ADDISON AND POPE 26 
gardens and therein he shows that the works of nature 
are more pleasant to the imagination than are those of 
art, and that the works of art are most pleasing the 
more closely they resemble those of nature. He does 
not openly denounce Topiary and other formal garden- 
ing, but with subtle skill contrasts it with a picture of 
a more natural style, and does so in a manner that 
enforces the beauty of the latter and indicates the origin 
of that taste in landscape gardening which many a 
gardener of the nineteenth century thought was 
peculiarly his own. 
‘‘'We have observed,” says Addison, ‘‘that there is 
generally in nature something more grand and august 
than what we meet with in the curiosities of art. When, 
therefore, we see this imitated in any measure, it gives 
us a nobler and more exalted kind of pleaure than what 
we receive from the nicer and more accurate productions 
of art. On this account our English gardens are not so 
entertaining to the fancy as those in France and Italy, 
where we see a large extent of ground coveied over 
with an agreeable mixture of garden and forest, which 
represent everywhere an artificial rudeness, much more 
charming than that neatness and elegancy which we meet 
with in those of our own country. It might indeed be 
of ill consequence to the public, as well as unprofitable 
to private persons, to alienate so much ground from 
pasturage and the plough, in many parts of a country 
that is so well peopled, and cultivated to a far greater 
advantage. But why may not a whole estate be thrown 
into a kind of garden by frequent plantations, that may 
turn as much to the profit as the pleasure of the owner? 
A marsh overgrown with willows, or a mountain shaded 
with oaks, are not only more beautiful, but more bene- 
ficial, than when they lie bare and unadorned. Fields 
of corn make a pleasant prospect; and if the walks were 
a little taken care of that lie between them, if the natural 
