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.”