“The Dutch Garden in front of Hampton Court Palace is unobjectionable, because it is in character with that part of the building and as a royal garden it ought to remain as it is, were it only to serve as an illustration of the style of gardening in the time of William and Mary.”—Charles M‘Intosh.

Whenever a fashion runs to extremes its end is not far to seek. On the one hand, a fashion becomes too general for those who have a taste for novelty, and especially for those who can afford at almost any cost to have something not available to the general public.

On the other hand, a fashion carried to excess becomes inconvenient and ridiculous, therefore it at once becomes offensive to those who are regarded as having good taste. And so it came about that when Topiary work had spread itself over all the gardens of the time and could hardly go further either in extent or design, there came the inevitable reaction. The same sort of thing has happened even in quite modern times.

One need not be very old to have seen the famous trained specimen plants that used to grace the highly successful exhibitions at the Royal Botanic Society’s gardens, at the Crystal Palace, and elsewhere. Yet these giants have passed away, and in their places we have larger stocks of smaller and more easily grown subjects—in other words, the fashion has changed. “Bedding-out” reached such a height of fashionable popularity that it threatened to exclude the beautiful hardy perennial flowers from many a garden; it taxed the patience and ingenuity of the gardener and the purse of the employer almost to breaking point—it passed from reasonableness to absurdity. Then came a new order of things; perennials have been brought back and improved; hardy flowers are the fashion.

When Topiary threatened to exclude all else from the garden there arose several apostles of freedom, and these conducted a crusade against the art. Among those whose writings are more or less regarded in these days mention may be made of three—Bacon, Addison, and Pope.

The former early raised a protest, for in the times of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, when Topiary was the prevailing taste if not the general fashion, he wrote, “I for my part do not like images cut in juniper or other garden stuff; they be for children.” It was Bacon also who said: “As for the making of knots or figures that they may lie under the windows of the house on that side which the garden stands, they be but toys; you may see as good sights many times in tarts.” But, alas, Bacon was curiously inconsistent. He would away with Topiary, but he puts forward as the best type of a garden one that is square, enclosed in an arched hedge, “with a turret over every arch, and a cage of birds in each turret, and over every space between the arches some other little figure with broad plates of round coloured glass, gilt, for the sun to play on.” Those who so aptly quote Bacon when they pour out the vials of their wrath upon Topiary through the medium of the public press, may also be further reminded that Bacon would have in his ideal garden a fountain “embellished with coloured glass and such things of lustre.”

But however much we may chuckle over the inconsistencies of Bacon it must be remembered that the age in which he lived (1561–1626) was remarkable rather for ostentatious display than for good taste,—as we count good taste,—and consequently his horticultural purview was limited and obscured. As the poet Mason puts it:—

Bacon was in many things far in advance of the Tudor times in which he lived, so far indeed, in respect of our present subject, that no outstanding protest against Topiary appears to have been made by those who endeavoured to promote sound public taste, until nearly another century had elapsed. Then the literary genius of Addison was directed against the evils and extravagances of his age.