Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/197

Rh formal garden, in fact, went beyond its formality into eccentricity, and so sank under the reaction begun by the protests of Addison and the satires of Pope.

William and Mary were nothing if not systematic. The very Wilderness was made symmetrical. It was set in "regular strait walks, bounded on each side by tall clipped hedges, which divide the whole ground into angular quarters." Defoe gives details of the work, which show that though Queen Mary did not design the "Bower" called by her name, she actively encouraged the custom of training trees on espaliers, and trimming them till they form a compact and complete protection from sun and wind. "Pleaching" reached its culmination under William and Mary. "On the north side of the house," says Defoe (to the east, that is, of the old tilt-yard and beyond the tennis-court), "where the gardens"—he means those which were now developed at the east—"seemed to want screening from the weather, or the view of the chapel, and some part of the old building, required to be covered from the eye, the vacant ground, which was large, is very happily cast into a wilderness, with a labyrinth and espaliers so high, that they effectually take off all that part of the old building which would have been offensive to the sight. This labyrinth and wilderness is not only well designed and completely finished, but is perfectly well kept; and the espaliers fitted exactly at bottom to the very ground, and are led up to proportioned height on the top: so that nothing of the kind can be more beautiful."