232 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



great expense he has been at. We all know how chargeable 

 it is to make a garden \\ith tast ; to make one of a sudden more 

 so ; but to erect so many Summer houses, Temples, Pillars, 

 Piramids, and Statues, most of fine hewn stone, the rest of 

 guilded lead, would drain the richest purse, and I doubt not but 

 much of his wife's great fortune has been sunk in it. The 

 Pyramid at the end of one of the walks is a copy in mignature 

 of the most famous one in Egypt, and the only thing of the 

 kind, I think, in England. Bridgman^ laid out the ground 

 and plan'd the whole, which cannot fail of recommending him 

 to business. What adds to the bewty of this garden is, that 

 it is not bounded by walls, but by a Ha-hah, which leaves you 

 the sight of a bewtifull woody country, and makes you ignorant 

 how far the high planted walks extend." 



The garden thus by means of the ha-ha was becoming merged 

 in the park. In many cases the actual garden was neglected 

 to carry out larger designs in the parks. The changes at 

 Boughton, in the reign of George I., were typical of the 

 times ; the extensive waterworks were done away with, the 

 wilderness was enlarged, and many miles of avenues were 

 planted. 



" Who plants like Bathurst ?" wrote Pope, and as Pope 

 was a leader of fashion in planting, it may be assumed that 

 Bathurst's method was characteristic of this period. It was 

 not a garden he planted at Cirencester, but a park, with miles 

 of avenues skilfully planned, yet all distant from the house, 

 and with but little of them visible from the small garden, and 

 Pope himself assisted to lay them out. He wrote to a friend 

 in 1736 to say he was going to Lord Bathurst, " who will give 

 me no peace unless I plan and lay the foundations of two 

 Temples in his Park."^ One of these summer-houses, where 

 Pope used to sit and enjoy the beauty of the planting, is where 

 seven avenues diverge more than a mile from the house. A 

 still finer point is two miles farther off, where ten avenues meet. 



^ Note in the margin : " Mr. Bridgman was afterwards made the 

 Kings ch : Gardiner." 



* Manuscript letter from Pope to W. Fortescue, Esq., dated August 3, 

 1739. which was the property of W. B. Fortescue, Esq., Octon, Torquay. 



