62 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



bowling greens guarded by their high sheltering 

 hedges of yew and box, hallowed by the traditions 

 and the growth of centuries, are as near to per- 

 fection in their way as may be. 



So much cannot be affirmed of the curious and 

 very ancient art of tree-sculpture more truly to 

 be described as tree-mutilation which was revived 

 with enthusiasm towards the close of the seven- 

 teenth century. It might have been in honour of 

 the house of Orange for William III. was an 

 ardent admirer of the topiary's skill that trees 

 and shrubs were cut and clipped into all manner 

 of grotesque shapes. Or was it rather a whimsical 

 taste which had earlier taken root in the country, 

 to minister, by way of sudden alarms and sur- 

 prises, to the somewhat coarse humour of the 

 day ? Be it as it may, it was a usual thing in 

 the finest gardens for a stranger-guest to find him- 

 self unexpectedly confronted with a crouching lion 

 or rampant bear, to be entertained by an encounter 

 with a verdant pig, or lost in wonder at the skill 

 which had fashioned hen and chickens out of the 

 growing branches. Indeed, when the topiary's art 

 prevailed, trees and shrubs thus tortured squared, 

 turreted, and shorn into every conceivable shape 

 but that which kind Nature had ordained formed 

 the principal attraction of the pleasaunce. A few 

 historic gardens of the type still remain, and 

 amongst them Levens, in Westmoreland, is one 

 of the most remarkable. So often, indeed, has it 

 been told of and pictured that there are few, even 

 if they have never seen it, to whom the old-world, 

 fantastic garden, with its close-cut evergreens of 



