i[ THE GARDEN IN ENGLAND 31 



left by the post -Augustan writers, and more 

 particularly by Pliny the younger. Pliny's 

 account of his Tuscan villa abounds in architect- 

 ural details, such as garden-houses adorned with 

 marble and painting, fish-ponds and fountains in 

 marble, and marble seats ; and Pliny, in describ- 

 ing the general lie of his house and grounds, 

 uses the words amoenitas tectorum — a phrase 

 curiously suggestive of the sweet, low lines of 

 an Elizabethan manor-house. Clipped work, 

 chiefly in box, is often mentioned in this 

 account. The xystus, a space in front of the 

 garden portico, was spaced out with box-trees, 

 cut to various shapes, while the ground between 

 was covered with figures of animals, set out flat 

 on the ground, in clipped box. The paths were 

 marked out with box edgings, and the interven- 

 ing plots were filled either with grass or with 

 box, cut into various devices, and sometimes in 

 letters giving the name of the master or of the 

 designer. In some of the paths stood obelisks, 

 in others apple-trees, arranged alternately. ^ The 

 resemblance between these details and a sixteenth- 

 century garden is close, and it is to this source 

 that we should look for the origin of shaped or 

 cut work. The topiarius^ or pleacher, was a very 

 important person in the Roman garden, and the 

 practice of cutting trees into various shapes was 



^ "Vine plures intercedentibus buxis dividuntur, alibi pratulum, alibi 

 ipsa buxus intervenit, in formas mille descripta, literis iiiterdum, quae 

 niodo nomen domini dicunt, modo artificis, altcrnis metulac surgunt 

 alternis inscrta sunt poma." — Ep'ntolae, v. 6. 



