CRUSADE AGAINST TOPIARY 23 



as we count good taste, and consequently his horti- 

 cultural purview was limited and obscured. As the 

 poet Mason puts it : 



" The age of tourney triumphs, and quaint masques, 

 Glar'd with fantastic pageantry, which dimm'd 

 The sober eye of truth, and dazzled ev'n 

 The sage himself; witness the high arch'd hedge, 

 In pillar'd state by carpentry upborne, 

 With coloured mirrors deck'd, and prison'd birds." 



Bacon was in many things far in advance of the 

 Tudor times in which he lived, so far indeed, in respect 

 of our present subject, that no outstanding protest 

 against Topiary appears to have been made by those 

 who endeavoured to promote sound public taste, until 

 nearly another century had elapsed. Then the literary 

 genius of Addison was directed against the evils and 

 extravagances of his age. 



