This garden, says Walpole, was a little bit of ground of five acres, enclosed by three lanes.

"Pope had twisted and twirled and rhymed and harmonized this, till it appeared two or three sweet little lawns, opening and opening beyond one another, and the whole surrounded with impenetrable woods." These, it appears, were hacked and hewed into mere desolation by the next proprietor.

Pope was, indeed, an ardent lover of the rising art of landscape gardening; he was familiar with Bridgeman and Kent, the great authorities of the time, and his example and precepts helped to promote the development of a less formal style.

His theories are partly indicated in the description of Timon's villa.
His gardens next your admiration call On every side you look, behold the wall! No pleasing intricacies intervene, No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other.
Pope's taste, indeed, tolerated various old-fashioned excrescences which we profess to despise.

He admired mock classical temples and obelisks erected judiciously at the ends of vistas.