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,