The Apothecaries’ Garden: A New History of Chelsea Physic Garden by Sue Minter (review)

80 den and a critique, not only of ‘‘artificial’’ French gardens but of many contemporary garden practices: mixing Chinese, Moorish, and Gothic styles; ignoring the contours and character of the landscape; building ostentatious structures too big for their context and function. Throughout he advocates simple, expressive gardens , ‘‘free of empty ornamentations and trivial affectations,’’ and ‘‘naturalness improved by a restrained art.’’ While he acknowledges that ‘‘princes’’ are necessary to build the more elaborate gardens, he often sounds as if he and his readers would be happy with a carefullydesigned and tended quarter acre. Unlike many other eighteenth-century garden theorists, Hirschfeld is remarkably eclectic and non-dogmatic: ‘‘In matters that theory has not yet exactly determined , perhaps cannot determine, people follow established linguistic practice ; and we understand and are understood , without tying ourselves to the precision of logic and the stubbornness of an arbitrary terminology.’’ He was a professor of philosophy and aesthetics at the University at Kiel, but also the director of a fruit tree nursery. His publishedwork reflects this unusual marriage of the theoretical and the pragmatic. He criticizes landscape theorists like Whately for elevating ‘‘pure metaphysics’’ over ‘‘feeling ,’’ as well as for giving very little ‘‘practical guidance.’’ He describes (or borrows descriptions of) existing gardens , but also gives advice for creating new ones that are serene, functional, and always in proportion. Throughout the book Hirschfeld stresses above all the emotional journey ofobserversthroughalandscape.(AsMs. Parshall points out in her Introduction, in eighteenth-century German Bewegung could mean both motion and emotion.) Eventually, in Volume IV, Hirschfeld defines the garden as ‘‘a place that art has re-formed in order to strengthen its natural affective power.’’He insists throughout that the ‘‘garden artist’’ should not raze hills or chop down old, noble trees, but rather work with the materials nature hasprovided; as Hirschfeldsays,‘‘hemust never dare to take a single step without observing nature exactly.’’ Hirschfeld ’s affective aestheticsrequirethatgarden design should shape and embellish a landscape, but only to enhance its effect on the observer. Ms. Parshall’s abridgment of Hirschfeld ’s five-volume treatise is both intelligent and thoughtful. She has also supplied helpful notes, showing what Hirschfeld borrowed even as she summarizes the longer extracts. (She does seem to have missed the important references to Winckelmann, particularly the echo of his ‘‘noble simplicity and quiet grandeur’’ in the discussion of classical temples.) She includes many of the illustrations , particularly the etchings by Brandt and Schuricht that Hirschfeld commissioned expressly for his volumes. Her translation is always clear and sometimes inspired, though she makes a few strange choices: for example, she often translates ‘‘ländlich’’ as ‘‘pastoral,’’rather than the more straightforward and accurate ‘‘rural.’’But this edition was clearly a labor of love—and a gift to the many other lovers of landscape history and design . Elizabeth Wanning Harries Smith College SUE MINTER. The Apothecaries’Garden: A New History of Chelsea Physic Garden . Stroud: Sutton, 2001. Pp. xiv ⫹ 211. $39.95. From the dedication to the closing 81 pages of Ms. Minter’s breezy book, the looming genius of southwest London’s botanical garden is Sir Hans Sloane. His benevolent role in stabilizing the Apothecaries ’ Garden is well known and documented : in 1722 he leased the land to the Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year in perpetuity on condition the societycarried out educational research to identify ‘‘good and usefull plants.’’ Although his legacy continually comes under threat, the Garden still functions close to his spirit. Mainly a story of efforts to cultivate and study exotics, the evolution of the Garden shows the introspective work of horticulture against a backdrop of colonialism , high-minded science, and repeated attempts to create classification systems. A viable means of transporting seeds and live cuttings was invented by the Garden’s Nathaniel BagshawWard— a glazed case that protected tea seeds from Indian Ocean conditions and thus allowedBritaintoloosentheChinesegrip on the tea trade. If this is a bright spot for the British merchant in the Garden’s history , a perpetual shadow on the Garden’s potential has been cast by crumbling facilities , pollution, and the budget. The blurb promises to evoke the‘‘magic ’’of the Chelsea Physic Garden, yet the word is dislocated...