IT is not my intention to enter into a minute history of gardening, or, pursuing the course of some other writers, to trace back the gradual progress of the art from Brown to Kent, from Kent to Le Notre, from him to the Italians, the Romans, the Grecians, and, ultimately, to Adam, who was "the first gardener;" but I shall confine myself to a few observations on the change in the fashion of gardens, to shew how much of each different style may be preserved or rejected with advantage; and, lest it should appear to some readers that my allusions are too frequent to the late theoretical writers on landscape gardening, it is necessary to observe, that many of the MSS. whence I now transcribe, were written long before Mr. Knight's and Mr. Price's works appeared; of course the allusions relate to other authors on the subject, whose sentiments these gentlemen seem to have taken up, without acknowledging that they had ever read them. It may not be uninteresting here to mention a few of the authors who have written on gardening, especially as the works of some are become scarce, and are not generally known. I scarcely need mention the late Horace Walpole, who, in his lively and ingenious manner, has given both the history and the rules of the art better than any other theorist.
