210 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. 
say to it—the improvement in our gardens is most conspicuous. 
And in truth we have unlearnt as much as we have learnt. 
To own an historic house and gardens, like Levens, for in- 
stance, which have been undisturbed and unchanged by the 
revolutions of centuries, is a matter of which a man may well 
be proud. Nor is it only the interest of antiquity which at- 
taches to such relics of a bygone age, for there is a certain 
impressive beauty in their stateliness which cannot be denied. 
Yet would it be unwise to plant in that way to-day. The 
stamp of nobility which time alone can give would be want- 
ing. Yew or box trees fantastically carved and tortured into 
all manner of whimsical shapes cannot be achieved but by 
patience and long years of waiting. Better results may be 
obtained with much less labour and greater rapidity, and 
the ars Topiaria is happily dead. Not so the hedge of holly 
or yew, which is a grave, dignified, and even necessary feature 
in many gardens, modern as well as ancient. Indeed, I have 
in my mind such a screen planted some thirty years since, 
sheltering a long row of beehives in a beautiful Scotch flower 
garden, the effect of which is most charming; but the birds 
and men, and beasts and ships and teapots, and the many 
other conceits of the pleacher,—nay, the very pleacher him- 
self,—are as extinct as the dodo or the great auk. 
Then there was a moment when the folly of fashion spent 
itself in the construction of abominations in the shape of 
erottos—probably inspired by the grand tour and the study 
of Virgil ; when every man, who had completed his education 
by a journey in Italy, or if he could not afford that expensive 
luxury, by reading a friend’s letters from Naples or Syracuse, 
must needs contrive in his garden a den, the walls of which 
