GOLDEN AGE OF TOPIARY 15 



Produced too slowly ever to decay ; 

 Of form and aspect too magnificent 

 To be destroyed." 



Heslington, near York, still boasts an ancient Topiary 

 garden, where all the clipped trees are of yew. This, 

 as well as the clipped hedges of Rockingham, and the 

 hedges and clipped trees at Erbistock, date, accord- 

 ing to the Hon. Alicia Amherst, from about 1560. 

 Other trees and shrubs were also used by the tonsile 

 artists, and even Rosemary was not omitted. Barnaby 

 Googe (about 1578) observed that the women folk 

 planted it and trimmed it into shapes "as in the fashion 

 of a cart, a peacock, or such things as they fancy." 



William Harrison, Rector of Radwinter, and Canon of 

 Windsor, who wrote " A Description of England" con- 

 tained in " Holinshed's Chronicles," has already been 

 referred to. He was a most observant man and one 

 who in his own picturesque language " had an especiall 

 eye unto the truth of things " ; from 1586 to 1593 ^ e 

 was Canon of Windsor, and therefore anything he has 

 to say about gardens is of unusual interest. His keen 

 patriotism shines brightly through all his writings, and 

 his high opinion of his own land is not in any way 

 reduced when he comes to discourse upon gardens, 

 for he writes : " I am persuaded that, albeit the gardens 

 of the Hesperides were in times past so greatly 

 accounted of, because of their delicacy, yet, if it were 

 possible to have such an equal judge as by certain 

 knowledge of both were able to pronounce upon them, 

 I doubt not but he would give the prize unto the 

 gardens of our days, and generally over all Europe, in 

 comparison of those times wherein the old exceeded." 



Early in the succeeding century, however, we come 

 upon some more positive evidence of the use of Topiary 

 work. Lawson, in 1618, shows more clearly that 

 Topiary had become an important branch of the art of 



