Upon the continent it is a collateral branch of the architect\’s employment, who, immersed in the study and avocations of his own profession, finds no leisure for other disquisitions; and, in this island, it is abandoned to kitchen gardeners, well skilled in the culture of sallads, but little acquainted with the principles of Ornamental Gardening. It cannot be expected that men uneducated, and doomed by their condition to waste the vigor of life in hard labour, should ever go far in so refined, so difficult a pursuit.

To this unaccountable want of regular masters may, in a great measure, be ascribed the scarcity of perfect [p. iii] gardens. There are indeed very few in our part of the globe wherein nature has been improved to the best advantage, or art employed with the soundest judgement. The gardens of Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and of all other countries where the antient style still prevails, are in general mere cities of verdure; the walks are like streets conducted in strait lines, regularly diverging from different large open spaces, resembling public squares; and the hedges with which they are bordered, are raised, in imitation of walls, adorned with pilasters, niches, windows and doors, or cut into colonnades, arcades and porticoes; all the detached trees are shaped into obelisks, pyramids and vases; and all the recesses in the thickets hear the names and forms of theatres, amphitheatres, temples, banqueting hails, ball rooms, cabinets and saloons. The streets and squares are well manned with statues of marble or lead, ranged in regular lines, like soldiers at a procession; which, to make them more natural, are sometimes painted in proper colours, and finely gilt. The lakes and rivers are confined by quais of hewn stone, and taught to flow in geometrick order; [p. iv] and the cascades glide from the height by many a succession of marble steps; not a twig is suffered to grow as nature directs; nor is a form admitted but what is scientific, and determinable by the line or compass.

In England, where this antient style is held in detestation, and where, in opposition to the rest of Europe, a new manner is universally adopted, in which no appearance of art is tolerated, our gardens differ very little from common fields, so closely is common nature copied in most of them; there is generally so little variety in the objects, such a poverty of imagination , in the contrivance, and of art in the arrangement, that these compositions rather appear the offspring of chance than design; and a stranger is often at a loss to know whether he be walking in a meadow, or in a pleasure ground, made and kept at a very considerable expense; he sees nothing to amuse him, nothing to excite his curiosity, nor any thing to keep up his attention. At his first entrance, he is treated with the sight of a large green field, scattered over with a few straggling trees, and verged with a confused border [p. v] of little shrubs and flowers; upon farther inspection, he finds a little serpentine path, twining in regular eses amongst the shrubs of the border, upon which he is to go round, to look on one side at what he has already seen, the large green field; and on the other side at the boundary, which is never more than a few yards from him, and always obtruding upon his fight; from time to time he perceives a little seat or temple stuck up against the wall; he rejoices at the discovery, sits down, rests his wearied limbs, and then reels on again, cursing the line of beauty, till spent with fatigue, half roasted by the sun, for there is never any shade, and tired for want of entertainment, he resolves to see no more; vain resolution! there is but one path; he must either drag on to the end, or return back by the tedious way he came.

Such is the favourite plan of all our smaller gardens; and our larger works are only a repetition of the small ones; more green fields, more shrubberies, more serpentine walks, and more feats; like the honest batchelor\’s [p. vi] feast, which consisted in nothing but a multiplication of his own dinner; three legs of mutton and turneps, three roasted geese, and three buttered apple-pies.

It is I think obvious that neither the artful nor the simple style of Gardening here mentioned, is right; the one being too extravagant a deviation from nature, the other too scrupulous an adherence to her. One manner is absurd; the other insipid and vulgar; a judicious mixture of both would certainly be more perfect than either.

But how this union can be effected, is difficult to say. The men of art, and the friends of nature, are equally violent in defence of their favourite system; and, like all other partizans, loth to give up any thing, however unreasonable.

Such a coalition is therefore now not to be expected; whoever should be bold enough to attempt it, would probably incur the censure of both sides, without re- [p. vii] forming either; and consequently prejudice himself, without doing service to the Art.

But though it might be impertinent as well as useless to start a new system of one\’s own, it cannot be improper, nor totally unserviceable, to publish that of others; especially of a people whose skill in Gardening has often been the subject of praise; and whose manner has been set up amongst as as the standard of imitation, without ever having been properly defined. It is a common saying, That from the worst things some good may be extracted; and even if what I have to relate should be inferior to what is already known, yet surely some useful hints may be collected from it.

I may therefore, without danger to myself, and it si hoped without offence to others, offer the following account of the Chinese manner of Gardening; which is collected from my own observations in China, from conversations with their Artists, and remarks transmitted to me at different times by travellers. A sketch of what [p. viii] I have now attempted to finish, was published some years ago; and the favourable reception granted to that little performance, induced me to collect materials for this.

Whether the Chinese manner of Gardening be better or worse than those now in use amongst the Europeans, I will not determine; comparison is the surest as well as the easiest test of truth; it is in every man\’s power to compare and to judge for himself. — Should the present publication contain any thing useful, my purpose will be fully answered; if not, it may perhaps afford some little entertainment, or serve at worst to kill an idle hour.

I must not enter upon my subject, without apologizing for the liberties here taken with our English Gardens; there are, indeed, several that do not come within the compass of my description; some of which were laid out by their owners, who are as eminently skilled in Gardening, as in many other branches of polite knowledge; the rest owe most of their excellence to nature, and are, [p. ix] upon the whole, very little improved by the interposition of art; which, though it may have heightened some of their beauties, has totally robbed them of many others.

It would be tedious to enumerate all the errors of a false taste; but the havock it has made in our old plantations, must ever be remembered with indignation; te ax has often, in one day, laid waste the growth of several ages; and thousands of venerable plants, whole woods of them, have been swept away, to make room for a little grass, and a few American weeds. Our virtuosi have scarcely left an acre of shade, nor three trees growing in a line, from the Land\’s-end to the Tweed; and if their humour for devastation continues to rage much longer, there will not be a forest-tree left standing in the whole kingdom.

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