GARDENS AND HISTORY
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I
THE ROMAN GARDEN IN ENGLAND
It would appear, judging from the specimens one sees, that the building
of garden apartments, or summer-houses, is a lost art. But then leisure,
as an art, has also been lost; and no man unless he understand leisure
can possibly build an apartment to be entirely devoted to it.
Imagine the man of the day who could write of his summer-house as the
younger Pliny wrote: “At the end of the terrace, adjoining to the
gallery, is a little garden-apartment, which I own is my delight. In
truth it is my mistress: I built it.” The younger Pliny, of to-day, is
scouring the countryside in a motorcar, his eyes half-blinded by dust,
his nose offended by the stink of petrol; his thoughts, like his toys,
purely mechanical.
There are still a few quiet people, and some scholars, whom the
Socialist in his eager desire to benefit mankind at reckless speed, and
at ruthless expense of humanity, would like to blot out, who can enjoy
their gardens with that curious remoteness which is the privilege of the
person of leisure.
The art of leisure lies, to me, in the power of absorbing without effort
the spirit of one’s surroundings; to look, without speculation, at the
sky and the sea; to become part of a green plain; to rejoice, with a
tranquil mind, in the feast of colour in a bed of flowers. To this end
is the good gardener born. The man, who, from a sudden love, stops in
his walk to look at a field of Buttercups has no idea of the spiritual
advancement he has made.
All this ambles away from the main topic, but so closely does the peace
of gardens cling, that thoughts fly over the hedges like bees on the
wing and bring back honey from wider pastures and dreams from larger
tracts than those the garden itself covers. A man might write a romance
of Spain from looking at an Orange.
The Romans, who left an indelible mark on England in their roadways and
by their laws, built in this country many villas whose pavements and
foundations remain to show us what manner of habitations they were.
Besides this we have ample records of the shapes and purposes of these
villas, with long accounts of baths, furniture and the like, such as
enable us to picture very completely the life of a Roman gentleman
exiled to these shores.
Houses, parks, and fields now cover all traces of any gardens there were
attached to these Roman villas. Many a man lives over the spot where the
hedges and alleys, the flower beds and walks, once delighted those
gentlemen who sat drinking Falernian wine poured from old amphoræ dated
by the year of the consul. Where sheep now browse gentlemen have sat
after a feast of delicacies—Syrian Plums stewed with Pomegranate seeds;
roasted field-fares, fresh Asparagus; Dates sent from Thebes—and, having
eaten, have enjoyed the work of their topiarius, whose skill has cut
hedges of Laurel, Box, and Yew into the forms of ships, bears, beasts
and birds.
Differing from the Greeks, who were not good gardeners, the Romans, with
a skill learnt partly from Oriental countries, made much of their
gardens, and laid them out with infinite care and arrangement. They
raised their flower-beds in terraces, and edged them with neat box
borders; they made walks for shade, and walks for sun; planted thickets,
alleys of fruit trees, orchards, and Vine pergolas. They had, as a rule,
in larger gardens, a gestatio, a broad pathway in which they were
carried about in litters. They had the hippodromus, a circus for
exercise, which had several entrances with paths leading to different
parts of the garden.
It is not too much to presume that the Romans, who spent their lives in
our country, and build magnificent villas for themselves, and brought
over all the arts of their country, brought, also, their methods of
gardening, and planted here as they planted in their villas outside
Rome, all the flowers, fruits and vegetables that the country would
produce.
Tacitus was of the opinion that “the soil and climate of England was
very fit for all kinds of fruit trees, except Vine and Olive; and for
all kinds of edible vegetables.” In this he was right but for the Vine,
which was planted here in the Third Century, and we know of vineyards
and wine made from them in the Eighth Century.
Of gardeners there was the topiarius, a fancy gardener, whose main
business it was to be expert on growing, cutting and clipping trees. The
villicus, or viridarius, who was the real villa gardener, with much the
same duties as our gardener of to-day. The hortulanus is a later term.
And there was the aquarius, a slave whose duty it was to see that all
the garden was provided with proper aqueducts, and who managed the
fountains which, without doubt, formed a great part in garden ornament.
I imagine, also, that the aquarius would have control over the supply of
hot water which must flow through the green-houses where early fruits
and flowers were forced; such fruits as Winter Grapes, Melons, and
Gherkins; and of flowers, the Rose in particular, for use in garlands
and crowns.
Violets and Roses were the principal flowers, being often grown as
borders to the beds of vegetables, so that one might find Violets,
Onions, Turnips, and Kidney Beans flourishing together.
Besides these flowers there were also the Crocus, Narcissus, Lily, Iris,
Hyacinth (the Greek emblem of the dead in memory of the youth killed by
Apollo by mistake with a quoit), Poppy, and the bright red Damask Rose
and Lupias.
In the orchards of Rome were Cherries, Plums, Quinces, Pomegranates,
Peaches, Almonds, Medlars, and Mulberries; and in the vineyards were
thirty varieties of Grapes. Those kinds of fruits which were hardy
enough to stand our climate were grown here, and to judge from all
account only the Olive failed to meet the test.
Not only were flowers and fruit grown in profusion but Herbs, Asparagus,
and Radishes had their place.
Honey, which took a great place in Roman cookery, and in making possets,
and in thickening wine, was provided by bees kept especially in apiaries
built in sheltered places, with beds of Cytisus, and Thyme and Apiastrum
by them. The hives were built of brick or baked dung, and were placed in
tiers, the lowest on stone parapets about three feet above the ground;
these parapets being covered with smooth stucco to prevent lizards and
insects from entering the hives.
The descriptions by the younger Pliny of his villas and gardens are so
delightful in themselves, besides being of great value, that I am going
to quote largely from them.
The village of Laurentium where Pliny built his villa was on the shores
of the Tuscan Sea, and not far from the mouth of the Tiber. The villa
was built as a refuge after a hard day’s work in Rome, which was only
seventeen miles away. “A distance,” he says, “which allows us, after we
have finished the business of the day, to return thither from town, with
the setting sun.”
There were two roads from Rome to this villa, the one the Laurentine
road—“if you go the Laurentine you must quit the high road at the
fourteenth stone”—and the Ostian road, where the branch took place at
the eleventh.
After a description of the house and the baths he writes of the garden:
“At no great distance is the tennis-court, so situated, as never to be
annoyed by the heat, and to be visited only by the setting sun. At the
end of the tennis-court rises a tower, containing two rooms at the top
of it, and two again under them; besides a banqueting room, from whence
there is a view of very wide ocean, a very extensive continent, and
numberless beautiful villas interspersed upon the shore. Answerable to
this is another turret containing, on the top, one single room where we
enjoy both the rising and the setting sun. Underneath is a very large
store-room for fruit, and a granary, and under these again a dining-room
from whence, even when the sea is most tempestuous, we only hear the
roaring of it, and that but languidly and at a distance. It looks upon
the garden, and the place for exercise which encludes my garden. The
whole is encompassed with Box; and where that is wanting with Rosemary;
for Box, when sheltered by buildings, will flourish very well, but
wither immediately if exposed to wind and weather, or ever so distantly
affected by the moist dews from the sea. The place for exercise
surrounds a delicate shady vineyard, the paths of which are easy and
soft even to the naked feet.
“The garden is filled with Mulberry and Fig trees; the soil being
propitious to both those kinds of trees, but scarce to any other.
“A dining-room, too remote to view the ocean, commands an object no less
agreeable, the prospect of the garden: and at the back of the
dining-room are two apartments, whose windows look upon the vestibule of
the house; and upon a fruitery and a kitchen garden. From hence you
enter into a covered gallery, large enough to appear a public work. The
gallery has a double row of windows on both sides; in the lower row are
several which look towards the sea; and one on each side towards the
garden; in the upper row there are fewer; in calm days when there is not
a breath of air stirring we open all the windows, but in windy weather
we take the advantage of opening that side only which is entirely free
from the hurricane. Before the gallery lies a terrace perfumed with
Violets. The building not only retains the heat of the sun, and
increases it by reflexion, but defends and protects us from the northern
blasts.”
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE GARDENS, AYSCOUGH FEE HALL, SPALDING.]
After a further description of this gallery written with some care,
Pliny begins his praise of his garden apartment. No man but a man of
true leisure could have dwelt so lovingly on a description of a
summer-house. Herrick loved his simple things as much, and sang them
tenderly. The small things that come close to us, to keep us warm from
all life’s disappointments, these are the things our hearts sing out to,
these are the things we think of when we are from home. “At the end of
the terrace, adjoining to the gallery, is a little garden-apartment,
which I own is my delight. In truth it is my mistress: I built it; and
in it is a particular kind of sun-trap which looks on one side towards
the terrace, on the other towards the sea, but on both sides has the
advantage of the sun. A double door opens into another room, and one of
the windows has a full view of the gallery. On the side next the sea,
over against the middle wall, is an elegant little closet; separated
only by transparent windows, and a curtain which can be opened or shut
at pleasure, from the room just mentioned. It holds a bed and two
chairs; the feet of the bed stand towards the sea, the back towards the
house, and one side of it towards some distant woods. So many different
views, seen from so many different windows diversify and yet blend the
prospect.
“Adjoining to this cabinet is my own constant bedchamber, where I am
never disturbed by the discourse of my servants, the murmurs of the sea,
nor the violence of a storm. Neither lightning nor daylight can break in
upon me till my own windows are opened. The reason of so perfect and
undisturbed a calm here arises from a large void space which is left
between the walls of the bedchamber and of the garden; so that all sound
is drowned in the intervening space.
“Close to the bedchamber is a little stove, placed so near a small
window of communication that it lets out, or retains, the heat just as
we think fit.
“From hence we pass through a lobby into another room, which stands in
such a position as to receive the sun, though obliquely, from daybreak
till past noon.”
There is one thing in this description that is very noteworthy, the
absolute content with everything, the lack of any note of grumbling.
After all, the pleasures of that garden apartment were very simple; he
took his joy of the sun, the wind, and the distant sound of the sea.
Heat, light, and the pleasant music of nature; the bank of Violets near
by, the prospect of the villas on the shore glimmering amidst their
greenery in the sun; the songs of birds in the thickets of Myrtle and
Rosemary, there made up the fine moments of his life.
Such little houses were copied from the Eastern idea, such as is pointed
to several times in the Bible. The Shunamite gives such a house to
Elisha:
“Let us make him a little chamber, I pray thee, with walls; and
let us set him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a
candlestick, that he may turn in thither when he cometh to us.”
Whether a Roman living in England ever built himself such a house it is
difficult to prove, since, so far as I can find, no remains of such a
place are to be seen. But, when one considers the actual evidence of the
Roman Occupation, the yields given by the neighbourhoods of Roman
cities, the statues, vases, toys, the amphitheatres for cock-fighting,
wrestling, and gladiatoral combat, then surely there were gardens of
great wonder near to these cities where men like Pliny went to sit in
their garden houses and enjoyed the cool of the evening after a day’s
work.
I have always made it a fancy of mine to suppose such an apartment to
have stood on the spot where a garden house I know now stands. I have
sat in this little house, a tiny place compared to Pliny’s, and pictured
to myself the surrounding country as it might have looked under the eyes
of our Roman conquerors. Not far distant is a Roman town, outside which
is a huge amphitheatre; the Roman road, via Iceniana, cutting through
the western downs and forests. Over this very countryside were villas
scattered here and there, bridges, walls, moats and camps. Even to-day,
not far away from my summer-house, are two small Roman bridges, over
which, in my day-dreams, the previous occupier of the site has often
passed.
Here, from this summer-house, I look upon an apiary, a bed of Violets, a
little wood that gives shelter to the birds, a running stream where
trout leap in the pools. My Roman friend, had he built his house here,
would have looked, as I look, at green meadows, and across them to a
wild heath on which rise the very mounds he must have known, British
earthworks, and the heap-up burial places of great British chiefs. Round
about the house grow many flowers that would seem homely to my ghostly
friend, Roses, Lilies, Narcissi, Violets, Poppies. Here he might have
sat and contemplated, as Pliny did, and taken his pleasure of the sun,
the wind, the birds. The sea he could not have heard, since it is eight
miles away, but he could well have seen storms come up over the western
downs, known that the Roman galleys were seeking shelter in the coves
and harbours, and noticed how the gulls flew screaming inland, and the
Egyptian swallows flew low before the coming tempest.
This house that I know is a simple affair, compared to the elaborate
design of Pliny’s; it is a small thatched single apartment built in the
elbow of the garden wall. It is not tuned to trap the sun, or dull the
sounds of the violence of the winds, but its solitary window opens wide
to let in the sound of the bees at work, the thrush singing in the Lilac
tree, or tapping his snails on a big stone by the side of the garden
path. It has a shelf for books, two chairs, a writing table, and an
infinity of those odds and ends a person collects who deals with bees.
Withal it is pervaded by a very sweet smell of honey.
Then there are ghosts for company if the books, the birds, and the bees
fail. There is my Roman to speak for his villa, for the glories of the
town near by. There is the British chieftain whose mound is not two
miles away, a mound where his charred ashes lie, but the urn that held
them is on a shelf overhead. There are Saxons who have trod this very
ground, and Danes and Normans, men also from Anjou, Gascony, and Maine,
and a host of others. Then there are the flowers themselves with
romances every one.
If I have a mind to following fancy and turn this into a veritable Roman
garden, I can link my fancy with Pliny’s facts and see how it would have
been ordered and arranged. I can see the villa portico with its terrace
in front of it adorned with statues and edged with Box. Below here is a
gravel walk on each side of which are figures of animals cut in Box.
Then there is the circus at the end of a broad path, where my Roman
friend could exercise himself on horseback. Round about the circus are
sheared dwarf trees, and clipped Box hedges. On the outside of this is a
lawn, smooth and green. Then comes my summer-house shaded with Plane
trees, with a marble fountain that plays on the roots of the trees and
the grass round them. There would be a walk near by covered with Vines,
and ended by an Ivy-covered wall. Several alleys (my imagination has
traced their courses) wind in and out to meet in the end of a series of
straight walks divided by grass plots, or Box trees cut into a thousand
shapes; some of letters forming my Roman’s name; others the name of his
gardener. In these are mixed small pyramid Apple trees; “and now and
then (to follow Pliny’s plan) you met, on a sudden, with a spot of
ground, wild and uncultivated, as if transplanted hither on purpose.”
Everywhere are marble or stone seats, little fountains, arbours covered
with Vines, and facing beds of Roses, or Violets, or Herbs, and always
is to be heard the pleasant murmur of water “conveyed through pipes by
the hand of the artificer.”
The more I think of it the more I see how exactly the garden I know
fulfils this purpose. Except for a greater, a far greater display of
flowers, Pliny would be quite at home here. There is an abundance of
water; the very site for the horse course; winding alleys, straight
paths, and several pergolas for Roses.
A noticeable thing in the planning of a Roman garden, and one that is
too often absent from our own, is the great attention paid to the value
of water. In many places where there is an abundant supply of water,
with streams running close by, or even through the garden, we find no
attempt made to use the value of water either decoratively or for useful
purposes. We are apt to dispose our gardens for the purposes of large
collections of flowers, whereas the Roman with his small store of them
was forced to bring every aid to bear on varying his garden, such as
seats, fountains, and little artificial brooks. The cost, even in small
gardens, of arranging a decorative effect of water, where water is
plentiful, would not amount to so very much, and in many cases would be
a great saving of labour. We use wells to some extent, and, to my mind,
a properly-built well-head, with a roof and posts, and seats, is one of
the most beautiful garden ornaments we can have.
The well-head itself should be built of brick raised about eighteen
inches above the ground, and should be at least fourteen inches broad in
the shelf, so that the buckets have ample room in which to stand. The
coil and windlass are better if they are both simple, and of good
timber. Round this a brick path, two feet broad, should be laid. Over
all a roof of red tiles supported on square wooden posts or brick
pillars, would give shade to the well, and to a seat of plain design
that should be placed against the outer edge of the brick path. And if
beds of flowers were set about it all, as I have seen done, and well
done, in a cottage garden in Kent, the effect is quaint and beautiful.
I have no doubt that in Roman England such wells were built where the
supply of water was not equal to great distribution. But it is amazing
to think that such a tiny village as Laurentium, where Pliny had one of
his villas outside Rome, held three Inns, in each of which were baths
always heated and ready for travellers, and that it has taken us until
the present day to bring the bath into the ordinary house.
Naturally, when one casts one’s eyes over a picture of a Roman garden in
England, and compares it with a garden of to-day, the very first thing
we find missing is that mass of colour and that wonderful variety of
bloom that constitutes the apex of modern gardening. Where they were
surprised, or gave themselves sudden shocks to the eye, it was by means
of little grottos, fountains, vistas at the ends of long alleys, statues
in a wild part of a garden, or unexpected seats commanding a prospect
opened out by an arrangement of the trees. We prepare for ourselves
wildernesses in which the Spring shall paint her wonderful picture of
Anemones, Daffodils, Crocuses, and such flowers; where Blue Bells and
Primroses, Ragged Robin, and Foxgloves hold us by their vivid colour.
Our scarlet armies of Geranium, our banks of purple Asters, or the
flaming panoplies of Roses with which we illuminate our gardens would
seem to the Roman something wonderful and strange. Yet, in a sense, his
taste was more subtle. He held green against green, a bed of Herbs, the
occasional jewel of a clump of Violets, more to his manner of liking.
And he arranged his garden so as to contain as many varieties of walks
as possible.
In the evenings now, when I am, by chance, staying in the house whose
garden holds that summer-house I love, I can see my old Roman of my
dreams wandering over his estate, and I almost feel his presence near me
as his ghost sits on the wooden seat by the lawn and his eyes seem to
peer across the meadows back to where Rome herself lies over the eastern
hills. An exile, buried far from Rome, his spirit seems to hover here as
if he could not sleep in peace away from the warm, sweet Italy of his
birth.
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II
ST. FIACRE, PATRON SAINT OF GARDENERS
AND CAB-DRIVERS
Gardeners who, to a man, are dedicated to peaceful and meditative
pursuits, should care to know of the story of Saint Fiacre, the Irish
Prince who turned hermit, and after his death was hailed Patron of
Gardeners.
He left Ireland, says the story, at that time when a missionary zeal was
sending Irish monks the length and breadth of Europe. As Saint Pol left
Britain and slew the Dragon on the Isle of Batz; Saint Gall drove the
spirits of flood across the Lake of Constance; Saint Columban founded
monasteries in Burgundy and the Apennines, so did Saint Fiacre leave his
native land and take himself to France, and there by a miracle enlarge
the space of his garden.
At Meaux, on the river Marne, near Paris, the Bishop Saint Faron had
founded a new monastery in the woods and called it the Monastery of
Saint Croix. To this monastery came the son of the Irish King, and made
his vows. It was early days in Europe, for Saint Fiacre died in or about
the year 670, and it is almost impossible to imagine the perils and
discomforts of his journey, for in Britain and Gaul fighting was going
on, roads were bad and unsafe, the sea had to be crossed in an open
boat.
[Illustration: A CAB-DRIVER IN PICCADILLY.]
But these Celts, driven west by war, now began to make their own war on
Europe, not with sword and shield and battle-cry, but with pilgrim’s
staff, and reed pen, and the device of Christ on their hearts.
Illumination, one of the marvels of monkish accomplishment, was spread
throughout Europe by bands of Irish monks, who, taking the wonderful
traditions of such work as “The Book of Kells,” and those works written
and illuminated at Lindisfarne, went their ways from country to country
spreading their culture as well as their message.
Saint Fiacre stayed a certain time in the monastery until, indeed, the
voice within him calling for more solitude and for another mode of life,
forced him to go to the Bishop. To him he spoke of his vocation, of
those feelings within him that prompted him to become a hermit.
The good Bishop seeing in Fiacre a good intention, and perceiving
doubtless the holy nature of the monk, granted him a space on his own
domain, some way from the monastery, on the edge of the woods and the
plain of Brie. To this place the monk repaired and began the great work
of his life.
Now it is not easy for the best of men at the best of times to live
solitary in a wood without becoming something of a self-conscious or
morbid person. Not so with these old hermits. They seemed to have the
grace of such excessive spirituality as to have been uplifted above
ordinary men, and to have lost all sense of loneliness in conversation
with the Saints, and in communion with God.
What finer means of reaching this exalted condition than by labouring to
make a garden in the wilderness? Saint Fiacre cleared a space in the
woods with his own hands, and in this space he built an oratory to Our
Lady, and a hut by it wherein he dwelt. All must have been of the most
primitive order; one of those beehive shaped buildings, such as still
remain in Ireland, for the oratory, fashioned out of stones and mud in
what is called rag-work, and most probably roofed with turf.
After the work of building he began to make his garden. It is evident
that his clearing was not near the river as the fountain or well from
which he drew his water is still to be seen and it is a considerable
distance away.
Imagine the solitary life of this priest gardener, whose food depended
entirely on the produce of the ground. To any man the silence of the
woods holds a mysterious calm, a weird, haunting uneasiness. To dwellers
in woods, after a time, the silence becomes full of friendly voices; the
fall of Acorns; the crackling of twigs as a wild animal forces a passage
through the undergrowth; the snap of trees in the frost; the shuffling
of birds getting ready for the night. But here, in the wild woods of
Meaux in those early times, wolves, bears, wild boars lived.
It is possible to imagine the Saint on his knees at night, the trees,
dark masses round his garden, a heaven above him pitted with stars, the
smoke of his breath as he prays rising like incense. And, as has been
known to be the case, all wild animals fearless of him, and friendly to
him in whom they see, by instinct, one who will do them no harm. As
Saint Jerome laid down with the lions, as Saint Francis spoke with
Brother Wolf, and Sister Lark, so Saint Fiacre must have spoken with his
friends, the beasts. In the heart of a gardener lies something to which
all wild nature responds.
But consider a man of that time alone in the wood, at that time when men
knew so little and whose lives were full of superstitious guesses at
scientific facts. And think how much more full of dread Fiacre must have
been than an ordinary man, since he was one of a nation to whom fairies
and goblins of every kind are daily actualities. Think of the Saint
seeing his own face daily reflected in the well as he drew his water;
think of the mysterious quality of water in lonely wells when it seems
now to be troubled by unseen hands, now to lift a clear smiling face to
the sky. He must be a mystic and a man filled with a simple goodness who
can garden in a wilderness like this.
One can picture him seated at the door of his hut eating his Acorn mash
or Herb soup after a day’s work and prayer. A stout wooden spade rests
by his side, the shaft of Oak worn smooth by his hands. In front of him
what labours show in the ground! Huge stumps of trees that have been
uprooted and dragged away; herbs he has tried to grow showing green in
the heavy soil; wild flowers sweeting the air; here the beginnings of a
vineyard; there the first blades of a patch of Wheat, or Oats.
In various parts of Europe were other Irish people at work sweetening
the soil. Saint Gobhan near Laon, Saint Etto, at Dompierre, Saint Caidoc
and Saint Fricor in Picardy, and Saint Judoc also there, Saint Fursey,
at Lagny, six miles north of Paris; and a daughter of an Irish king,
Saint Dympna, at Gheel, in Belgium. These are but a few of the Irish who
ventured forth to save the world. Beyond all of these does Saint Fiacre
appeal to us who love our gardens.
Self-denial has been called the luxury of the Saints, yet the
phrase-maker would seem to such denials of unessentials as rich foods
and wines, and mortifications of the flesh which a man may choose to do
without any suggestion of Saintship. Here, in Saint Fiacre, we have a
man whose process of purification was symbolised by his work. The
uprooting of trees, the uprooting of a thousand superstitious ideas; the
purifying of the soil, the cleansing of his heart; the growing of food,
the sustenance for his spirit besides his body.
He leaves his native land, he becomes monk, hermit, gardener. He dwells
in the wilds of a forest, one man, alone, doing no great deed one might
imagine that would cause his fame to travel, living his quiet simple
life shut right away from the world by leagues of forest, more buried
than a man in the wilderness. For cathedral, the depth of his woods, the
aisles of great trees, the tracery and windows made by boughs and
leaves. For choir, the birds. He was, one would think, so utterly alone,
that no step but his own ever broke the silence of the woodland glades;
so isolated that no human voice but his own ever penetrated the brakes
and thickets. Yet he became known.
Doubtless some hunter, a wild man, to whom the tracks in the forest were
as roads, coming one day through the woods after game, burst into the
clearing, and stood amazed, paused suspicious, wondering to see the
little oratory, the hut, the garden all about. The hunter casts his keen
eyes about, here and there, alert, scenting danger, eyeing the new place
with anxious wonder, holding his spear in readiness. Then comes the
Saint from his hut and calls him brother, bids him put down his spear,
sit and eat.
The hunter goes; a swineherd, seeking lost droves of pigs turned loose
to fatten on the acorns, comes across the place. The news filters
through the country, reaches the huddled villages by the river, reaches
the dwellers in the hills, the people of the forest. They come to look,
to stare, to be amazed. To each Saint Fiacre offers his hospitality.
As men, drawn irresistibly by a strong personality, will throng towards
a well whose water is supposed to contain some virtue, or a stone to
touch which restores lost friends, so they came to test the holiness of
this man of the woods, and found him good, and true, and full of peace.
And they marvelled to find a garden in the wood, and, being entreated,
eat of its produce, and heard the holy man preach, and saw him heal.
Then the Saint was forced to build another hut for those of his visitors
who came from far to consult him, and, as the crowds grew greater he was
forced to go to the Bishop to ask for more land.
Saint Faron, the Bishop of Meaux, to whom all the forest belonged, knew
his man. One can imagine two such men leading lofty and spiritual lives
meeting in the monastery. I like to think of the Bishop as one of those
thin men full of years, with a skin like parchment, his holiness shining
out of his eyes, a man whose quiet voice, tuned to the silence of the
monastery, breathes peace. And Fiacre, bronzed with the open air, rough
with labour, with the curious eyes of the mystic, eyes that looked as if
they had pierced the veil of a mystery, standing before his Bishop
asking for his grant of land.
Coming from the depths of the heavy wood into the town, leaving the
silence of his forest for the noise of the place, he must have felt
strange. Those who met him were, I am sure, conscious of the atmosphere
he carried with him, the envelope all lonely men wear, the curious
reserve common to all dwellers in woods, and wilds.
The Bishop consented to the demand, and gave him his desire after a
curious manner. Perhaps to test this hermit whose fame had already
spread so far, perhaps to see how real were the stories he must have
heard of his spiritual son, this holy gardener, he granted him as much
land as he could enclose with his spade in one day.
Back went Saint Fiacre to his forest clearing, to his friends the birds,
his bubbling wells, his aisles of trees, his garden, now well grown,
and, breaking a stick he marked out far and wide the space of land he
needed, more than any man could in one day enclose with any spade. And
after that into the little oratory he went and prayed for help.
You may be sure every movement of this was carefully observed. A woman
envied him and spied on these proceedings. I take it she was some woman
to whom, before the Saint grew famous, the peasants came for spells and
simples, a wise woman, a witch, whose reputation was at stake.
The Saint’s prayer was answered. The woman, evil report on her tongue,
made her journey to the Bishop of Meaux, and accused Fiacre of magic, of
dealings with the Devil. Roused by the report, the Bishop came to see
the Saint and saw all that had happened. In one day all the wide space
Fiacre had marked out had been enclosed. After that the oratory was
denied to all women. Even as late as 1641, nearly a thousand years after
his death, when Anne of Austria visited his shrine in the Cathedral of
Meaux she did not enter the Chapel but remained outside the grating. It
was the legend, handed down all that time, that any woman who entered
there would go blind or mad.
Where the Saint had dug his solitary garden, and on the site of his cell
a great Benedictine Priory was built in after years, where his body was
kept and did many wonders of healing, especially in the cure of a
certain fleshy tumour, which they called “le fie de St. Fiacre.” After
many years, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, his body was
removed to the Cathedral at Meaux.
So it may be seen for how good a cause he became known as Patron of
Gardeners, and it must now be shown why he is called the Patron of Cab
Drivers. In 1640 a man of the name of Sauvage started an establishment
in Paris from which he let out carriages for hire. He took a house for
this business in the Rue St. Martin, and the house was known as the
Hotel de St. Fiacre, and there was a figure of the Saint over the
doorway.
All the coaches plying from here began to be called, for short, fiacres,
and the drivers placed images of the Saint on their carriages, and
claimed him as their patron.
There is a Pardon of St. Fiacre in Brittany; and there are churches and
altars to him all over France.
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III
EVELYN’S “SYLVA”
On my table, as I write, is the copy of “Sylva” that John Evelyn himself
gave to Sir Robert Morray, and in which he wrote in ink that is now
faded and brown, as are his own autograph corrections in the text,
“—from his most humble servant, Evelyn.”
The title page runs thus:
SYLVA,
or a Discourse of
FOREST-TREES,
AND THE
Propagation of Timber
In His MAJESTIES Dominions
By J. E. Esq;
As it was Delivered in the Royal Society the XVth of
October CIϽIϽCLXII. upon Occasion of certain Quaeries
Propounded to that Illustrious Assembly, by the Honorable
the Principal Officers, and Commissioners of the Navy.
To which is annexed
POMONA or, An Appendix concerning Fruit-Trees in
relation to CIDER;
The Making and several ways of Ordering it.
Published by the express Order of the ROYAL SOCIETY
ALSO
KALENDARIUM HORTENSE; Or, ye Gard’ners Almanac;
Directing what he is to do Monethly throughout the year.
—Tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis
Ingredior, tantos ausus recludere fonteis. _Virg._
LONDON: Printed by Jo. Martyn, and Ja. Allestry, Printers
to the Royal Society, and are to be sold at their Shop at the
Bell in S. Paul’s Church-yard;
MDCLXIV.
[Illustration: A WOOD AT WOTTON, THE HOME OF JOHN EVELYN.]
This book was the first ever printed for the Royal Society, and
contains, as may be seen, a practically complete record of seventeenth
century planting and gardening, thus having an unique interest for all
who follow the craft.
John Evelyn, from the day he began his lessons under the Friar in the
porch of Wotton Church, was a curious observer of men and things, but
especially was he devoted to all manners and styles of gardening.
Nothing was too small, too trivial to escape his notice; from the
weather-cocks on the trees near Margate—put there on the days the
farmers feasted their servants, to the interest he found in watching the
first man he ever saw drink coffee.
The positions he held under Charles II. and James II. were many and
varied, yet he found time to collect samples in Venice, and travel
extensively, to write a Play, a treatise called: “Mundus Muliebris, or
the Ladies’ Dressing Room, Unlocked,” and a pamphlet, called “Tyrannus,
or the Mode,” in which he sought to make Charles II. dress like a
Persian, and succeeded in so doing.
But above all these things he held his chiefest pleasure in seeing and
talking of the arrangement of gardens, passing on this love to his son
John, who, when a boy of fifteen, at Trinity College, Oxford, translated
“Rapin, or Gardens,” the second book of which his father included in his
second edition of “Sylva.”
His Majesty Charles II., to whom the “Sylva” is dedicated, was a monarch
to whom justice has never been properly done. He is represented by pious
but inaccurate historians, those men who for many years gave a false
character of jovial good nature to that gross thief and sacrilegious
monster, Henry VIII., as a King who spent most of his time in the
Playhouse, or in talking trivialities with gay ladies, and in making
witty remarks to all and sundry in his Court. The side of him that took
interest in shipbuilding, navigation, astronomy, in the founding of the
Royal Society, in the advancement of Art, in the minor matters of flower
gardening and bee-keeping is nearly always suppressed. It was largely
through his interest in this volume of Evelyn’s that the Royal forests
were properly replanted; and it was in a great measure due to Royal
interest that the parks and estates of the noblemen of England became
famous in after years for their beautiful timber.
In that part of the “Sylva” dealing with forest trees, there were a
hundred hints to all lovers of nature and of gardens, for your good
gardener is a man very near in his nature to a good strong tree, and
loves to observe the play of light and shade in the branches of those
that give shade to his garden walks.
Evelyn tells us how the Ash is the sweetest of forest fuelling, and the
fittest for Ladies’ Chambers, also for the building of Arbours, the
staking of Espaliers, and the making of Poles. The white rot of it makes
a ground for the Sweet-powder used by gallants. He tries to introduce
the Chestnut as food, saying how it is a good, lusty and masculine food
for Rustics; and commenting on the fact that the best tables in France
and Italy make them a service. He tells us how the water in which Walnut
husks and leaves are boiled poured on the carpet of walks and
bowling-greens infallibly kills the worms without hurting the grass.
That, by the way, is a matter for discussion among gardeners, seeing
that some say that the movements of worms from below the surface to
their cast on the lawn lets air among the grass roots and is good for
them.
He tells us how the Horn-beam makes the stateliest hedge for long garden
walks. He advises us how to make wine of the Birch, Ash, Elder, Oak,
Crab and Bramble. He praises the Service-Tree, and the Eugh, and the
Jasmine, saying of this last how one sorry tree in Paris where they grow
“has been worth to a poor woman, near twenty shillings a year.”
All this and much besides of diverting and instructive reading, varied
with remarks on the gardens of his friends and acquaintances, as when he
“cannot but applaud the worthy Industry of old _Sir Harbotle Grimstone_,
who (I am told) from a very small _Nursery of Acorns_ which he sowed in
the neglected corners of his ground, did draw forth such numbers of
_Oaks_ of competent growth; as being planted about his _Fields_ in even
and uniform rows, about one hundred foot from the _Hedges_; bush’d and
well water’d till they had sufficiently fix’d themselves, did
wonderfully improve both the beauty, and the value of his _Demeasnes_,”
for the honour and glory of filling England with fine trees and gardens
to improve, what he calls—the Landskip.
The exigencies of the present moment when Imperial Finance threatens to
tax all good parks and orchards out of existence, and to make all fine
flower gardens out of use, except to the enormously wealthy, makes the
“Gard’ners Calendar” all the more interesting as showing what manner of
flowers, fruits, and vegetables were in use in the Seventeenth Century,
and the means employed to grow and preserve them.
Then, as now, there was a danger of over cultivation of certain plants
and flowers, so that a man might have more pride in the number and
curiosity of his flowers, than in the beauty and colour of them. It is a
certain fault in modern gardeners that they do not study the grouping
and massing of colours, but do, more generally, take pride in over-large
specimens, great collections, and rare varieties. But this age and that
are times of collecting, of connoisseurship, ages that produce us great
art of their own but have an extraordinary knowledge of the arts and
devices of the past. Not that I would decry the friendly competitions of
this and that man to grow rare rock plants, or bloom exotics the one
against another, but I do most certainly prefer a rivalry in producing
beautiful effects of colour; and love better to see a great mass of
Roses growing free than to see one poor tree twisted into the semblance
of a flowering parasol as men now use in many of the small climbing
Roses.
To the end that gardeners and lovers of gardens may know how those past
gardeners treated their fruits and flowers, I give the whole of Evelyn’s
“Gard’ners Calendar,” than which no more complete account of gardens of
that time exists.
It would be as well to note, before arriving at our Seventeenth Century
Calendar, how the art of gardening had grown in England after the time
of the Romans.
From the time that every sign of the Roman occupation had been wiped out
to the beginning of the thirteenth century, gardens as we know them
to-day did not exist. The first attempts at gardens within castle walls
were little plots of herbs and shrubs with a few trees of Costard
Apples. It appears that all those plants and flowers the Romans
cultivated had been lost, and that with the sterner conditions of living
all such arrangements as arbours of cut Yew trees, or elaborate
Box-edged paths had completely vanished. Certainly they did have arbours
for shade, but of a simple kind and quite unlike the elaborate garden
houses the Romans built.
There were vineyards and wine made from them as early as the Eighth
Century, and in the reign of Edward the Third wine was made at Windsor
Castle by Stephen of Bourdeaux. The Cherry trees brought here by the
Romans had quite died out and were not recovered until Harris, Henry the
Eighth’s Irish fruiterer, grew them again at Sittingbourne. In the
Twelfth Century flower gardening again came in, and within the castle
walls pleasant gardens were laid out with little avenues of fruit trees,
and neat beds of flowers. Of the fruit trees there was the Costard
Apple, the only Apple of that time, from which great quantities of
cider—that “good-natured and potable liquor”—was made. There was the
great Wardon Pear, from which the celebrated Wardon pies were made; they
were Winter Pears from a stock originally cultivated by those great
horticulturists the Cistercian monks of Wardon in Bedfordshire. Then
there was also the Quince, called a Coyne, the Medlar, and I believe the
Mulberry, or More tree. In the borders, Strawberries, Raspberries,
Barberries and Currants were grown, that is in a well-stocked garden
such as the Earl of Lincoln had in Holborn in 1290. Then there was a
plot set aside as a Physic garden where herbs grew and salads of Rocket,
Lettuce, Mustard, Watercress, and Hops. In one place, probably
overlooking the pond or fountain which was the centre of such gardens,
was an arbour, and walks and smaller gardens were screened off by wattle
hedges. In that part of the garden devoted to flowers were Roses,
Lilies, Sunflowers, Violets, Poppies, Narcissi, Pervinkes or
Periwinkles. Lastly, and most important was the Clove Pink, or
Gilly-flower, a variety of Wallflower then called Bee-flower. Add to
this an apiary and you have a complete idea of the mediæval garden.
Later, in the Fifteenth Century came a new feature into the garden, a
mound built in the centre for the view, made sometimes of earth, but
very often of wood raised up as a platform, and having gaily carved and
painted stairways. These, with butts for archery, and bowling-greens,
and a larger variety of the old kinds of flowers, showed the principal
difference.
We come now to the gardens of the Sixteen Century, when flower gardening
was extremely popular. Spenser and the other poets are always describing
the beauties of flowers, and from these and old Herbals, from Bacon,
Shakespeare and other writers of that time, we are able to see how,
slowly but surely, the art of flower growing had advanced. The gardens
were very exact and formal, and were divided in geometrical patterns,
and grew large “seats” of Violets, Penny Royal, and Mint as well as
other herbs. Above all, a new addition to the mounds, archery butts and
bowling-greens, was the maze which had a place in every proper garden of
the Elizabethans.
The first garden where flower growing was taken really seriously
belonged to John Parkinson, a London apothecary who had a garden in Long
Acre. Great importance was given to smell, as is highly proper, and
flower gardens were bordered with Thyme, Marjoram and Lavender.
Highly-scented flowers were the most prized, and for this reason the
prime favourite the Carnation, was more grown than any other flower. Of
this there were fifty distinct varieties of every shape and size,
including the famous large Clove Pink, the golden coloured Sops-in-Wine.
With the increase in the variety of the Rose, of which about thirty
kinds were known, came the fashion, quickly universal, of keeping
potpourri of dried Rose leaves, many of which were imported from the
East, from whence, years before, had come quantities of Roses to supply
the demand in Winter in Rome.
As the fashion for growing flowers increased so, also, did the efforts
of gardeners to procure new and rare flowers from foreign countries, and
soon the Fritillary, Tulip and Iris were extensively cultivated, and
were treated with extraordinary care.
Following this came the rage for Anemones and Ranunculi, in which people
endeavoured to excel over their friends. And after that came in small
Chrysanthemums, Lilac or Blue Pipe tree, Lobelia, and the Acacia tree.
It will be seen that within quite a short space of time the old garden
containing few flowers, and only those as a rule that had some medicinal
properties, vanished before a perfect orgy of colour and wealth of
varieties; and that gardening for pleasure gave the people a new and
fascinating occupation. The rage for Anemones and for the different
kinds of Ranunculus developed until in the late Seventeenth Century the
madness, for it was nothing else, for Tulip collecting came in, to give
place still later to the Rose, and in our day only to be equalled by the
collection of Chrysanthemums and Orchids.
The best books previous to Evelyn’s “Sylva” are Gervase Markham’s
“Country House-Wife’s Garden,” (1617), and John Parkinson’s “Paradisus
in Sole” (1629).
One word more on the subject of flower mania. The rage for the Tulip
that attacked both English and Dutch in the late Seventeenth Century is
one of the most peculiar things in the history of gardening. The Tulip
is really a Persian flower, the shape of it suggesting the name,
thoulyban, a Persian turban. It was introduced into England about 1577,
by way of Germany, having been brought there by the German Ambassador
from Constantinople. By the Seventeenth Century there had developed such
a passion for this flower that it led to wreck and ruin of rich men who
paid fabulous sums for the bulbs, a single bulb being sold for a
fortune. One bulb of the Semper Augustus was sold for four thousand six
hundred florins, a new carriage, a pair of grey horses, and complete
harness. So great did the business in Tulips become that every Dutch
town had special Tulip exchanges, and there speculators assembled and
bid away vast sums to acquire rare kinds. The mania lasted about three
years, and was only finally stopped by the Government.
[Illustration: TULIPS IN “THE GARDEN OF PEACE.”]
------------------------------------------------------------------------