JUiNE 27, 18S8.] 



Garden and Forest. 



207 



Duchess Apple, ancl I am glad to state that we have 

 many trees and shrubs that are still better org'anized_ in 

 this respect. 



(5) The tree or shrub that defies our winter e.xtremes, 

 of from thirty to thirty-five degrees below zero, must have 

 its new wood — even in the intercellular spaces — so perfect- 

 ly stored with starch as to be incapable of being ruptured 

 by freezing. A careful examination of the points of 

 growth of the Silken-leaf Apple and of Bullock's Pip]iin 

 will exhibit an unexpected difference in cell structure to 

 the amateur in such work. 



This too brief outline of the essentials of our hardy 

 tree will naturally give the impression that our list of de- 

 sirable trees and shrubs for the west must be short. But 

 thanks to a rich natural flora, and direct and indirect in- 

 troductions from old world climates of plants, not unlike 

 our own, we already have a large and varied list to select 

 from. 



Some of the varieties and species which seem worthy 

 of trial over large areas of our country will be noticed 

 briefly in another communication. 



Ames, Iowa. /• !-■ Budd. 



Alexander Pope and the Gardener's Art. 



IN most men's minds the name of Alexander Pope is a 

 synonym for artificiality in art. There is, of course, 

 a further kind of artificiality than Pope's — the kind which 

 is not art at all. But among genuine artists in verse, he 

 stands as the representative of formality, self-conscious- 

 ness, rule and measure, of high polish, studied grace and 

 well-balanced, rigorously calculated charm ; as the very 

 antithesis of all that is meant by the words natural, spon- 

 taneous, free and fresh. Narrowly considered as a poet 

 for his manner of speech, the verdict is a true one. But 

 there was more to Pope than this poetry, and there is 

 more even in his poetry than its form. And it is a dis- 

 appointment to find that so acute a critic, and so sym- 

 pathetic a student of the eighteenth century, as Mr, Austin 

 Dobson, fails to make these facts as clear as they ought 

 to be made in his article on the poet, recently published 

 in Scribiier's Magazine. 



It is but fair to say, however, that IMr. Dobson is not 

 alone in his failure. So far as I have read, no biogra- 

 pher of Pope has recognized the service which he ren- 

 dered the world in a branch of art which was not his 

 own. None of them has explained that to this poet, whom 

 we call the apostle of formality, England is more indebted, 

 perhaps, than to any other single man, for the develop- 

 men of the "natural style" of gardening. Historians of 

 the gardener's art have been more clear-sighted, but the 

 attitude of his professed biographers is typified by that 

 of Dyce, who says, "Though his writings exhibit inci- 

 dental glimpses of rural nature, he appears to have had 

 no passionate sense of her beauties; he had more pleas- 

 ure in describing those external objects which are arti- 

 ficial than those which are natural In his 



Windsor Forest, which gave him an opportunity of pre- 

 senting to us distinct and peculiar landscapes, his descrip- 

 tions of scenery are general and without individuality." 

 This is one of those verdicts which are true in the letter, 

 but false in the impression they give. It is true that Pope's 

 Windsor Forest shows us no such rural pictures as a 

 modern writer would paint, is peopled with nymphs and 

 dryads, and breathes in general the pseudo-classic spirit 

 of the age; and it is likewise true, as Mr. Dobson says, 

 that it "is cold and conventional to the modern reader." 

 But had Pope really "looked at nature with the unpurged 

 eyes of his generation '' — Mr. Doljson's words again — he 

 would hardly have written of Windsor Forest at all, and 

 his poem would certainly have lacked those occasional 

 breaths of freshness and that underlying strain of sincere 

 feeling for nature's sincerest self, which even to the modern 

 reader (if he can read a little deeply) redeem its coldness 

 and artificiality of form. So, too, while it is true that 



Pope can "have had no "passionate" feeling for rural 

 nature, we must remember that his life, except in its 

 very early years, was passed in the cockneydom of 

 Queen Anne's reign — in London itself, or beside the 

 villa-ed Thames ; and that it was a marked peculiarity 

 then and there to have any feeling for rural nature at all. 

 Again, it is true that, as a rule, he describes artificial, 

 not natural, scenes; but artificial is a word of wide signifi- 

 cance, and to accept it in this connection in its most 

 pronounced significance, is wholly to misconceive of Pope. 

 The scenes which he loved best v\^ere artificial, in the 

 sense of having been created or altered by art. But they 

 were not artificial in the sense of being formal. And this 

 fact marks him off distinctly from the mass of his con- 

 temporaries — gives him a place in history as the apostle 

 of a new art whose tastes and ideals were far ahead of 

 those of his generation. If we study the little plan of 

 his famous garden at Twickenham (published with Mr. 

 Dobson's article), we see that, although some parts are 

 formally designed, there are others in which a natural 

 looking arrangement has been made; and all the descrip- 

 tions of the place which have come down to us make 

 clear its unlikeness in this respect to the typical garden 

 of the time. Moreover, Pope's titles to honor, as an ad- 

 vocate of natural gardening, do not rest solely on his 

 Twickenham experiment, or on the sentiments implied in 

 his Windsor Fores/. A paper on Verdanl Sculpture, which 

 he published early in life in the Guardian, is known to 

 have worked a revolution m English practice — to have 

 scotched, if not instantly killed, the practice of clipping 

 trees into formal shapes. Kent, at first a painter, and 

 then the earliest of English landscape gardeners — in the 

 true sense of the word — was deeply influenced by Pope; 

 and the famous Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, On the 

 Use of Riches, might serve to-day as a text-book of aphor- 

 isms for the landscape gardener's instruction. It seems 

 strange that Mr. Dobson did not dwell upon the passages 

 in this poem which refer to the gardener's art — they 

 would have served him for the establishing of so pretty an 

 antithesis between Pope the formal poet and Pope the 

 advocate of informality in another art. Might one not 

 expect that Versailles would be his ideal, and the long 

 drawn aisle of A'erdure, the square walled pool, and the 

 marble terrace his synonyms for beauty out-of-doors? 

 No; what he says is : 



To plant, to build, whatever you intend, 



To rear the column, or the arch to bend, 



To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot, 



In all, let Nature never be forgot. . . . 



He gains all points who pleasingly confounds, 



Surprises, varies and conceals the bounds. 



Consult the genius of the place in all ; 



That helps the waters or to rise or fall ; 



Or helps th' ambitious hill the heavens to scale, 



Or scoops in circling theatres the vale ; 



Calls in the country, catches opening glades ; 



Joins willing woods, and \-aries shades from shades ; 



is^ow breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines; 



Paints as you plant and as you work designs. 



Still follow sense, of every art the soul ; 



Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole, 



Spontaneous beauties all around advance. 



Start e'en from difficulty, strike from chance. . . . 



And when he desires to say what should not be done, 

 these are his words : 



His gardens next your admiration call ; 



On every side you look, behold, the wall ! 



No pleasing intricacies intervene, 



No artful wildness to perplex the scene ; 



Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother. 



And half the ptattorm just rertects the other. . . . 



Thus did Pope preach of gardening, and thus, accordiiig 

 to his lights and opportunities, he tried to practice it. 

 When Mr. Dobson, in the charming poem which follows 

 the prose article, says of him, that "his Nature" was "a 

 Parterre, " the words are used in a metaphorical sense, as 

 illustrative of his literary style; but even thus, it hurts us a 



