South Lodge; - Webber, Esq.-This place has been celebrated by Whately for its temple of Pan, and by George Mason for the successful imitation of the picturesque appearance of a by-lane by the Earl of Chatham. As the former author, in 1771, mentions South Lodge as in the occupation of Mr. Sharpe, it is evident that the Earl of Chatham must have left it some time before; so that this picturesque lane was probably formed nearly a century ago. As we expected, we could neither see nor learn any thing of it; and, indeed, we question much if anything at South Lodge exists as it was in the time of the Earl of Chatham, with the exception of the situation of the house and of the larger trees. The house has undergone various changes, and the temple of Pan no longer exists, nor does any one know where it stood. There is, however, a fine old Palladian bridge, like that at Wilton, but of wood, gradually undergoing decay; a large piece of water at the bottom of the park, with islands; and in the pleasure-ground a more than usually picturesque lake of upwards of an acre, with its margin and islands so admirably planted and placed, as from no point of view to give an idea of the extent or outline, and yet every where to preserve breadth of effect in looking from the walk on the water. The secret of this, as every garden artist knows, or ought to know, is to place the islands in the sinuosities, and never in the middle, as is too frequently done. The park, or demesne, here occupies an immense sloping bank, one third of the way down which is placed the house, and above it are the kitchen-garden and shrubberies. In the latter are some good plants, especially cedars, silver firs, hemlock spruces, deciduous cypresses, and American acers, all of which, unless we except two or three evergreen oaks, must have been planted since the days of Lord Chatham. Among the trees in the park we observed Betula papyracea, 65 ft. high, with an immense arm from one side 36 ft. in length, and another arm from the opposite side 35 ft. in length; the diameter of the trunk, at 3 ft. from the ground, is 2 ft. 2 in. It has been grafted on a common birch, and the scion and stock seem to have accorded very well together; since they are of the same thickness at the point of union. There are some very large Cornish elms near the house; a variegated Quercus pedunculata 50 ft. high; a broad-leaved Quercus Ilex 70 ft. high, and the willow-leaved variety of the same dimensions, both standing on hillocks, which sets them off to great advantage; a silver fir 100 ft. high, with a trunk 2 ft. 10 in. in diameter; a deciduous cypress 70 ft. high, sending up numerous knobs, or knees, as they are called in America, from the roots, as at Syon; Acer saecharinum 40 ft. high, and various others. The park is disfigured with some round and oval clumps of 12 or 15 years' growth, which have never been thinned, - some of those "elegant forms, the oval and the circle," which, according to Sir Henry Steuart, are the most generally pleasing forms that the landscape-gardener can adopt in laying out plantations. "If masses," says Sir Henry, "must be planted in parks, in order to get up wood for future single trees and detached groups (which, without the interposition of the transplanting, they must be), it is plain that they will continue in existence for five and twenty, or five and thirty years, before they can be cut out with proper effect. What shape, I would ask, can be adopted with such distant objects in view, more generally pleasing than that of the circle or the oval, or some modification of it ?" And again: "It is to be hoped, that there is discernment enough in our present race of artists, to see the propriety of adopting or restoring those, fine figures, the oval and circle, as certainly the best for temporary and large detached masses of wood." (Planter's Guide, 1st ed., p. 422.) It is difficult to account for the above passage in the writings of a man of undoubted taste, except on the principle that he had before his eyes the fear of being caricatured by Sir Walter Scott, in the Quarterly Review. In that Review, No. 72., "those elegant forms the oval, the circle, and the cone," are eulogised, while an irregular outline is described as "fantastic zigzaggery, which resembles the traces left by a dog scampering through snow," &c. This part of the Review was, no doubt, written partly with an eye to what Dugald Stewart had hinted against carrying irregularity to an extreme, in his Philosophical Essays, part ii. chap. iv. p. 285. 4to ed.; but chiefly with a view to effect, to enable the reviewer to quote Shakspeare, "What! up and down, carved like an apple tart," &c., Corporal Trim's harangue, and the German baron. When Sir Henry was not under the influence of the fear of the reviewer, we find him asserting, as the principle on which the outline of plantations ought to be formed, that art should borrow from nature " every pleasing form which owes its origin to that unfailing source of variety and beauty;" and this is in conformity with the sentiments of all the best writers on landscape-gardening. "The first requisite," says Whately, speaking of the outline of a wood, "is irregularity. The true beauty of an outline consists more in breaks than in sweeps; rather in angles than in rounds; in variety, not in succession." Irregularity, indeed, is the soul of every beauty in the outline of plantations, lawns, lakes, islands, and every object in scenery in which variety and intricacy are to be considered as leading beauties. Whatever is regular or symmetrical is soon recognised and understood; and may be grand, stately, or beautiful, but seldom varied and intricate. If, therefore, there is one principle more certain than another, in modern landscape-gardening, it is, that the outlines of all plantations ought to be irregular. [Victoria County History of Middlesex: 'The lease of South Lodge was bought by William Pitt, later earl of Chatham, in 1747. In 1748 the house was rebuilt and the surrounding fields were made into a park with ornamental lakes, a temple to Pan, a pyramid, and a bridge. Pitt sold the lease in 1755, claiming that he had never stayed at South Lodge for more than a week. After a period of neglect the estate was restored at the end of the 18th century by Thomas Skinner, alderman of London. (fn. 80) The house was then a three-storeyed stuccoed building, with a canted bay window at the centre of the garden front. It was demolished after the sale of the surrounding land in 1935.']
