Anonymous, The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting Parks, Pleasure Grounds and Gardens

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The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting Parks, Pleasure Grounds, Gardens&c.

is of unknown authorship but a copy was in Horace Walpole’s hands when he came to write his

The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening

(1780). The poem is relatively skilful, and interesting for its attempt to provide a chronological history of gardening in England. It shows the deep impress of Pope’s ideas about the landscape garden, as expressed in

Epistle to Burlington

, and it quotes lines 117-8 from this poem in lines 215-6, but Pope’s ethos is heard

passim

and especially behind lines 223-234.

The poem is also interesting for its enthusiastic engagement (ll 368-486) with Chinese gardening, which it considers a useful corrective to the blandness of the Capability Brown school. The

214 words

Citation: Clark, Robert. "The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting Parks, Pleasure Grounds and Gardens". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 January 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11708, accessed 19 March 2024.]

11708 The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting Parks, Pleasure Grounds and Gardens 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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