rs with the green box-plant of England, which would
flourish I suppose in this climate or in any other. Cobbett in his
_English Gardener_ speaks with so much enthusiasm and so much to the
purpose on the subject of box as an edging, that I must here repeat his
eulogium on it.

The box is at once the most efficient of all possible things, and the
prettiest plant that can possibly be conceived; the color of its leaf;
the form of its leaf; its docility as to height, width and shape; the
compactness of its little branches; its great durability as a plant; its
thriving in all sorts of soils and in all sorts of aspects; _its
freshness under the hottest sun_, and its defiance of all shade and
drip: these are the beauties and qualities which, for ages upon ages,
have marked it out as the chosen plant for this very important purpose.

The edging ought to be clipped in the winter or very early in spring on
both sides and at top; a line ought to be used to regulate the movements
of the shears; it ought to be clipped again in the same manner about
midsummer; and if there be _a more neat and beautiful thing than this in
the world, all that I can say is, that I never saw that thing_.

A small green edging for a flower bed can hardly be too _trim_; but
large hedges with tops and sides cut as flat as boards, and trees
fantastically shaped with the shears into an exhibition as full of
incongruities as the wildest dream, have deservedly gone out of fashion
in England. Poets and prose writers have agreed to ridicule all verdant
sculpture on a large scale. Here is a description of the old topiary
gardens.

These likewise mote be seen on every side
The shapely box, of all its branching pride
Ungently shorn, and, with preposterous skill
To various beasts, and birds of sundry quill
Transformed, and human shapes of monstrous size.

* * * * *

Also other wonders of the sportive shears
Fair Nature misadorning; there were found
Globes, spiral columns, pyramids, and piers
With spouting urns and budding statues crowned;
And horizontal dials on the ground
In living box, by cunning artists traced,
And galleys trim, or on long voyage bound,
But by their roots there ever anchored fast.

_G. West_.

The same taste for torturing nature into artificial forms prevailed
amongst the ancients long after architecture and statuary had been
carried to such perfection t