And cannot one sympathise to some extent with their feelings in the matter? When one's whole career has been devoted to the creation of new forms of plant life or the improvement of existing forms, achievements which entail prolonged scientific training and patient experimenting, constant vigilance and careful selection of favourable variations, it must be rather galling to be asked to construct and maintain a meandering row of commonplace evergreens. One can imagine the case to be somewhat parallel to that of a highly trained musician who has just delivered himself of a great sonata and is asked by a member of his audience for "a descriptive battle-march!"
Mr. W. Robinson had perhaps experiences of this kind in mind when he wrote his observations about mazes in his well-known handbook, "The English Flower Garden." "The Maze," he says, is "one of the notions about gardening which arose when people had very little idea of the dignity and infinite beauty of the garden flora as we now know it." In the next sentence he refers to mazes as "ugly frivolities." They should be left, he says, "for the most part to places of the public tea-garden kind." Whatever we may think of the justice of these remarks, we must admit that there is some force in his objection that "one of its drawbacks is the death and distortion of the evergreens that go to form its close lines, owing to the frequent clipping; if clipping be neglected the end is still worse, and the whole thing is soon ready for the fire."
A figure of a maze accompanies this criticism, but it can hardly be meant to typify the usual conception of a hedge maze, as it has the appearance of a seventeenth-century design, possibly intended for a floral labyrinth, for, apart from a few ornamental excrescences, it is entirely unicursal.
Although the strictures we have quoted would probably receive hearty support from a large proportion of modern gardeners, the maze is still not without its champions.
In Miss Madeline Agar's very practical book on "Garden Design," for example, it is treated as a wholly legitimate embellishment for large gardens, and the fact of its disfavour amongst present-day horticulturists is attributed to lack of patience.
A highly original design, with provision for seats, sundials, and statues, is likewise given, but it must be confessed that it conveys a flattering assumption of opulence on the part of the reader, for it certainly does not err on the side of simplicity.
Let us admit at once that, as a favourite of fashion, the maze has long since had its day. In every generation the craving is for novelty, for new forms of expression in all branches of art. Like every other defunct mode, the topiary labyrinth is liable to temporary revivals by lovers of the antique, but there is little reason to hope or to fear that it will ever again secure a position of any dominance in the affections of the gardener. The labour involved in its proper maintenance is alone a sufficient guarantee against that. The hedges require very frequent trimming, and sometimes partial renewal, the latter especially in those cases where unscrupulous visitors are not prevented, by barbed wire or other means, from short-circuiting the convolutions. The paths, too, of which there may be over half a mile, want regular attention unless we are content to be constantly reminded of Tom Moore's punning conundrum:
"Why is a garden's wildered maze
Like a young widow, fresh and fair?
Because it wants some hand to raze
The weeds which have no business there."
Deciduous plants such as hornbeam and lime give the maze a sorry appearance during the leafless months of the year, whilst the slower-growing conifers, yew and cypress, besides being expensive, necessitate a long waiting period before the hedges attain a presentable height and thickness. Box harbours slugs; juniper, holly, and the various thorn-bushes present inhospitable asperities which outweigh their other merits—in short, we may be certain that whatever material be suggested for the construction of a maze there will be no lack of objections wherewith the gardener may buttress his prejudice against the contrivance in any shape or form.
On the other hand, the maze has its own, almost indefinable, charms, and we need hardly tremble for its total extinction until we cease to bear children, even if we dismiss as decadent sentimentality that romantic instinct of which some of us cannot quite rid ourselves in maturer years.