Note 407 — Chapter XXIV · SWORD-PLAY AND OTHER SPORTS. GARDEN, ETC.

'A Bowling Green is one of the most agreeable Compartments of a Garden, and, when 'tis rightly placed, nothing is more pleasant to the Eye. It's hollow Figure covered with a beautiful Carpet of Turf very Smooth, and of a lively green, most commonly encompassed with a Row of tall Trees with Flower bearing Shrubs, make a delightful composition; besides the Pleasure it affords us, of lying along upon its sloping Banks, in the Shade, during the hottest weather.'[407] It must have delighted a gardener's heart, in those days, to have had something which must, almost of necessity, be ornamented in a somewhat formal manner. There were no landscape gardeners then, they were all fettered by the precision style of elaborate parterres, terraces, cut trees, statuary; and although a more educated mind pined for a better state of things, as is evidenced throughout the Spectator whenever mention is made of a garden, the tyranny of custom and the gardeners prevailed. '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.'[408] These parterres were made in as elaborate devices as some of our specimens of leaf-gardening, and looked very formal.