ADDISON AND POPE 27 
natural style of gardening, and the artificial methods 
carried out with mathematical precision in his time, to 
the distinct advantage of the former system, that 
geometric gardening, coupled with the excessive use of 
Topiary work, had made English gardens dreadfully 
monotonous. Essays were fashionable in the early 
years of the eighteenth century, and, remembering that 
their publication was extended over a considerable 
period, it must be presumed that they were freely read 
and discussed, and thus exerted a very considerable 
influence upon public opinion, just as a well thought 
out and carefully written leading article does in our own 
time. We may take it, then, that the gardeners of his 
time were considerably impressed by Addison’s quiet 
denunciation of the existing style, and no doubt a 
revolution had already commenced in the minds, if not 
in the gardens, of the wealthy, when, a little more than 
a year later, Pope published in the Guardian (Tuesday, 
September 29, 1713), his famous essay on ‘‘ Verdant 
Sculpture.” 
Not so subtle in his irony nor so engaging in his 
literary style as Addison, Pope was however the more 
forcibly satirical, maliciously spiteful, and elfishly 
humorous. His keen wit seized upon the proper 
psychological moment for following up Addison’s com- 
paratively mild exposure with an attack that did as 
much as, or more than, anything else to bring about 
that rapid decline of Topiarian art that quickly followed. 
Pope had evidently the genius of a great soldier, who 
delivers his fiercest attack when the enemy is wavering. 
As Pope’s essay is not by any means well known, 
neither is it especially easy of access, I need not apologise 
for quoting freely from it. Pope, however, believed 
with Dryden that satire was— 
‘¢ The boldest way, if not the best, 
To tell men freely of their foulest faults, 
To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts,” 
