30 A BOOK OF ENGLISH GARDENS 



who likened them to the "heroic poets." London 

 died in 1713, eleven years after the accession of 

 Queen Anne. Stephen Switzer, at one time his 

 pupil, became principal Gardener, and after him 

 Bridgman. Though it was just at this period that 

 the old formal Garden was first turned into ridicule, 

 it must not be forgotten that from the contemporary 

 descriptions of them it would be difficult to picture 

 anything more charming than some of the Gardens 

 in the reign of good Queen Anne. They were 

 regular green bowers of beauty, with long walks 

 between tall stately Yews, clipped into straight, 

 severe walls, but allowed to grow in a natural and 

 feathery manner at the top. Strange instance of 

 the contrariety of human nature, that during one of 

 the most artificial periods known in English history 

 when manners, habits, and literature were all 

 furthest removed from simplicity there should 

 have been a cry raised for Nature, and nothing 

 but Nature, in Gardens ! 



Addison began the attack in the Spectator, 

 saying, "In laying out a Garden we are to 

 copy Nature as much as possible. Our British 

 Gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humouring 

 Nature, love to deviate from it as much as 

 possible." 



Pope, the most artificial and the wittiest of 

 writers, soon followed suit in the Guardian, and he 

 lashed with a pen like a flail the "verdant green 



