[558] In “The Garden: As Considered in Literature by Some Polite Persons,” edited by Walter Howe (“Knickerbocker Nuggets” series, G. P. Putnam’s Sons), may be found essays by Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Lord Bacon, Sir William Temple, Addison, Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Whateley, Goldsmith, Walpole, and Evelyn. A fine edition of Sir William Temple’s essay, “On the Gardens of Epicurus,” with illustrations, has been brought out by Chatto and Windus. [559] Viscount Irwin, “The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in Planting,” 1767. [560] Cowper, “The Task,” Book III, “The Gardens,” l. 764. [561] Richard Payne Knight, “The Landscape, A Didactic Poem,” 1794. [562] Uvedale Price, “An Essay on the Picturesque” (1794–98). [563] William Gilpin, “Observations ... Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty.” Eleven separate volumes, 1783–1809. [564] Richard Jago, “Edge Hill, or the Rural Prospect Delineated and Moralized,” 1767. In this poem Jago describes the country seats of fifty gentlemen. The most important are Farnborough, Packington, Shuckburgh, and Leasowes. [565] There are many indications about the middle of the century of a widespread interest in all that pertained to China. In about 1750 Mrs. Montague remodeled her house in Hill Street and made a Chinese room of which she wrote, “Sick of Grecian elegance and symmetry, or Gothick grandeur and magnificence, we must all seek the barbarious goût of the Chinese; and fat-headed pagods and shaking manderins bear the prizes from the finest works of antiquity.... You will wonder I should condemn the taste I have complied with but in trifles I shall always conform to the fashion.” As early as 1750 appeared William Halfpenny’s “New Designs for Chinese Temples ... Garden Seats,” etc. In 1753 in “The World” for March, Coventry satirizes the rage for Chinese furniture. In April there is a protest against the excessive use of Chinese bridges and buildings in gardens. In February, 1754, and March, 1755, are pleas for an “anti-Chinese society.” Chippendale’s “Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Directory” of 1753 and Sir William Chambers’ more influential “Book on Chinese Buildings,” 1757, did much to establish the taste for Chinese furnishings and for Chinese garden accessories, and also to render that taste more correct. [566] As illustrative see Isaac Oliver’s (1566–1617) portrait of Sir Philip Sidney who is represented as seated on a turf-covered rock, leaning against a broad tree-trunk, while in the rear is a formal arcaded garden with a distant row of trees sending up slender green spires against a sunset sky. (Reproduced in Gosse and Garnett, “An Illustrated History of English Literature.”) Compare also Oliver’s portrait of himself where is seen through the open window a broad river flowing at the base of castle-crowned crags. (Reproduced in Horace Walpole, “Anecdotes of Painting,” III, 176.)