The politics of the plot

The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English Landscape Garden
by Tim Richardson

The man ‘of Polite Imagination’, according to Joseph Addison, was able to delight in things lesser mortals might fail to appreciate, particularly the landscape. ‘It gives him indeed a kind of Property in everything he sees, and makes the most rude uncultivated Parts of Nature administer to his pleasure.’ If an Englishman’s home used to be his castle — the basis of his liberty — his garden was a blank canvas on which to express his originality and freedom. This book ends with the arrival of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown in the 1740s, and Tim Richardson regards his work as creatively conservative and formulaic. He prefers the age of the amateur experimentalist, which began with the Glorious Revolution, when England’s gardens were rich in symbolism and creative energy.

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Ross Clark

Britain is living beyond its means

Richardson’s prose is engaging and witty.