God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of
human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man;
without which buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks; and a
man shall ever see, that, when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men
come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening
were the greater perfection. I do hold it, in the royal ordering of
gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year, in
which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season. For December,
and January, and the latter part of November, you must take such things
as are green all winter: holly, ivy, bays, juniper, cypress-trees,
yew, pineapple-trees;[474] fir-trees, rosemary, lavender; periwinkle,
the white, the purple, and the blue; germander, flags, orange-trees,
lemon-trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved;[475] and sweet marjoram,
warm set. There followeth, for the latter part of January and February,
the mezereon-tree, which then blossoms; crocus vernus, both the yellow
and the gray; primroses, anemones, the early tulip, the hyacinthus
orientalis, chamaïris fritellaria. For March, there come violets,
especially the single blue, which are the earliest; the yellow
daffodil, the daisy, the almond-tree in blossom, the peach-tree in
blossom, the cornelian-tree in blossom, sweet-brier. In April, follow
the double white violet, the wall-flower, the stock-gillyflower,
the cowslip, flower-de-luces, and lilies of all natures; rosemary
flowers, the tulip, the double peony, the pale daffodil, the French
honeysuckle, the cherry-tree in blossom, the damascene[476] and
plum-trees in blossom, the white thorn in leaf, the lilac-tree. In May
and June come pinks of all sorts, especially the blush-pink; roses
of all kinds, except the musk, which comes later; honeysuckles,
strawberries, bugloss, columbine, the French marigold, flos Africanus,
cherry-tree in fruit, ribes,[477] figs in fruit, rasps, vine-flowers,
lavender in flowers, the sweet satyrian, with the white flower; herba
muscaria, lilium convallium, the apple-tree in blossom. In July come
gillyflowers of all varieties, musk-roses, the lime-tree in blossom,
early pears, and plums in fruit, genitings,[478] codlins. In August
come plums of all sorts in fruit, pears, apricots, barberries,
filberts, musk-melons, monks-hoods, of all colors. In September come
grapes, apples, poppies of all colors, peaches, melocotones,[479]
nectarines, cornelians,[480] wardens,[481] quinces. In October, and the
beginning of November, come services, medlars, bullaces, roses cut or
removed to come late, hollyoaks, and such like. These particulars are
for the climate of London; but my meaning is perceived, that you may
have “ver perpetuum,”[482] as the place affords.
And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where
it comes and goes, like the warbling of music), than in the hand,
therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be
the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask
and red, are fast flowers[483] of their smell, so that you may walk by
a whole row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness; yea, though
it be in a morning’s dew. Bays, likewise, yield no smell as they grow,
rosemary little, nor sweet marjoram; that which, above all others,
yields the sweetest smell in the air, is the violet, especially the
white double violet, which comes twice a year, about the middle of
April, and about Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the musk-rose;
then the strawberry leaves dying, with a most excellent cordial smell;
then the flower of the vines, it is a little dust like the dust of a
bent,[484] which grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth; then
sweet-brier, then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set
under a parlor or lower chamber window; then pinks and gillyflowers,
specially the matted pink and clove gillyflower; then the flowers of
the lime-tree; then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off.
Of bean-flowers[485] I speak not, because they are field-flowers; but
those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the
rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three; that is, burnet,
wild thyme, and water-mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of
them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.
For gardens (speaking of those which are indeed prince-like, as we
have done of buildings), the contents ought not well to be under thirty
acres of ground, and to be divided into three parts; a green in the
entrance, a heath, or desert, in the going forth, and the main garden
in the midst, besides alleys on both sides; and I like well that four
acres of ground be assigned to the green, six to the heath, four and
four to either side, and twelve to the main garden. The green hath two
pleasures: the one, because nothing is more pleasant to the eye than
green grass kept finely shorn; the other, because it will give you a
fair alley in the midst, by which you may go in front upon a stately
hedge, which is to inclose the garden. But because the alley will be
long, and in great heat of the year, or day, you ought not to buy the
shade in the garden by going in the sun through the green; therefore
you are, of either side the green, to plant a covert alley, upon
carpenter’s work, about twelve foot in height, by which you may go in
shade into the garden. As for the making of knots or figures, with
divers colored earths, that they may lie under the windows of the house
on that side which the garden stands, they be but toys; you may see
as good sights many times in tarts. The garden is best to be square,
encompassed on all the four sides with a stately arched hedge: the
arches to be upon pillars of carpenter’s work, of some ten foot high,
and six foot broad, and the spaces between of the same dimension with
the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let there be an entire hedge
of some four foot high, framed also upon carpenter’s work; and upon the
upper hedge, over every arch a little turret, with a belly enough to
receive a cage of birds; and over every space between the arches some
other little figure, with broad plates of round colored glass gilt,
for the sun to play upon; but this hedge I intend to be raised upon
a bank, not steep, but gently slope, of some six foot, set all with
flowers. Also, I understand that this square of the garden should not
be the whole breadth of the ground, but to leave on either side ground
enough for diversity of side alleys, unto which the two covert alleys
of the green may deliver you;[486] but there must be no alleys with
hedges at either end of this great inclosure; not at the hither end,
for letting[487] your prospect upon this fair hedge from the green; nor
at the further end for letting your prospect from the hedge through the
arches upon the heath.
For the ordering of the ground within the great hedge, I leave it to
variety of device; advising, nevertheless, that whatsoever form you
cast it into first, it be not too bushy, or full of work; wherein I,
for my part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden
stuff; they be for children. Little low hedges, round like welts, with
some pretty pyramids, I like well; and in some places fair columns,
upon frames of carpenter’s work. I would also have the alleys spacious
and fair. You may have closer alleys upon the side grounds, but none
in the main garden. I wish, also, in the very middle, a fair mount,
with three ascents and alleys, enough for four to walk abreast;
which I would have to be perfect circles, without any bulwarks or
embossments; and the whole mount to be thirty foot high, and some fine
banqueting-house, with some chimneys neatly cast, and without too much
glass.
For fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment; but pools mar
all, and make the garden unwholesome, and full of flies and frogs.
Fountains I intend to be of two natures; the one that sprinkleth or
spouteth water; the other, a fair receipt of water, of some thirty
or forty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud. For the
first, the ornaments of images, gilt or of marble, which are in use,
do well; but the main matter is so to convey the water, as it never
stay, either in the bowls or in the cistern; that the water be never by
rest discolored, green, or red, or the like, or gather any mossiness
or putrefaction; besides that, it is to be cleansed every day by the
hand; also, some steps up to it, and some fine pavement about it,
doth well. As for the other kind of fountain, which we may call a
bathing-pool, it may admit much curiosity and beauty, wherewith we
will not trouble ourselves: as, that the bottom be finely paved, and
with images; the sides likewise; and, withal, embellished with colored
glass, and such things of lustre; encompassed, also, with fine rails
of low statues. But the main point is the same that we mentioned in
the former kind of fountain; which is, that the water be in perpetual
motion, fed by a water higher than the pool, and delivered into it by
fair spouts, and then discharged away under ground, by some equality of
bores, that it stay little; and for fine devices, of arching water[488]
without spilling, and making it rise in several forms (of feathers,
drinking-glasses, canopies, and the like), they be pretty things to
look on, but nothing to health and sweetness.
For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to be
framed as much as may be to a natural wildness. Trees I would have none
in it, but some thickets made only of sweet-brier and honeysuckle, and
some wild vine amongst; and the ground set with violets, strawberries,
and primroses; for these are sweet, and prosper in the shade, and
these to be in the heath here and there, not in any order. I like
also little heaps, in the nature of molehills (such as are in wild
heaths), to be set, some with wild thyme, some with pinks, some with
germander, that gives a good flower to the eye; some with periwinkle,
some with violets, some with strawberries, some with cowslips, some
with daisies, some with red roses, some with lilium convallium,[489]
some with sweet-williams red, some with bear’s-foot, and the like
low flowers, being withal sweet and sightly; part of which heaps to
be with standards of little bushes pricked upon their top, and part
without; the standards to be roses, juniper, holly, barberries (but
here and there, because of the smell of their blossom), red currants,
gooseberries, rosemary, bays, sweetbrier, and such like; but these
standards to be kept with cutting, that they grow not out of course.
For the side grounds, you are to fill them with variety of alleys,
private, to give a full shade; some of them wheresoever the sun be.
You are to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that when the wind
blows sharp, you may walk as in a gallery: and those alleys must be
likewise hedged at both ends, to keep out the wind; and these closer
alleys must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because of going
wet. In many of these alleys, likewise, you are to set fruit-trees of
all sorts, as well upon the walls as in ranges;[490] and this should be
generally observed, that the borders wherein you plant your fruit-trees
be fair, and large, and low, and not steep; and set with fine flowers,
but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive[491] the trees. At the end
of both the side grounds I would have a mount of some pretty height,
leaving the wall of the inclosure breast high, to look abroad into the
fields.
For the main garden, I do not deny but there should be some fair
alleys ranged on both sides with fruit-trees, and some pretty tufts of
fruit-trees and arbors with seats, set in some decent order; but these
to be by no means set too thick, but to leave the main garden so as it
be not close, but the air open and free. For as for shade, I would have
you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there to walk, if you be
disposed, in the heat of the year or day; but to make account[492] that
the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the year, and in the
heat of summer for the morning and the evening or overcast days.
For aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness as they
may be turfed, and have living plants and bushes set in them; that the
birds may have more scope and natural nestling, and that no foulness
appear in the floor of the aviary. So I have made a platform of a
princely garden, partly by precept, partly by drawing; not a model,
but some general lines of it; and in this I have spared for no cost.
But it is nothing for great princes, that, for the most part, taking
advice with workmen, with no less cost set their things together, and
sometimes add statues and such things for state and magnificence, but
nothing to the true pleasure of a garden.