As Seamus Deane says in his introduction, Ciaran Murray here proposes "a new axis for the intellectual history of the 18th century," one which favors "altogether more irregular personalities." One that also favors uncommon means.
The author seeks to prove that "romanticism, in its immediate origins, is the aesthetic manifestation of the English revolution: a return to nature of which the landscape garden was both embodiment and symbol." He hence uses the 18th-century fashion of Asian garden design as a paradigm to illustrate a revolution that overturned taste and eventually society itself.
There were early signs. Francis Bacon liked a garden that "merged gradually into a natural park." John Evelyn in his diary expressed abhorrence for "formal projects" and much preferred "irregular ornaments." Joseph Addison thought the "artificial Rudeness" he had encountered in France and Italy "much more charming than Neatness and Elegancy" at home. William Temple thought the ordinary garden mere mathematics, but that the "Chinese garden" had a more subtle aesthetic.