26 THE BOOK OF TOPIARY 
embroidery of the meadows were helped and improved 
by some small additions of art and the several rows of 
edges set off by trees and flowers that the soil was 
capable of receiving, a man might make a pretty land- 
scape of his own possessions.” 
Continuing, the Essayist adds: ‘‘ Writers who have 
given us an account of China tell us the inhabitants of 
that country laugh at the plantations of our Europeans, 
which are laid out by the rule and line; because they 
say, anyone may place trees in equal rows and uniform 
figures. “They choose rather to show a genius in works 
of this nature, and therefore always conceal the art by 
which they direct themselves. “They have a word, it 
seems, in their language, by which they express the 
particular beauty of a plantation that thus strikes the 
imagination at first sight, without discovering what it 
is that has so agreeable an effect. Our British gardeners, 
on the contrary, instead of humouring nature, love to 
deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in 
cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks of the 
scissors upon every plant and bush. I do not know 
whether I am singular in my opinion, but for my own 
part, I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy 
and diffusion of boughs and branches, than when it is 
thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure; and 
cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks infinitely 
more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the most 
finished parterre. But, as our great modellers of gardens 
have their magazines of plants to dispose of, it is very 
natural for them to tear up all the beautiful plantations 
of fruit-trees, and contrive a plan that may most turn to 
their own profit, in taking off their evergreens, and the 
like movable plants, with which their shops are plenti- 
fully stocked.” 
It will be perfectly obvious that when Addison found 
it necessary to draw comparisons between a free and 
