232 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
great expense he has been at. We all know how chargeable 
it is to make a garden with tast; to make one of a sudden more 
so ; but to erect so many Summer houses, Temples, Pillars, 
Piramids, and Statues, most of fine hewn stone, the rest of 
guilded lead, Would drain the richest purse, and I doubt not but 
much of his wife’s great fortune has been sunk in it. The 
Pyramid at the end of one of the walks is a copy in mignature 
of the most famous one in Egypt, and the only thing of the 
kind, I think, in England. Bridgman 1 laid out the ground 
and plan’d the whole, which cannot fail of recommending him 
to business. What adds to the bewty of this garden is, that 
it is not bounded by walls, but by a Ha-hah, which leaves you 
the sight of a bewtifull woody country, and makes you ignorant 
how far the high planted walks extend.” 
The garden thus by means of the ha-ha was becoming merged 
in the park. In many cases the actual garden was neglected 
to carry out larger designs in the parks. The changes at 
Boughton, in the reign of George I., were typical of the 
times ; the extensive waterworks were done away with, the 
wilderness was enlarged, and many miles of avenues were 
planted. 
“ Who plants like Bathurst ?” wrote Pope, and as Pope 
was a leader of fashion in planting, it may be assumed that 
Bathurst’s method was characteristic of this period. It was 
not a garden he planted at Cirencester, but a park, with miles 
of avenues skilfully planned, yet all distant from the house, 
and with but little of them visible from the small garden, and 
Pope himself assisted to lay them out. He wrote to a friend 
in 1736 to say he was going to Lord Bathurst, “ who will give 
me no peace unless I plan and lay the foundations of two 
Temples in his Park.” 2 One of these summer-houses, where 
Pope used to sit and enjoy the beauty of the planting, is where 
seven avenues diverge more than a mile from the house. A 
still finer point is two miles farther off, where ten avenues meet. 
1 Note in the margin : “ Mr. Bridgman was afterwards made the 
Kings ch : Gardiner/’ 
2 Manuscript letter from Pope to W. Fortescue, Esq., dated August 3, 
1739, which was the property of W. B. Fortescue, Esq., Octon, Torquay. 
