'A Bowling Green is one of the most agreeable Compartments of a Garden, and, when 'tis rightly placed, nothing is more pleasant to the Eye. It's hollow Figure covered with a beautiful Carpet of Turf very Smooth, and of a lively green, most commonly encompassed with a Row of tall Trees with Flower bearing Shrubs, make a delightful composition; besides the Pleasure it affords us, of lying along upon its sloping Banks, in the Shade, during the hottest weather.'[407] It must have delighted a gardener's heart, in those days, to have had something which must, almost of necessity, be ornamented in a somewhat formal manner. There were no landscape gardeners then, they were all fettered by the precision style of elaborate parterres, terraces, cut trees, statuary; and although a more educated mind pined for a better state of things, as is evidenced throughout the _Spectator_ whenever mention is made of a garden, the tyranny of custom and the gardeners prevailed. 'Our trees rise in Cones, Globes, and Pyramids. We see the Marks of the Scissors upon every Plant and Bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my Opinion, but, for my own part, I would rather look upon a Tree in all its Luxuriancy and Diffusion of Boughs and Branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a Mathematical Figure; and cannot but fancy that an Orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little Labyrinths of the most finished Parterre.'[408] These parterres were made in as elaborate devices as some of our specimens of leaf-gardening, and looked very formal. [Footnote 407: _The Theory and Practice of Gardening_, by J. James, 1712.] [Footnote 408: _Spectator_, No. 414.] In the _Guardian_ (No. 173) this practice of clipping trees is ridiculed most unmercifully. '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 ... 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. 'St. George in box; his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a Condition to Stick the dragon by next April. 'A Green dragon of the same with a tail of ground Ivy for the present.--N.B. These two not to be sold separately. 'A pair of Giants stunted, to be sold Cheap. 'A quickset hedge, shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week in rainy weather,' etc.