The rather curious unicursal maze of three meanders shown in [Fig. 114] is usually, e.g., in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," attributed to London and Wise, and certainly it appears in a book which was issued by them in 1706 under the title of "The Solitary Gardiner" (subsequently published by Joseph Carpenter as "The Retir'd Gardner"), but this work is mainly a translation from an earlier French book, "Le Jardinier Solitaire," by Louis Liger of Auxerre, in which also the figure appears. Various other horticultural writers of the period make use of the same design.
Fig. 114.—Labyrinth Design by L. Liger (circ. 1700).
"A Labyrinth," says the text, "is a Place cut into several Windings, set off with Horn-beam, to divide them from one another.... The most valuable Labyrinths are always those that wind most, as that of Versailles, the contrivance of which has been wonderfully lik'd by all that have seen it" (chacun à son goût!). "The Palisades, of which Labyrinths ought to be compos'd, should be ten, twelve, or fifteen foot high; some there are that are no higher than one can lean on, but those are not the finest. The Walls of a Labyrinth ought to be kept roll'd, and the Horn-beams in them shear'd, in the shape of Half-moons."
As for the allurements of the much-winding labyrinths of the Versailles type the reader will no doubt form his own opinion. Their popularity at that time is demonstrated by the great number of designs of this nature which we find in such books as, for example, those of Batty Langley, a few of whose plans we reproduce ([Figs. 115] and [116]).
An example of the "block" type of labyrinth was that at Trinity College, Oxford, of which a view is seen in an early eighteenth-century engraving ([Fig. 117]), from the "Oxonia depicta" of W. Williams. It was destroyed in 1813. Similar arrangements appear in several of the engravings of country seats, e.g., those of Belvoir Castle, Boughton, and Exton Park, in J. Kip's "Britannia Illustrata," 1724. In this work also appear mazes of the more familiar type, as, for example, in the engravings of Badminton and Wrest Park ([Fig. 118]).
The idea of Batty Langley and of the Versailles artist seems to have been not so much that of puzzling the visitor as of providing an entertaining and diversified promenade, but with many maze-architects the object was to provide as much bewilderment as the space available permitted. This is frankly avowed by Stephen Switzer in his somewhat tedious "Ichnographia Rustica," published in 1742. He gives the design shown in [Fig. 119], and describes it as "a labyrinth of single hedges or banks, after the ancient manner."
Fig. 117. Gardens of Trinity College, Oxford, with Labyrinth. (W. Williams, 1732).
He speaks of the object of a labyrinth as being to provide "an intricate and difficult Labour to find out the Centre, and to be (as the Vulgar commonly like it for) so intricate, as to lose one's self therein, and to meet with as great a Number of Stops therein and Disappointments as possible; I thought the best way to accomplish it was to make a dubious Choice of which way to take at the very Entrance and Beginning it self, in order to find out the Centre, at which we are to end at B. into a little Arbour cradled over; for which Reason there is in the very first coming in, in the Centre, where the Grass-Plot and Statue are design'd at A. six different Entrances whereof there is but one that leads to the centre and that is attended with some difficulties and a great many stops."