To common observers, the most obvious difference between Mr. Brown's style and that of ancient gardens, was the change from straight to waving or serpentine lines. Hence, many of his followers had supposed good taste in gardening to consist in avoiding all lines that are straight or parallel, and in adopting forms which they deem more consonant to nature, without considering what objects were natural and what were artificial. This explanation is necessary to justify the plan which I recommended for the canal in this flower-garden [see fig. 78]; for, while I should condemn a long straight line of water in an open park, where everything else is natural, I should equally object to a meandering canal or walk, by the side of a long straight wall, where everything else is artificial.
