Kent and Bridgman were the first artists who applied to practical gardening the modern principles for which writers and others had prepared the public taste. How novel and original this new departure was considered at the time, may be seen from the following panegyric on the designer Kent:�"Painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opinionated enough to dare to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays, he leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell or concave scoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in the distant view between the graceful stems removed and extended the perspective of delusive comparison. Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed the art of landscape on the scenes he handled." The new style thus inaugurated under the name of Landscape Gardening could, however, only be applied to a portion of the grounds. Whilst the distant parts of the garden were laid out according to the novel principle of picturesque irregularity, the areas adjoining the mansion were required to accord with the formality of the adjacent architectural constructions. Thus the parterre, terrace, avenue, and other strictly geometrical arrangements were retained in the foreground. Symmetrical design and accidental irregularity were blended in the same compositions, one enclosure containing both the formal garden and the natural landscape. It was not long before this taste for imitation of indigenous scenery, and for freedom of design, began to degenerate into license and extravagance. Fictitious and imaginary scenes were selected in preference to a faithful representation of nature. A fancy for distant and less familiar landscape, clothed by literature in fascinating imagery,�which inspired the early painters of this century,�was displayed also in the garden compositions.
