“ANTICKE WORKS” 
227 
is attained. And our ancestors were almost as impa¬ 
tient as we are to-day, as well as being pretty busy 
folks; so a garden which promised quicker returns 
and needed less care, appealed to them more than cut 
work. 
This carving of trees and shrubs into the forms of 
other things, however, is one of the most ancient of 
garden fancies. Its origin, indeed, is so remote that 
it can hardly be guessed; the Romans were skilled in 
the art, but earlier gardeners probably taught it to 
them. Yews furnish perhaps the best plastic material 
for the tree sculptor, but they do not thrive in our 
climate—at least not in all of our climate. There 
are other dense-growing trees and shrubs, however, 
which may be used, and in the few attempts at this 
sort of thing which were ever made here, boxwood and 
cedar probably have taken precedence over anything 
else. Privet, upon which we depend so greatly for 
the hedges of to-day, was highly commended as long 
ago as the “Paradisus.” Parkinson says of it there 
that its use “is so much and so frequent throughout 
all this land, although for no other purpose but to make 
hedges or arbours in gardens &c., whereunto it is so 
apt that no other can be like unto it, to be cut, lead 
and drawn into what forme one will either of beasts, 
birds or men armed or otherwise:” that he “could not 
forget it,” even though it was nought but a hedge 
plant. But no one seems to have cared much about it 
