I allow that the hacking of trees into fantastical shapes deserved the scourge administered in the one hundred and seventy-third number of _The Guardian_, Sept. 29th, 1713. The writer there says--"How contrary to simplicity is the modern practice of gardening; we seem to make it our study to recede from nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most regular and formal shapes, but even in monstrous attempts beyond the reach of the art itself; we run into sculpture, and are yet better pleased to have our trees in the most awkward figures of men and animals, than in the most regular of their own. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. I know an eminent cook, who beautified his country-seat with a coronation dinner in greens, where you see the champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual youth at the other. "For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of this curious taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of greens to be disposed of by an eminent town gardener, who has lately applied to me upon this head. My correspondent is arrived at such perfection, that he cuts family pieces of men, women, or children. Any ladies that please may have their own effigies in myrtle, or their husbands in horn-beam. I shall proceed to his catalogue, as he sent it for my recommendation. "'Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in the great storm, Eve and the serpent very flourishing. "'The Tower of Babel, not yet finished. "'St. George in box; his arm scarce long enough, but will be in condition to strike the dragon by next April. "'A Queen Elizabeth in phylyræa, a little inclining to the green-sickness, but of full growth. "'An old maid-of-honour in worm-wood. "'Divers eminent poets in bays, somewhat blighted, to be disposed of a pennyworth. "'A quickset hog shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week in rainy weather,' &c." But these absurdities do not affect the question of hedges. I know a hedge of clay and stone built up eight feet, and above that crowned with holly and thorn, running from east to west, but with a point or two of west in its face. I remember an old man, a rector, chronically affected with bronchitis for fifteen years, who felt the solace of this charming hedge through the whole time. He could crawl out there when the sun shone, and disregard the north and east winds. In that hedge the primrose and the foxglove were out prematurely. The rabbits loved it dearly, and made it untidy with their burrowings in the warm dry clay under the roots of the bushes.