ADDISON AND POPE 25 



gardens and therein he shows that the works of nature 

 are more pleasant to the imagination than are those of 

 art, and that the works of art are most pleasing the 

 more closely they resemble those of nature. He does 

 not openly denounce Topiary and other formal garden- 

 ing, but with subtle skill contrasts it with a picture of 

 a more natural style, and does so in a manner that 

 enforces the beauty of the latter and indicates the origin 

 of that taste in landscape gardening which many a 

 gardener of the nineteenth century thought was 

 peculiarly his own. 



"We have observed," says Addison, "that there is 

 generally in nature something more grand and august 

 than what we meet with in the curiosities of art. When, 

 therefore, we see this imitated in any measure, it gives 

 us a nobler and more exalted kind of pleaure than what 

 we receive from the nicer and more accurate productions 

 of art. On this account our English gardens are not so 

 entertaining to the fancy as those in France and Italy, 

 where we see a large extent of ground covered over 

 with an agreeable mixture of garden and forest, which 

 represent everywhere an artificial rudeness, much more 

 charming than that neatness and elegancy which we meet 

 with in those of our own country. It might indeed be 

 of ill consequence to the public, as well as unprofitable 

 to private persons, to alienate so much ground from 

 pasturage and the plough, in many parts of a country 

 that is so well peopled, and cultivated to a far greater 

 advantage. But why may not a whole estate be thrown 

 into a kind of garden by frequent plantations, that may 

 turn as much to the profit as the pleasure of the owner ? 

 A marsh overgrown with willows, or a mountain shaded 

 with oaks, are not only more beautiful, but more bene- 

 ficial, than when they lie bare and unadorned. Fields 

 of corn make a pleasant prospect , and if the walks were 

 a little taken care of that lie between them, if the natural 



