ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the garden precedents that were influential in formulating Walpole's views on landscape, with reference to The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening, his Correspondence, and other unpublished material. In order to ascertain Walpole's opinion on landscapes and imagination it is necessary to quote from his private correspondence and journal entries as well as his public pronouncements. Walpole linguistically links the poet to his garden, and its wanton destruction was deeply embedded in Walpole's memory. It is important to note the mental connections Walpole made between the gallery and Pope's garden, both of which he viewed as sacrosanct and as influential on the internal layout and landscape at Strawberry Hill. The garden designs of Kent and Pope could be described as being on the cusp between the 'poetic' garden and later picturesque garden theory, where the garden was composed to resemble a painted scene.
