In the United States, where very few of the embellishments of bygone Europe have failed to achieve reproduction, there is a replica, with some slight modifications, of the Hampton Court maze. This is situated at Waltham, Massachusetts, on the property of Miss Cornelia Warren. It was planted in 1896, and is formed of thick hedges of arbor vitae, about a thousand shrubs being employed. The plan follows that of its original model, but the sharp rear angles of the Hampton Court design are replaced by rounded curves, and the hedges adjacent to the central space, which is also rounded, are correspondingly modified.
There is a pond at the centre and a rustic rostrum stands before the entrance. The shortest route to the centre is said to be about one-fifth of a mile in length and the total length of the paths about one-third of a mile.
A large hedge maze is also to be found at a place called Cedar Hill—and no doubt there are many others.
The decline in favour of the maze amongst gardeners of repute during the latter part of the eighteenth century is possibly to be accounted for in great part as the natural revulsion from the surfeit of elaborate designs produced in the preceding periods.
"In designing a garden," wrote Lord Kames (Henry Home), "everything trivial or whimsical ought to be avoided. Is a labyrinth therefore to be justified? It is a mere conceit, like that of composing verses in the shape of an axe or an egg: the walks and hedges may be agreeable, but in the form of a labyrinth they serve to no end but to puzzle; a riddle is a conceit not so mean, because the solution is a proof of sagacity, which affords no aid to tracing a labyrinth."
This was in his "Elements of Criticism," a work of which Dr. Johnson remarked: "Sir, this book is a pretty essay and deserves to be held in some estimation, though much of it is chimerical." The idea that sagacity affords no aid in tracing a labyrinth is certainly chimerical, as we shall see, but persons who incline to austerity in art will have little hesitation in agreeing with the other remarks of Lord Kames, even where, further on, he says: "The gardens of Versailles, executed with boundless expense by the best artists of the age, are a lasting monument of a taste the most depraved." Since Lord Kames's time, however, the gardens of Versailles have been subjected to considerable alteration, and at the present day form one of the greatest charms of the environs of Paris.
The contemporary French poet Delille, author of "Les Jardins, ou l'Art d'embellir les Paysages," was voicing the feelings of the times when he wrote:
"Des longs alignements si je hais la tristesse,
Je hais bien plus encore le cours embarrassé
D'un sentier qui, pareil à ce serpent blessé,
En replis convulsifs sans cesse s'entrelace.
De détours redoublés m'inquiète, me lasse,
Et, sans variété, brusque et capricieux,
Tourmente et le terrain et mes pas et mes yeux."
From that time onwards the hedge maze has been the object of much condemnatory criticism and contemptuous reference, sometimes grounded on a certain amount of reason, but often enough of the follow-my-leader type.
Even at the present time there are not wanting gardeners of influence who would view with equanimity the entire disappearance of this convoluted mass of evergreens which dares to offer its antiquated charms in competition with their latest floricultural triumphs.