A Sure Method of Improving Estates, by Plantations of Oak, Elm, Ash, Beech, and other Timber-Trees, Coppice-Woods, &c. Wherein is demonstrated, the Necessity and Advantages thereof; their Manner of raising, cultivating, felling, &c. in all Kinds of Soils, whereby Estates may be greatly improv'd. Offered to the Consideration of the Nobility and Gentry of Great-Britain. By Batty Langley of Twickenham.
London. Printed for Francis Clay. 1728. 1st Edition. Soft cover. 8vo, 19.5cm, the first edition, [x],xx,274p., 1 folding copper engraved plate, title printed in red and black, appendix, index, in full contemporary paneled calf boards, re-backed, black ruled raised bands, boards expertly restored at the edges, crushed crimson morocco label, a fine copy (snds) - An inscription of the former owner on front fly reads "Batty Langley, Shraf Saw Mills, Sheffield, 1889". A descendant of the author, perhaps? Fussell p27. Kress S1696. "Langley, Batty (bap. 1696, d. 1751), writer on architecture, was baptized at the parish church of Twickenham, Middlesex, on 14 September 1696, the son of Daniel and Elizabeth Langley. Having been trained in his father's profession as a gardener, he moved into surveying and landscape gardening and was one of the earliest popularizers of the new irregular style advocated by Stephen Switzer in his Ichnographia Rustica (1718). Langley published a few designs for irregular gardens in his Practical Geometry (1726), but his most important work on the subject was New Principles of Gardening (1728). This contained a variety of garden plans in what he called the arti-natural' style, replete with twisted serpentine paths or meanders that prefigure Hogarth's line of beauty' and signaled the emergence of the rococo style in England. Instead of pursuing the subject he knew best, however, he turned to architecture, which was more in demand but in which he had no practical experience and very limited ability. In 1729 Langley left Twickenham for London; there he had temporary premises at Palladio's Head near Exeter Change in the Strand, from which he published A Sure Guide to Builders (1729)". DNB. Item #26841
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