Chapter C: H. Curtis (1)

TOPIARY

“If I do not defend the taste through thick and thin, I am prepared
to admit that much may be said in its favour, and it is far from my
intention to denounce it as either extravagant or foolish. It may be
true, as I believe it is, that the natural form of a tree is the
most beautiful possible for that particular tree, but it may happen
that we do not always want the most beautiful form, but one of our
own designing, and expressive of our ingenuity.”—_Shirley Hibberd._

Modern horticultural works, and especially those that are of the Dictionary type, do not as a rule take any notice whatever of Topiary, and those in which it is noticed deal with the subject with a brevity that is provoking, inasmuch as the student is little or none the wiser for the information given. “Johnson’s Gardeners’ Dictionary” is silent on the subject, and “Cassell’s Popular Gardening” may be searched in vain for any reference to it.

Mr G. Nicholson, F.L.S., V.M.H., in his celebrated “Dictionary of Gardening,” writes, under Topiary, “Although the absurd fashion of cutting and torturing trees into all sorts of fantastic shapes has, happily, almost passed away, yet, as the art of the Topiarist was for a considerable period regarded as the perfection of gardening, some mention of it is desirable here. When the fashion first became general in Britain, it is probably impossible to ascertain; but it reached its highest point in the sixteenth century, and held its ground until driven out of the field in the last (eighteenth) century by the natural or picturesque style. From an archæological point of view, it is not to be regretted that examples of Topiary work on a large scale still exist in several British gardens.” Turning to the very recent “Cassell’s Dictionary of Gardening” an all too concise account is found, but Mr W. P. Wright admits therein that Topiary “finds favour in many quarters to-day, although it only differs in degree and not in principle from the best examples of the Topiary art of the sixteenth century.”

A PIG CUT IN BOX AT COMPTON WYNYATES
]

Encyclopædias tell us very little of Topiary, and even that monumental work the “Encyclopædia Britannica” contains within its portly tomes no reference to so historically interesting a subject, unless it be curiously hidden away. And even that very useful work “Chambers’s Encyclopædia” passes over Topiary as though such an art never existed.

To students of Etymology the word Topiary itself is of considerable interest. For the present work it must suffice to say that it is derived from the Latin _topiarius_, pertaining to ornamental gardening. One dictionary definition or meaning of the word is “shaped by cutting or clipping” and horticulturists will agree that this definition is both clever and descriptive, for Topiary work consists in giving all kinds of more or less fanciful forms to trees, hedges, and arbours.

An interesting reference is made in the “History of Oxfordshire” to the use of the phrase “Topiary Work.” It is stated therein that “at Hampton Court, which was laid out about the middle of the reign of Henry VIII. by Cardinal Wolsey, there was a labyrinth, which still exists, covering only the quarter of an Acre of ground, yet its walks extending by their volutions over nearly half a mile. The walls also were covered with Rosemary. It was also long celebrated for its trees cut into grotesque forms, which Dr Plot admired and dignified with the name of Topiary Works.”

EARLY HISTORY

“Little low hedges, round like welts, with some pyramids, I like
well; and in some places fair columns, upon frames of carpenters’
work.”—_Bacon._

Just how far back in the history of gardens and gardening the art of Topiary was first practised there is no means of telling, but we know that gardening was first practised as a source of food supply, and that pleasure gardening did not occupy a very prominent position among the arts and sciences until civilisation had made considerable advances. Architecture had progressed in a wonderful manner and reached a high state of perfection long before horticulture assumed any great importance. To use Lord Bacon’s elegant words, “when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection.” This being so, it does not seem so very unreasonable to presume that the ancient builders of stately edifices would not in designing the surrounding gardens, plant trees and shrubs likely to mask, soften, or detract in any way from the architectural features created at so great an expenditure of time and money. They would the rather be likely to plant the more formal trees near the mansion, keeping the more graceful at a distance. The love of the formal among the Greeks may be evidenced from the writings of Theocritus, the pastoral poet of Greece, who compares the beauty of Helen to that of a Cypress. Following up this idea, a reason for keeping evergreen and other trees closely clipped is apparent. From the mere clipping of these subjects so as to keep them in harmony with the architecture, to the cutting of evergreens into fantastic shapes, is not a very wide transition, but whether the latter style was first adopted by the Grecian or the Roman gardeners does not appear.

A FARM-YARD FOWL AT COMPTON WYNYATES
]

A “LEATHERN BOTTEL” CUT IN BOX AT COMPTON WYNYATES
]

We do know, however, that the Romans practised Topiary freely and that they were also fine architects and builders. Even in the formation of sheltering groves of forest trees to provide welcome shade from the bright sunshine, the Romans adopted the formal quincunx method of disposing the trees. How much more, then, would they have been ready in that age of undeveloped taste in the design and planting of gardens to welcome a method of training and culture that enabled them not only to bring the garden up to the mansion without any resultant loss of architectural effect, but also permitted them to carry architecture into the garden and apply it in a more or less fantastic manner to the trees themselves.

On the authority of Martial we learn that the art of Topiary was first introduced to the Romans by Cneus Matius. Matius was the friend of Julius Cæsar and a particular favourite of Augustus, but whether he originated or borrowed the idea we know not. As a court favourite, however, he must have had ample opportunity for propagating this particular method of gardening, and doubtless then, as now, a fashion set at court was quickly followed by all who wished to be up-to-date. Good or bad, the taste spread, and even such a man of taste and letters as Pliny the Roman Consul considered it quite the proper thing to use Topiary work extensively in his famous Tuscan Villa. In a letter written by Pliny the Younger to his friend Apollinaris (Ep. v. 6) is a fine description of this garden. Melmoth’s translation pictures the front of the Portico as opening on to a sort of Terrace “embellished with various figures, and bounded with a Box Hedge, from which you descend by an easy slope, adorned with the representation of divers animals in Box, answering alternately to each other: this is surrounded by a walk enclosed with tonsile evergreens, shaped into a variety of forms. Behind it is the Gestatio, laid out in the form of a Circus, ornamented in the middle with Box, cut into numberless different figures, together with a plantation of shrubs prevented by the shears from running too high: the whole is fenced in by a Wall, covered with Box, rising in different ranges to the top.” After dealing with trees, roses, etc., he continues: “Having passed through these winding alleys, you enter a straight walk, which breaks out into a variety of others divided off by Box hedges. In one place you have a little meadow; in another the Box is cut into a thousand different forms; sometimes into letters expressing the name of the master; sometimes that of the artificer; whilst here and there little Obelisks rise intermixed alternately with fruit trees, when on a sudden you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent beauties of rural Nature, in the centre of which lies a spot surrounded with a knot of dwarf Plane Trees.”

It must not, however, be assumed that the Romans were entirely without appreciation of natural beauty and scenery. Far from it. But they loved lavish displays of art, and this also led them to use the gardens immediately surrounding their dwellings as a gallery in which to arrange their collections of sculptured trees. Roman poets and philosophers alike have left in their writings ample evidence that the beauties of nature were greatly admired by their countrymen, but at that period, when Rome was the mistress of the world, Italy was well supplied with natural sylvan scenery, and consequently, where it was not at all necessary to cultivate this particular form of gardening, the desire for contrast and display led to a very widespread adoption of the art of Topiary.

LEVENS GARDENS

THE BROAD WALK
]

From the gardens of the wealthy Romans the taste for clipped trees and general formality of design was carried throughout the Empire. Doubtless the monks who carried the arts of gardening throughout the European continent took with them and put into practice a taste for Topiary. In their wall-encircled monastic gardens dense hedges would rise both for the provision of shelter and to afford additional seclusion, and in a modest way these would in all probability be embellished by verdant sculptures.

But it was much later than this that Topiary commenced to be one of the chief features of garden design, for with the corruption of the ruling powers came the decline of the Roman Empire, and then followed the Dark Ages wherein the clash of arms, coupled with deep superstition, put gardening, as a pleasure, out of the question, so that except in some few cases it was only conducted at all because of the necessity of providing a meagre food supply. For long, long years war-like occupations were, either from choice or necessity, in the ascendant. But there presently came a time when peace again reigned and arts and commerce flourished; gardening revived, and in Italy where still remained many examples of the grandeur of Ancient Rome, it soon flourished in the establishments of the wealthy princes.

Although Charlemagne revived the art of gardening in France in the eighth century, he was not the kind of man to care much for garden display; he rather introduced useful fruits and encouraged the cultivation of herbs and fruits wholly from an economic point of view. So we are compelled by the lack of historical information to pass on to much later times ere we can again take up the tale of Topiary.

Loudon points out that the Roman style of gardening was lost in England when the Romans abandoned this country at the beginning of the fifth century, but he surmises that, following the revival of gardening in France by Charlemagne, William the Conqueror would probably re-introduce it at the end of the eleventh century. Some little progress was made in the reigns of Henry I. and Henry II., and it was the former who formed the Park at Woodstock (1123), probably the first of which there is any record. In accord with the prevailing taste, it contained a labyrinth, which appears to have chiefly constituted the Bower so intimately associated with the fate of Rosamund.

But during the twelfth century there was very little of either design or taste in the arrangement of gardens. These latter were of limited extent and, because of the feudal broils that enlivened the monotony of existence, they were for the most part attached only to the larger establishments, and in them were confined within the Glacis, or first line of defence, which was a necessity of the times. Beyond the inevitable moat, orchards arose, wherein the horticulturally inclined among the baron’s retainers could indulge their taste for ornamental gardening; a taste which consisted then, according to Johnson, and continued to a much later age, “in having plants cut into monstrous figures, labyrinths, etc.”

BOATS, PYRAMIDS AND PEACOCK
]

So common a part of garden design did labyrinths and mazes become at this period and during the thirteenth century, that we find scarcely a plan among the many given by De Cerceau in his “Architecture,” issued about 1250, in which either a round or a square one does not appear. This brings us into the thirteenth century, an age wherein the taste for architecture and gardening spread northwards and especially took a firm hold in Holland, where then, and later, the wealthy merchant princes liberally encouraged almost all branches of horticulture. Thus encouraged the florists entered heartily into the business of supplying their patrons, and, aided by a suitable climate and the various inventions born of necessity, they made Holland famous throughout the world for its commercial horticulture. So careful, however, were the Dutch of every inch of land, much of it reclaimed, that they laid out their gardens with mathematical precision and consequent primness, carrying this principle into the very trees and plants themselves.

It was in the early part of the fourteenth century that Pierre de Crescent, of Bologna, wrote his work on Agriculture, wherein he describes the kinds of pleasure gardens suitable for various classes of the community, and a suggestion of formality of design and the use of Topiary is made in his observation that a royal garden should contain a menagerie, and also an aviary placed among thickets, arbors and vines.

GOLDEN AGE OF TOPIARY

“I confess that I should never care to adorn my garden with
topiary or with carpet bedding; but I hope always to be cautious
in making declarations in respect of such matters, that I may not
appear to despise another man’s pleasures, or vainly desire to set
up a standard of my own in opposition to the delightful variety
that is ensured by the free exercise of individual taste and
fancy.”—_Shirley Hibberd._

“While perhaps not admiring these birds and beasts, we must, I
think, in a measure agree with Loudon, that many old-fashioned
gardens have suffered in losing the quaint forms of cropped yews,
which added a certain charm to them.”—_John Lowe, M.D._, in “Yew
Trees of Great Britain and Ireland.”

The dawn of the sixteenth century saw the commencement of what may be called the Golden Age of Topiary. It was also the beginning of an age of romance, of stirring deeds, of great discoveries; an age when men of genius were numerous, when history was being rapidly made, and when the art of gardening began to flourish freely. Though the times were stirring ones and there was not always “peace within our borders,” commerce grew and wealth increased, so that gardening became more and more popular and steadily grew more and more elaborate in design. To the existing style were added the extravagances of the French and the formalities of the Dutch schools, but these things did not all come to pass at once.

THE HARLINGTON YEW

(_As clipped 1729–1790_)
]

It is most probable that the Old and Formal English Gardens as we know or imagine them, were the development of at least two hundred years, and probably the type had not been reached until the reign of Charles II., notwithstanding such gardens are frequently alluded to as Elizabethan. This idea seems the more reasonable after a perusal of Withington’s “Elizabethan England,” for though the Editor gives us Harrison’s description of Gardens and Orchards, Woods and Marshes, Parks and Warrens, there is never a word that can be construed into a reference to Topiary, not even in his account of “the palaces belonging to the prince.”

Nevertheless, quaint gardens were formed before the time of Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Drake, Raleigh, and Gerard. A curious conceit in these old-time gardens was the formation of a mound in the pleasure grounds, where none previously existed, and this seems to have been quite the correct thing in the way of garden design even as late as Evelyn’s day, for we learn that he arranged for a “mountaine” in the family gardens at Wotton, in Surry. Leland, in his “Itinerary” (1540), refers to this feature in garden design in connection with the garden at Wrexhill Castle, near Howden, in Yorkshire. He says: “The Gardens within the mote, and the Orchards without were exceeding fair. And yn the Orchardes were mounts, opere topiorii, writhen about with degrees like the turnings in cokil shelles, to come to the top without payn.”

That Topiary had already a considerable hold upon the garden-loving public at this early date cannot be doubted. Very few of these ancient gardens remain unaltered at the present time, but in that most interesting book, “A history of Gardening in England,” the Hon. Alicia Amherst gives the plans of Sir Henry Dryden’s gardens at Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, which show that clipped yews are prominent features, as two rows of four trees each line one of the approaches, and these trees have a diameter of about ten feet. The author states that this garden, originally made in 1550, was altered in 1708, “and has defied the changes of fashion for nearly two centuries.”

Gerard (1545–1607), the famous old Herbalist who was gardener to Lord Burghley in the reign of Elizabeth, does not enlighten us as to the use of clipped trees, but Parkinson, another and equally famous Herbalist, who was born in 1567 and died about 1640, does give us a little information on the subject. Parkinson was Apothecary to James I., and Charles II. made him Botanicus Regius Primarius; he therefore had the advantage of exceptional opportunities for studying the plants of his time and their uses. Indeed some of the quaintest things ever printed are the accounts of the “Virtues” of the several parts of the plants described by Parkinson and by Gerard. Pointing out that the yew was largely used both for “shadow and an ornament,” Parkinson seems to regret that the privet had not received proper attention at the hands of Topiarists simply because of its widespread use as a hedge plant, and he advocates its further employment by remarking that “to make hedges or arbours in gardens ... it is so apt that no other can be like unto it, to be cut, lead, and drawn into what forme one will, either of beasts, birds, or men armed or otherwise.”

Because of its comparatively slow rate of growth the yew has been the subject usually employed by topiarists, while box is a good second in point of popularity. Both these trees or shrubs have the additional merit of longevity. Wordsworth points out both the slow growth and longevity of the yew in his lines:—

“There is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,
Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched
To Scotland’s heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary tree!—a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed.”

PEACOCKS, TABLES, SPIRALS AND BOATS IN YEW AND BOX AT J. CHEAL AND
SONS, CRAWLEY
]

Heslington, near York, still boasts an ancient Topiary garden, where all the clipped trees are of yew. This, as well as the clipped hedges of Rockingham, and the hedges and clipped trees at Erbistock, date, according to the Hon. Alicia Amherst, from about 1560. Other trees and shrubs were also used by the tonsile artists, and even Rosemary was not omitted. Barnaby Googe (about 1578) observed that the women folk planted it and trimmed it into shapes “as in the fashion of a cart, a peacock, or such things as they fancy.”

William Harrison, Rector of Radwinter, and Canon of Windsor, who wrote “A Description of England” contained in “Holinshed’s Chronicles,” has already been referred to. He was a most observant man and one who in his own picturesque language “had an especiall eye unto the truth of things”; from 1586 to 1593 he was Canon of Windsor, and therefore anything he has to say about gardens is of unusual interest. His keen patriotism shines brightly through all his writings, and his high opinion of his own land is not in any way reduced when he comes to discourse upon gardens, for he writes: “I am persuaded that, albeit the gardens of the Hesperides were in times past so greatly accounted of, because of their delicacy, yet, if it were possible to have such an equal judge as by certain knowledge of both were able to pronounce upon them, I doubt not but he would give the prize unto the gardens of our days, and generally over all Europe, in comparison of those times wherein the old exceeded.”

Early in the succeeding century, however, we come upon some more positive evidence of the use of Topiary work. Lawson, in 1618, shows more clearly that Topiary had become an important branch of the art of gardening, and that the designs carried out by some of the artists were, to say the least of it, remarkable. As indicative of the progress already made, he states: “Your gardener can frame your lesser wood to the shape of men armed in the field, ready to give battell: or swift-running Grey Hounds to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare. This kind of hunting shall not waste your corne, nor much your coyne.”

In the reign of Charles II. (1669–1685), garden design and garden ornamentation reached a degree of extravagance not previously attempted and not subsequently repeated. This was the time when Le Notre rose to be the most famous gardener in Europe, a time when Louis XI. was King of France (1643–1715). During this period there was a great striving after effect on the part of all possessed of ample means, while both aristocrat and plebeian desired and loved to be dazzled by brilliance or enchanted by the novel and singular. From Johnson we learn that during a residence at the court of France, Charles II. became enamoured of the French style of ornamental gardening introduced by Le Notre. This style differed chiefly from that already in vogue in its magnificence; everything was carried out more elaborately and regardless of expense. “The alleys were lengthened, but still there were alleys, jets d’eau, mazes, parterres and statues, clipt trees and mathematically formed borders as of yore.” It is said that the extravagance in garden ornamentation at Versailles was designed and carried into effect by Le Notre at a cost of two hundred million francs, or over £8,250,000. The great features were huge marble-edged water-basins, elaborate fountains, an abundance of masonry for the terraces, and clipped yew and box, making a sum total described at a much later date by Mr Wm. Robinson, in his “Parks and Gardens of Paris” as “the deadly formalism of Versailles.”

BEECH HEDGE AND BOWLING-GREEN AT LEVENS
]

Charles II. encouraged elaborate garden design, and, with it, Topiary; it was under his orders that Le Notre himself laid out the semi-circular garden at Hampton Court. Gibson, who made a tour of London gardens in the reign of the “Merry Monarch,” shows by his writings that the chief features of these establishments were the terrace walks, evergreen hedges, “shorn shrubs in boxes,” and orange and myrtle trees.

In the earlier part of the seventeenth century the gardens of Bilton and Chilham were designed, with an accompaniment of clipped trees, while later in the century Sir William Temple, who negotiated the triple alliance between England, Sweden, and the Netherlands, laid out a Dutch garden at Moor Park. He had a large affection for the Dutch style of gardening, but was nevertheless quick to see that big formal gardens and their elaborate designs and masonry cost more to maintain in prim order than many who possessed them could well afford. It was also about this time that the now famous Topiary garden at Levens Hall, in Westmoreland, was laid out by Beaumont, one of Le Notre’s disciples. According to the inscription under his portrait at Levens Hall, Beaumont was “Gardener to James II. and Colonel James Grahme. He laid out the gardens at Hampton Court and at Levens.” It was probably in some alteration of the Hampton Court gardens that Beaumont took part.

Topiary gardening reached its height during the reign of William and Mary (1689–1702). William III., Prince of Orange, brought with him a taste for clipped yews, and also for elaborately designed iron gates and railings. He accentuated the prevailing taste. Turning again to Johnson, we find garden design “was now rendered still more opposed to nature by the heavy additions of crowded hedges of Box, Yew, etc., which, however, by rendering the style still more ridiculous, perhaps hastened the introduction of a more natural taste which burst forth later.” Some further idea of the prevalence of clipped trees is obtained from Celia Fiennes, who, in her chronicles of a journey “Through England on a Side Saddle in the time of William and Mary,” makes frequent reference to alleys of clipped trees and to yew and cypress cut into “severall forms.” William III. commenced the Kensington Gardens, and to alter a disfiguring gravel pit he employed the services of those famous Brompton nurserymen, London and Wise. In our time such a spot would in all probability be converted into a dell, with water and rock gardens, but London and Wise erected a mimic fortification, making the bastions and counterscarps of clipped yew and variegated holly. That this production was “long an object of wonder” can be easily understood, though whether it was one for “admiration” is open to question, notwithstanding that it had many admirers and was known as the “Siege of Troy.”

Vegetable sculpture seems now to have reached its limit of popularity and design. Hazlitt, in his “Gleanings in old Garden Literature,” hits off the situation admirably when he writes: “But it was to the Hollanders that London and his partner were indebted for that preposterous plan of deforming Nature by making her statuesque, and reducing her irregular and luxuriant lines to a dead and prosaic level through the medium of the shears. Gods, animals, and other objects were no longer carved out of stone; but the trees, shrubs and hedges were made to do double service as a body of verdure and a sculpture gallery.”

EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VIEW OF LORD HAMILTON’S GROUNDS NEAR THE
THAMES
]

Evelyn, the celebrated diarist, who lived throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century, and just over five years of the eighteenth, strongly censured the prevalent method of clipping fruit trees into regular form, as well he might, but he claimed to be the first to bring the yew into fashion for hedges, declaring it to be “as well for a defence as for a succedaneum to cypress, whether in hedges or pyramids, conic spires, bowls or what other shapes.” And further he adds, “I do again name the yew, for hedges, preferably for beauty and a stiff defence, to any plant I have ever seen.” Evelyn’s residence from 1652 to 1694 was Sayes Court, Deptford, a home made famous to students of history because of its occupation by Peter the Great, of Russia, in 1698, to whom it was sub-let by Admiral Benbow. Peter the Great did not take the same care of the garden as Evelyn had taken, and his destruction, in part at least, of a famous holly hedge, caused the owner to regard the Russian Czar as a “right nasty tenant.” An old writer informs us, with reference to Sayes Court, that Evelyn had “a pleasant villa at Deptford, a fine garden for walks and hedges, and a pretty little greenhouse with an indifferent stock in it. He has four large round philareas, smooth clipped, raised on a single stalk from the ground, a fashion now much used. Part of his garden is very woody and shady for walking; but not being walled, he has little of the best fruits.”

The beginning of the end was not now far to seek. One of our greatest modern landscape gardeners, Mr H. E. Milner, has written: “Precise designs of clipped box and yew are not out of place, if the building has a character that is consonant with such an accompaniment.” Not satisfied with a few clipped trees in suitable positions, or with a part of the garden devoted to examples of Topiary, owners and gardeners alike, in the times I have briefly reviewed, seemed to have laboured to fill their gardens with illustrations of geometric figures, in box or yew; with the quaintest patterns and weirdest shapes, caricaturing birds and beasts, and imitating architecture and things of common use. Distorted vegetation met the eye everywhere, and there was little of the natural and beautiful to relieve the general monotony. It was the excessive use of Topiary that led to its own downfall and caused Batty Langley to ask, “Is there anything more shocking than a stiff, regular garden?”

CRUSADE AGAINST TOPIARY

“The Dutch Garden in front of Hampton Court Palace is
unobjectionable, because it is in character with that part of the
building and as a royal garden it ought to remain as it is, were it
only to serve as an illustration of the style of gardening in the
time of William and Mary.”—_Charles M‘Intosh._

Whenever a fashion runs to extremes its end is not far to seek. On the one hand, a fashion becomes too general for those who have a taste for novelty, and especially for those who can afford at almost any cost to have something not available to the general public.

On the other hand, a fashion carried to excess becomes inconvenient and ridiculous, therefore it at once becomes offensive to those who are regarded as having good taste. And so it came about that when Topiary work had spread itself over all the gardens of the time and could hardly go further either in extent or design, there came the inevitable reaction. The same sort of thing has happened even in quite modern times.

One need not be very old to have seen the famous trained specimen plants that used to grace the highly successful exhibitions at the Royal Botanic Society’s gardens, at the Crystal Palace, and elsewhere. Yet these giants have passed away, and in their places we have larger stocks of smaller and more easily grown subjects—in other words, the fashion has changed. “Bedding-out” reached such a height of fashionable popularity that it threatened to exclude the beautiful hardy perennial flowers from many a garden; it taxed the patience and ingenuity of the gardener and the purse of the employer almost to breaking point—it passed from reasonableness to absurdity. Then came a new order of things; perennials have been brought back and improved; hardy flowers are the fashion.

When Topiary threatened to exclude all else from the garden there arose several apostles of freedom, and these conducted a crusade against the art. Among those whose writings are more or less regarded in these days mention may be made of three—Bacon, Addison, and Pope.

The former early raised a protest, for in the times of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, when Topiary was the prevailing taste if not the general fashion, he wrote, “I for my part do not like images cut in juniper or other garden stuff; they be for children.” It was Bacon also who said: “As for the making of knots or figures that they may lie under the windows of the house on that side which the garden stands, they be but toys; you may see as good sights many times in tarts.” But, alas, Bacon was curiously inconsistent. He would away with Topiary, but he puts forward as the best type of a garden one that is square, enclosed in an arched hedge, “with a turret over every arch, and a cage of birds in each turret, and over every space between the arches some other little figure with broad plates of round coloured glass, gilt, for the sun to play on.” Those who so aptly quote Bacon when they pour out the vials of their wrath upon Topiary through the medium of the public press, may also be further reminded that Bacon would have in his ideal garden a fountain “embellished with coloured glass and such things of lustre.”

MUNTHAM COURT, SUSSEX
]

But however much we may chuckle over the inconsistencies of Bacon it must be remembered that the age in which he lived (1561–1626) was remarkable rather for ostentatious display than for good taste,—as we count good taste,—and consequently his horticultural purview was limited and obscured. As the poet Mason puts it:—

“The age of tourney triumphs, and quaint masques,
Glar’d with fantastic pageantry, which dimm’d
The sober eye of truth, and dazzled ev’n
The sage himself; witness the high arch’d hedge,
In pillar’d state by carpentry upborne,
With coloured mirrors deck’d, and prison’d birds.”

Bacon was in many things far in advance of the Tudor times in which he lived, so far indeed, in respect of our present subject, that no outstanding protest against Topiary appears to have been made by those who endeavoured to promote sound public taste, until nearly another century had elapsed. Then the literary genius of Addison was directed against the evils and extravagances of his age.

ADDISON AND POPE

“Addison,
Thou polished sage, or shall I call thee bard,
I see thee come: around thy temples play
The lambent flames of humour, bright’ning mild
Thy judgment into smiles; gracious thou com’st
With Satire at thy side, who checks her frown,
But not her secret sting.”—_Mason._

“With bolder rage
Pope next advances; his indignant arm
Waves the poetic brand o’er Timon’s shades,
And lights them to destruction; the fierce blaze
Sweeps through each kindred vista, groves to groves
Nod their fraternal farewell and expire.”—_Mason._

Although Addison and Pope were contemporaries it was the former who led the crusade against formal gardening in general and the art of Topiary in particular. Less satirical than his one-time friend, Addison nevertheless pointed out with remarkable clearness that the gardens of the early part of the eighteenth century were not nearly so beautiful as they might have been, owing to the excessive use of clipped trees and the extreme care which the gardeners of that time took to secure the utmost regularity in their planting and uniformity in design.

YEW TREE WITH BIRD
]

Addison was counted one of the most brilliant of the Essayists of his time, and among the numerous contributions made by him to the _Spectator_ is a lengthy one “On the Pleasures of the Imagination.” This took the form of eleven Papers, or epistles, published in regular order from June 21, to July 3, 1712. It is in the fourth paper that he deals more particularly with gardens and therein he shows that the works of nature are more pleasant to the imagination than are those of art, and that the works of art are most pleasing the more closely they resemble those of nature. He does not openly denounce Topiary and other formal gardening, but with subtle skill contrasts it with a picture of a more natural style, and does so in a manner that enforces the beauty of the latter and indicates the origin of that taste in landscape gardening which many a gardener of the nineteenth century thought was peculiarly his own.

“We have observed,” says Addison, “that there is generally in nature something more grand and august than what we meet with in the curiosities of art. When, therefore, we see this imitated in any measure, it gives us a nobler and more exalted kind of pleasure than what we receive from the nicer and more accurate productions of art. On this account our English gardens are not so entertaining to the fancy as those in France and Italy, where we see a large extent of ground covered over with an agreeable mixture of garden and forest, which represent everywhere an artificial rudeness, much more charming than that neatness and elegancy which we meet with in those of our own country. It might indeed be of ill consequence to the public, as well as unprofitable to private persons, to alienate so much ground from pasturage and the plough, in many parts of a country that is so well peopled, and cultivated to a far greater advantage. But why may not a whole estate be thrown into a kind of garden by frequent plantations, that may turn as much to the profit as the pleasure of the owner? A marsh overgrown with willows, or a mountain shaded with oaks, are not only more beautiful, but more beneficial, than when they lie bare and unadorned. Fields of corn make a pleasant prospect; and if the walks were a little taken care of that lie between them, if the natural embroidery of the meadows were helped and improved by some small additions of art and the several rows of edges set off by trees and flowers that the soil was capable of receiving, a man might make a pretty landscape of his own possessions.”

Continuing, the Essayist adds: “Writers who have given us an account of China tell us the inhabitants of that country laugh at the plantations of our Europeans, which are laid out by the rule and line; because they say, anyone may place trees in equal rows and uniform figures. They choose rather to show a genius in works of this nature, and therefore always conceal the art by which they direct themselves. They have a word, it seems, in their language, by which they express the particular beauty of a plantation that thus strikes the imagination at first sight, without discovering what it is that has so agreeable an effect. Our British gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humouring nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks of the scissors upon every plant and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my opinion, but for my own part, I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and diffusion of boughs and branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure; and cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the most finished parterre. But, as our great modellers of gardens have their magazines of plants to dispose of, it is very natural for them to tear up all the beautiful plantations of fruit trees, and contrive a plan that may most turn to their own profit, in taking off their evergreens, and the like movable plants, with which their shops are plentifully stocked.”

It will be perfectly obvious that when Addison found it necessary to draw comparisons between a free and natural style of gardening, and the artificial methods carried out with mathematical precision in his time, to the distinct advantage of the former system, that geometric gardening, coupled with the excessive use of Topiary work, had made English gardens dreadfully monotonous. Essays were fashionable in the early years of the eighteenth century, and, remembering that their publication was extended over a considerable period, it must be presumed that they were freely read and discussed, and thus exerted a very considerable influence upon public opinion, just as a well thought out and carefully written leading article does in our own time. We may take it, then, that the gardeners of his time were considerably impressed by Addison’s quiet denunciation of the existing style, and no doubt a revolution had already commenced in the minds, if not in the gardens, of the wealthy, when, a little more than a year later, Pope published in the _Guardian_ (Tuesday, September 29, 1713), his famous essay on “Verdant Sculpture.”

Not so subtle in his irony nor so engaging in his literary style as Addison, Pope was however the more forcibly satirical, maliciously spiteful, and elfishly humorous. His keen wit seized upon the proper psychological moment for following up Addison’s comparatively mild exposure with an attack that did as much as, or more than, anything else to bring about that rapid decline of Topiarian art that quickly followed. Pope had evidently the genius of a great soldier, who delivers his fiercest attack when the enemy is wavering.

As Pope’s essay is not by any means well known, neither is it especially easy of access, I need not apologise for quoting freely from it. Pope, however, believed with Dryden that satire was—

“The boldest way, if not the best,
To tell men freely of their foulest faults,
To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts,”

and in the course of his essay he allowed his sarcastic mockery to find expression here and there in a manner common enough in his time but which would be likely to offend the ears of modern polite folk, consequently I have in a few instances forestalled the editorial blue-pencil.

“I lately,” writes Pope, “took a particular friend of mine to my house in the country, not without some apprehension that it could afford little entertainment to a man of his polite taste, particularly in architecture and gardening, who had so long been conversant with all that is beautiful and great in either. But it was a pleasant surprise to me, to hear him often declare, he had found in my little retirement that beauty which he always thought wanting in most of the celebrated seats, or, if you will, villas, of the nation. This he described to me in those verses, with which Martial begins one of his epigrams:

“‘Our friend Faustinus’ country seat I’ve seen:
No myrtles, placed in rows, and idly green,
No widow’d plantain, nor clipp’d box-tree, there
The useless soil unprofitably share;
But simple nature’s hand, with nobler grace,
Diffuses artless beauties o’er the place.’

“There is certainly something in the amiable simplicity of unadorned nature, that spreads over the mind a more noble sort of tranquillity, and a loftier sensation of pleasure, than can be raised from the nicer scenes of art.”

After a reference to Homer’s account of the Garden of Alcinous, and Sir William Temple’s remarks upon it, Pope proceeds: “How contrary to this simplicity is the modern practice of gardening! We seem to make it our study to recede from Nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most regular and formal shapes, but even in monstrous attempts beyond the reach of the art itself. We run into sculpture, and are yet better pleased to have our trees in the most awkward figures of men and animals, than in the most regular of their own.

CROWN GARDEN, MUNTHAM COURT, SUSSEX
]

“‘Here interwoven branches form a wall,
And from the living fence green turrets rise;
There ships of myrtle sail in seas of box;
A green encampment yonder meets the eye,
And loaded citrons bearing shields and spears.’

“I believe it is no wrong observation, that persons of genius, and those who are most capable of Art, are always most fond of Nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. On the contrary, people of the common level of understanding are principally delighted with the little niceties and fantastical operations of Art, and constantly think that finest which is the least natural. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of the Guildhall. I know an eminent cook, who beautified his country seat with a coronation dinner in greens; where you see the champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual youth at the other.”

“For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of this curious taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of greens to be disposed of by an eminent town gardener, who has lately applied to me upon this head. He represents, that for the advancement of a polite sort of ornament in the villas and gardens adjacent to this great city, and in order to distinguish those places from the mere barbarous countries of gross Nature, the world stands much in need of a virtuoso gardener who has a turn to sculpture, and is thereby capable of improving upon the ancients of his profession in the imagery of evergreens. My correspondent is arrived to such perfection, that he cuts family-pieces of men, women, or children. Any ladies that please may have their own effigies in myrtle, or their husband’s in horn-beam. He is a puritan wag, and never fails when he shows his garden, to repeat that passage in the Psalms, “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine, and thy children as olive-branches round thy table.” I shall proceed to his catalogue, as he sent it for my recommendation.

“Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in the great storm: Eve and the serpent very flourishing.”

“The tower of Babel, not yet finished.”

“St George in box; his arm scarce long enough, but will be in condition to stick the dragon by next April.”

“A green dragon of the same, with a tail of ground-ivy for the present. _N.B._ These two not to be sold separately.”

“Edward the Black Prince in cypress.”

“A laurestine bear in blossom, with a juniper hunter in berries.”

“A pair of giants, stunted, to be sold cheap.”

“A Queen Elizabeth in phylyrea, a little inclining to the green sickness, but of full growth.”

“A topping Ben Jonson in laurel.”

“Divers eminent modern poets in bays, somewhat blighted, to be disposed of, a pennyworth.”

“A quickset hog, shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week in rainy weather.”

“A lavender pig, with sage growing in his belly.”

“Noah’s ark in holly, standing on the mount; the ribs a little damaged for want of water.”

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S CROWN AND JUG, ELVASTON CASTLE
]

Such was the crusade against Topiary; in its train came swift destruction. Bridgeman and Kent were the landscape gardeners who, influenced by the writings of their time and desirous of instituting a new order of things, brought about the great change in garden design. They not only cleared away the sculptured trees but destroyed splendid, close hedges as well, throwing open to all eyes, and to all the winds, gardens that had hitherto been delightfully enclosed and secluded. Of Bridgeman there is very little information forthcoming, but Loudon tells us “He banished verdant sculpture and introduced morsels of a forest appearance in the gardens at Richmond.” Kent was a versatile Yorkshireman, who was successively painter, architect and landscape gardener; Claremont, Esher, laid out about 1725–1735, was one of his designs. He was the friend of Lord Burlington and, even more than Bridgeman, he carried into effect the ideas of Pope. The great successor to Kent was Brown, who was head gardener at Stowe till 1750, and subsequently, after being employed by the Duke of Grafton, he was head gardener at Hampton Court and Windsor. At this time he became very much in request as a landscape gardener, and so continued well on towards the end of the eighteenth century. His sympathy with Topiary may be gathered from the remark made by Sir Wm. Chambers in 1772, that “unless the mania were not checked, in a few years longer there would not be found three trees in a line from Land’s End to the Tweed.” In the course of about fifty years, from 1740 to 1790, the gardens of England, with a few exceptions, were completely altered, and the style that had been in vogue for full one hundred and fifty years was almost wholly obliterated. Later designers added many improvements, and a more graceful style succeeded that of Kent and Brown, but Topiary as a part of garden design was practically non-existent for about a hundred years. Then commenced the modern revival of the Art.

REVIVAL OF THE ART

“There is a tendency to restore some of the screens which formed so
characteristic a feature of the Dutch style, with a view to obtain a
greater degree of privacy, and more shelter for both visitors and
plants. With this restoration of sheltering hedges and verdant belts
has evidently come a desire for examples of Topiary art, and already
there are several modern gardens where they are to be found firmly
established.”—_George Gordon, V.M.H._

“Topiary Work fell into disrepute in the nineteenth century, owing
to the persistence with which the more natural styles of gardening
came to the front, but even now this phase of ‘gardening’ exercises
a considerable fascination upon a large section of the public;
witness the interest excited of late years by the exhibits of
trimmed trees which have appeared at the London shows.”—_Walter P.
Wright._

Notwithstanding the wonderful alteration and improvement that have taken place in British gardens since Kent began to make a clearance of Topiary work, several notable collections survived the general slaughter and these are to-day among the most interesting of the varied forms of gardening seen in the country. The gardens at Levens Hall and at Elvaston Castle may be especially particularised in this connection, but for the moment we will deal with the revival rather than the survival of the art.

During the past twenty years the practice of including at least a few specimens of clipped trees in any new garden of pretensions has been steadily growing, and within the last ten years several Topiary gardens of considerable extent have been laid out and planted. These are chiefly in the large establishments of the wealthy patrons of horticulture, and they are so situated that they are in harmony with formal surroundings, or disposed where they form a distinct item of horticultural interest and do not in any way mar the more natural beauties of adjacent subjects.

HENS, DUCKS, PEACOCKS, ETC., IN BOX AND YEW AT J. CHEAL AND SONS,
CRAWLEY
]

Precisely why there has been a revival of this old art I am not prepared to say. It must suffice that there is such a revival, and a very distinct one, as any one who visits gardens and exhibitions and nurseries frequently will readily discover. At the leading London and provincial exhibitions two old established firms of nurserymen have frequently and extensively exhibited examples of Topiary; these are Messrs Wm. Cutbush & Son, Highgate, N., and Messrs J. Cheal & Sons, Crawley, Sussex; and it may be safely asserted that if there were no taste or demand for clipped trees the respective proprietors would not incur the necessarily heavy expense of displaying this particular line of goods.

In the revival of Topiary in England no single person has taken a deeper interest than Mr Herbert J. Cutbush, and though his interest is confessedly a business one it is none the less worthy of mention. For many years Mr H. J. Cutbush has frequently visited Holland and he has travelled through and through the little country until he knows it, horticulturally, far better than even many eminent Dutch nurserymen do. He discovered that some of the best trained and best furnished specimens of sculptured yew and box were to be found in the farmhouse gardens, in small, almost unknown villages, far from the usual routes of tourists and business-men, and this led to still further explorations. During the first years of the revival Mr H. J. Cutbush crossed over to Holland nearly every week end making himself acquainted with the farmers, and with the few growers who regularly supplied the Dutch nursery trade. He got to know where examples were being steadily developed, securing options on these and purchasing all that were well advanced. As already hinted, the Dutch “Boomkmeckers,” or nurserymen who cultivate clipped trees as a special business, are by no means a numerous class, they chiefly reside in the Boskoop district.

Churches of box and peacocks of yew are not imported without the expenditure of a good deal of time and money, and obviously there is some risk in removing large examples. One big tree that for sixty years had been the chief ornament of a Dutch blacksmith’s garden was only purchased after a whole day spent in persuasion and the consumption of much Schiedam, and after the purchase was made another week was spent in lifting and packing and removing the tree to the London steamer.