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“If I do not defend the taste through thick and thin, I am prepared to admit that much may be said in its favour, and it is far from my intention to denounce it as either extravagant or foolish. It may be true, as I believe it is, that the natural form of a tree is the most beautiful possible for that particular tree, but it may happen that we do not always want the most beautiful form, but one of our own designing, and expressive of our ingenuity.”—Shirley Hibberd.

Modern horticultural works, and especially those that are of the Dictionary type, do not as a rule take any notice whatever of Topiary, and those in which it is noticed deal with the subject with a brevity that is provoking, inasmuch as the student is little or none the wiser for the information given. “Johnson’s Gardeners’ Dictionary” is silent on the subject, and “Cassell’s Popular Gardening” may be searched in vain for any reference to it.

Mr G. Nicholson, F.L.S., V.M.H., in his celebrated “Dictionary of Gardening,” writes, under Topiary, “Although the absurd fashion of cutting and torturing trees into all sorts of fantastic shapes has, happily, almost passed away, yet, as the art of the Topiarist was for a considerable period regarded as the perfection of gardening, some mention of it is desirable here. When the fashion first became general in Britain, it is probably impossible to ascertain; but it reached its highest point in the sixteenth century, and held its ground until driven out of the field in the last (eighteenth) century by the natural or picturesque style. From an archæological point of view, it is not to be regretted that examples of Topiary work on a large scale still exist in several British gardens.” Turning to the very recent “Cassell’s Dictionary of Gardening” an all too concise account is found, but Mr W. P. Wright admits therein that Topiary “finds favour in many quarters to-day, although it only differs in degree and not in principle from the best examples of the Topiary art of the sixteenth century.”

A PIG CUT IN BOX AT COMPTON WYNYATES

Encyclopædias tell us very little of Topiary, and even that monumental work the “Encyclopædia Britannica” contains within its portly tomes no reference to so historically interesting a subject, unless it be curiously hidden away. And even that very useful work “Chambers’s Encyclopædia” passes over Topiary as though such an art never existed.

To students of Etymology the word Topiary itself is of considerable interest. For the present work it must suffice to say that it is derived from the Latin topiarius, pertaining to ornamental gardening. One dictionary definition or meaning of the word is “shaped by cutting or clipping” and horticulturists will agree that this definition is both clever and descriptive, for Topiary work consists in giving all kinds of more or less fanciful forms to trees, hedges, and arbours.

An interesting reference is made in the “History of Oxfordshire” to the use of the phrase “Topiary Work.” It is stated therein that “at Hampton Court, which was laid out about the middle of the reign of Henry VIII. by Cardinal Wolsey, there was a labyrinth, which still exists, covering only the quarter of an Acre of ground, yet its walks extending by their volutions over nearly half a mile. The walls also were covered with Rosemary. It was also long celebrated for its trees cut into grotesque forms, which Dr Plot admired and dignified with the name of Topiary Works.”