ADDISON AND POPE 31 



of things, brought about the great change in garden 

 design. They not only cleared away the sculptured 

 trees but destroyed splendid, close hedges as well, 

 throwing open to all eyes, and to all the winds, 

 gardens that had hitherto been delightfully enclosed 

 and secluded. Of Bridgeman there is very little in- 

 formation forthcoming, but Loudon tells us " He 

 banished verdant sculpture and introduced morsels of 

 a forest appearance in the gardens at Richmond." Kent 

 was a versatile Yorkshireman, who was successively 

 painter, architect and landscape gardener ; Claremont, 

 Esher, laid out about 1725-1735, was one of his designs. 

 He was the friend of Lord Burlington and, even more 

 than Bridgeman, he carried into effect the ideas of Pope. 

 The great successor to Kent was Brown, who was head 

 gardener at Stowe till 1750, and subsequently, after 

 being employed by the Duke of Grafton, he was head 

 gardener at Hampton Court and Windsor. At this 

 time he became very much in request as a landscape 

 gardener, and so continued well on towards the end 

 of the eighteenth century. His sympathy with Topiary 

 may be gathered from the remark made by Sir Wm. 

 Chambers in 1772, that "unless the mania were not 

 checked, in a few years longer there would not be 

 found three trees in a line from Land's End to the 

 Tweed." In the course of about fifty years, from 1740 

 to 1790, the gardens of England, with a few exceptions, 

 were completely altered, and the style that had been 

 in vogue for full one hundred and fifty years was 

 almost wholly obliterated. Later designers added 

 many improvements, and a more graceful style suc- 

 ceeded that of Kent and Brown, but Topiary as a part 

 of garden design was practically non-existent for about a 

 hundred years. Then commenced the modern revival 

 of the Art. 



