ADDISON AND POPE 27 



natural style of gardening, and the artificial methods 

 carried out with mathematical precision in his time, to 

 the distinct advantage of the former system, that 

 geometric gardening, coupled with the excessive use of 

 Topiary work, had made English gardens dreadfully 

 monotonous. Essays were fashionable in the early 

 years of the eighteenth century, and, remembering that 

 their publication was extended over a considerable 

 period, it must be presumed that they were freely read 

 and discussed, and thus exerted a very considerable 

 influence upon public opinion, just as a well thought 

 out and carefully written leading article does in our own 

 time. We may take it, then, that the gardeners of his 

 time were considerably impressed by Addison's quiet 

 denunciation of the existing style, and no doubt a 

 revolution had already commenced in the minds, if not 

 in the gardens, of the wealthy, when, a little more than 

 a year later, Pope published in the Guardian (Tuesday, 

 September 29, 1713), his famous essay on "Verdant 

 Sculpture." 



Not so subtle in his irony nor so engaging in his 

 literary style as Addison, Pope was however the more 

 forcibly satirical, maliciously spiteful, and elfishly 

 humorous. His keen wit seized upon the proper 

 psychological moment for following up Addison's com- 

 paratively mild exposure with an attack that did as 

 much as, or more than, anything else to bring about 

 that rapid decline of Topiarian art that quickly followed. 

 Pope had evidently the genius of a great soldier, who 

 delivers his fiercest attack when the enemy is wavering. 



As Pope's essay is not by any means well known, 

 neither is it especially easy of access, I need not apologise 

 for quoting freely from it. Pope, however, believed 

 with Dryden that satire was 



"The boldest way, if not the best, 

 To tell men freely of their foulest faults, 

 To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts," 



