It was in the early part of the fourteenth century that Pierre de Crescent, of Bologna, wrote his work on Agriculture, wherein he describes the kinds of pleasure gardens suitable for various classes of the community, and a suggestion of formality of design and the use of Topiary is made in his observation that a royal garden should contain a menagerie, and also an aviary placed among thickets, arbors and vines.
“I confess that I should never care to adorn my garden with topiary or with carpet bedding; but I hope always to be cautious in making declarations in respect of such matters, that I may not appear to despise another man’s pleasures, or vainly desire to set up a standard of my own in opposition to the delightful variety that is ensured by the free exercise of individual taste and fancy.”—_Shirley Hibberd._
“While perhaps not admiring these birds and beasts, we must, I think, in a measure agree with Loudon, that many old-fashioned gardens have suffered in losing the quaint forms of cropped yews, which added a certain charm to them.”—_John Lowe, M.D._, in “Yew Trees of Great Britain and Ireland.”
The dawn of the sixteenth century saw the commencement of what may be called the Golden Age of Topiary. It was also the beginning of an age of romance, of stirring deeds, of great discoveries; an age when men of genius were numerous, when history was being rapidly made, and when the art of gardening began to flourish freely. Though the times were stirring ones and there was not always “peace within our borders,” commerce grew and wealth increased, so that gardening became more and more popular and steadily grew more and more elaborate in design. To the existing style were added the extravagances of the French and the formalities of the Dutch schools, but these things did not all come to pass at once.
It is most probable that the Old and Formal English Gardens as we know or imagine them, were the development of at least two hundred years, and probably the type had not been reached until the reign of Charles II., notwithstanding such gardens are frequently alluded to as Elizabethan. This idea seems the more reasonable after a perusal of Withington’s “Elizabethan England,” for though the Editor gives us Harrison’s description of Gardens and Orchards, Woods and Marshes, Parks and Warrens, there is never a word that can be construed into a reference to Topiary, not even in his account of “the palaces belonging to the prince.”
