Our most accurate idea of the plans of these formal gardens comes from such books as “Les dèlices de la Grande Bretagne et de l’Irlande,” published in Leyden in 1707; “Britannia Illustrata” by Knyff and Kip, 1709; “Views of Kent” by Badeslade, 1722; and other early county histories.[537] One of Kip’s plans of Longleat is here reproduced. The grounds at Longleat were laid out between 1682 and 1690 under the supervision of London.[538] Though of exceptional magnificence, their characteristic features as shown in the plan are fairly typical of other great gardens of the period. Bird’s-eye views such as Kip gives are necessarily unfair representations since they crowd into startling juxtaposition features that are in reality widely separated, and since they do not even suggest charms of color, light and shade, fragrance, movement, the change of the seasons. But such plans are, nevertheless, of especial value in revealing the governing ideas of the garden designers. One of these ideas is admirably brought out by Sir William Temple in his essay, “On the Gardens of Epicurus: or of Gardening in the Year 1685,” the most important article on gardening published in England in the seventeenth century. It is mostly given up to exposures, soils, scions, grafts, seeds, and the like, but here and there are significant statements of theory. “Among us,” he says, “the beauty of building and planting is placed chiefly in certain proportions, symmetries, and uniformities, our walks and our trees ranged so as to answer one another and at exact distances.” This defense of order in beauty is illustrated by his description of Moor Park, Hertfordshire, according to his taste the sweetest garden ever known. It was divided into quarters by gravel walks, and adorned with two fountains and eight statues in each quarter. The straight terrace walk had a summer-house at each end. On each side of the parterre was a cloister, over each cloister an airy walk, at the end of each airy walk a summer-house, and so on.[539] “Certain proportions, symmetries, and uniformities” is a phrase characteristic of classicism in thought and literary style as well as in gardens and it shows how completely the ideal garden represented the dominant thought of the age. Equally characteristic and interesting is Temple’s reason for approving of this style of gardening. In exact figures, with regular and definite intervals, it is, he says, “hard to make any great or remarkable faults.” In this sentence there is surely a suggestion of one reason for the love of order, of limits clearly set, that marked the classical spirit. Symmetries and proportions and uniformities were a specific against great and remarkable faults such as had resulted from the undue license of a romantic age. The beaten path had legitimate attractions for an age that had lost its way among the pleasures of the pathless woods.