The Genius of the Place The English Landscape Garden 1620-1820

by Hunt, John Dixon; Willis, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780262580922
• ISBN10: 0262580926
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1988-09-09
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

A garden classic, The Genius of the Placereveals that the history of landscape gardening is much more than a history of design and style; it opens up a wide perspective of English cultural history, showing how landscape gardening was gradually transformed over two centuries into an art that has been widely imitated throughout Europe and North America. The English landscape garden is richly documented in this anthology. Over 100 illustrations accompany writings that range from Francis Bacon to Jane Austin; from the early 1600s, when Englishmen began to determine their own concept and form of the garden, through the first half of the eighteenth century when its distinctive feature emerged, to the heyday of the landscape garden under "Capability" Brown and the reactions to his pure formalism under Repton and Loudon in the 1800s. This edition contains a new introduction and bibliography covering the many developments in garden history during the last dozen years. John Dixon Hunt is Professor in the School of English and American Studies at the University of East Anglia and editor of the International Journal of Garden History. Peter Willis, an architect, is reader in the History of Architecture at the University of Newcastle.

Author Biography

John Dixon Hunt is Professor in the School of English and American Studies at the University of East Anglia and editor of the International Journal of Garden History.

Peter Willis, an architect, is reader in the History of Architecture at the University of Newcastle.

Table of Contents

Plates	xi
Preface to the 1988 edition	xviii
Preface to the 1975 edition	xix
Acknowledgements	xx
Introduction	1	(47)
Part One Prelude: The Seventeenth Century and the Reign of Queen Anne
Henry Wotton (1568-1639)	48	(3)
from The Elements of Architecture (1624)	48	(3)
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)	51	(6)
`Of Gardens' (1625)	51	(6)
John Evelyn (1620-1706)	57	(13)
from a Letter to Sir Thomas Browne (1657)	57	(1)
Extracts from Evelyn's Diary (late 1630s-1706)	58	(9)
Outline of `Elysium Britannicum' (1699)	67	(3)
Andrew Marvell (1621-78)	70	(9)
from `Upon Appleton House' (early 1650s)	70	(9)
John Milton (1608-74)	79	(3)
from Paradise Lost, Book IV (1667)	79	(3)
Rene Rapin (1621-87)	82	(6)
from Of Gardens	82	(6)
John Evelyn
John Woolridge (fl. 1669-98)	88	(5)
From Systema Horti-Culturae: or The Art of Gardening (1677)	88	(5)
Charles Cotton (1630-87)	93	(3)
from The Wonders of the Peake (1681)	93	(3)
William Temple (1628-99)	96	(4)
from Upon the Gardens of Epicurus: or, Of Gardening, in the Year 1685 (1692)	96	(4)
Timothy Nourse (d. 1699)	100	(6)
from Campania Foelix: or A Discourse of the Benefits and Improvements of Husbandry (1700)	100	(6)
George London (d. 1714) and Henry Wise (1653-1738)	106	(6)
from The Retir'd Gard'ner (1706)	106	(6)
Roger De Piles (1635-1709)	112	(7)
from Cours de Peinture par Principes (1708) `First Translated into English by a Painter' (1743)	112	(7)
John Vanbrugh (1664-1726)	119	(3)
`Reasons Offer'd for Preserving some Part of the Old Manor' at Blenheim (11 June 1709)	120	(2)
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)	122	(3)
from The Moralists (1709)	122	(2)
from Miscellaneous Reflections (1711)	124	(1)
A. J. Dezallier D'argenville (1680-1765)	125	(7)
from The Theory and Practice of Gardening	125	(7)
John James
John Lawrence (d. 1732)	132	(2)
from The Clergy-Man's Recreation (1714)	132	(2)
Charles Evelyn (pseud.) (dates unknown)	134	(4)
from The Lady's Recreation: or The Art of Gardening Improv'd (1717)	134	(4)
Part Two The Early Landscape Garden
Joseph Addison (1672-1719)	138	(10)
Papers from The Tatler and The Spectator (1710-12)	139	(9)
Samuel Molyneux (1689-1727)	148	(3)
from a Letter on Petersham Lodge/New Park (14 February 1713)	148	(3)
Stephen Switzer (?1682-1745)	151	(13)
from Ichnographia Rustica (1718 and 1742)	152	(12)
Lord Perceval, Ist Earl of Egmont (1683-1748)	164	(2)
from a Letter on Hall Barn, Buckinghamshire (9 August 1724)	165	(1)
Daniel Defoe (c. 1661-1731)	166	(11)
from A Tour Thro' The Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-6 and 1742)	166	(11)
Beat Louis De Muralt (1665-1749)	177	(1)
from Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations (1726)	177	(1)
Batty Langley (1696-1751)	178	(9)
from New Principles of Gardening (1728)	178	(9)
Robert Castell (d. 1729)	187	(4)
from The Villas of the Ancients Illustrated (1728)	187	(4)
James Thomson (1700-48)	191	(5)
from The Seasons (1730)	193	(3)
Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, Bt (1676-1755)	196	(8)
from `The Country Seat' (1731)	197	(7)
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)	204	(11)
Essay from The Guardian (1713)	204	(4)
Letter to Martha Blount (c. 1724)	208	(3)
from An Epistle to Lord Burlington (1731)	211	(4)
Gilbert West (1703-56)	215	(13)
Stowe, The Gardens of the Right Honourable Richard Viscount Cobham (1732)	215	(13)
Anonymous	228	(5)
from Castle Howard (c. 1733)	228	(5)
Robert Morris (1701-54)	233	(4)
from Lectures on Architecture (1734)	234	(3)
Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke (1720-90)	237	(3)
from `A Journal of What I Observed Most Remarkable in a Tour into the North' (1744)	237	(3)
Joseph Warton (1722-1800)	240	(3)
from The Enthusiast (1744)	241	(2)
William Shenstone (1714-63)	243	(4)
`Account of an Interview between Shenstone and Thomson' (1746)	244	(3)
Anonymous	247	(7)
`An Epistolary Description of the Late Mr. Pope's House and Gardens at Twickenham' (1747)	247	(7)
William Gilpin (1724-1804)	254	(6)
from A Dialogue upon the Gardens of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cobham at Stow in Buckinghamshire (1748)	254	(6)
Henry Fielding (1707-54)	260	(4)
from Tom Jones (1749)	260	(4)
Part Three The Progress of Gardening
Richard Pococke (1704-65)	264	(4)
from `Travels Through England' (1750-7)	264	(4)
Joseph Spence (1699-1768)	268	(6)
Letter to the Rev. Mr Wheeler (on gardening) (1751)	268	(4)
from a Letter to the Earl of Lincoln (on Stourhead) (1765)	272	(2)
Francis Coventry (d. 1759)	274	(3)
from The World, No. 15 (1753)	274	(3)
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)	277	(2)
from The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753-4)	277	(2)
John Shebbeare (`Battista Angeloni') (1709-88)	279	(4)
from Letters on the English Nation, letter to the Rev. Father Filippo Bonini in Rome (1755)	279	(4)
William Chambers (1723-96)	283	(6)
from Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils (1757)	283	(6)
William Shenstone (1714-63)	289	(9)
`Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening' (1764)	289	(9)
Anonymous	298	(3)
from The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting Parks, Pleasure Grounds, Gardens, Etc. (1767)	299	(2)
Thomas Whately (d. 1772)	301	(7)
from Observations on Modern Gardening (1770)	301	(7)
William Mason (1725-97)	308	(3)
from The English Garden (1772-81)	308	(3)
Horace Walpole (1717-97)	311	(7)
from a Letter to Sir Horace Mann (June 1753)	312	(1)
from a Letter to Richard Bentley (September 1753)	313	(1)
from The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (1771/1780)	313	(5)
Part Four Picturesque Taste and the Garden
William Chambers (1723-96) and William Mason (1725-97)	318	(8)
from A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening (1772)	318	(4)
An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers (1773)	322	(4)
Joseph Heely (fl. 1770s)	326	(4)
from Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and The Leasowes (1777)	326	(4)
Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821)	330	(3)
`On the Pleasures of a Garden' (1779)	330	(3)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)	333	(4)
`Memorandums Made on a Tour to Some of the Gardens in England' (1786)	333	(4)
William Gilpin (1724-1804)	337	(5)
from Remarks on Forest Scenery (1791)	338	(4)
Richard Payne Knight (1750-1824)	342	(9)
from The Landscape, A Didactic Poem (1794)	342	(6)
from An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (1805)	348	(3)
Uvedale Price (1747-1829)	351	(7)
from An Essay on the Picturesque (1794)	351	(7)
Humphry Repton (1752-1818)	358	(10)
from the `Red Book' fro Blaise Castle (1795-6)	359	(6)
from Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1816)	365	(3)
William Combe (1741-1823)	368	(4)
from The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque (1809)	368	(4)
Jane Austen (1775-1817)	372	(4)
from Pride and Prejudice (1813)	372	(2)
from Emma (1816)	374	(2)
Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866)	376	(4)
from Headlong Hall (1816)	376	(4)
Further Reading	380	(3)
Index	383