THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN
[Illustration: STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, NEW PLACE, BORDER OF ANNUALS]
THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN
BY ESTHER SINGLETON
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
AND REPRODUCTIONS OF
OLD WOOD CUTS
[Illustration]
PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.
NEW YORK M CM XX II
Copyright, 1922, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Printed in U. S. A.
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY MOTHER
WHOSE RARE ARTISTIC TASTES AND WHOSE CULTURED
INTELLECT LED ME IN EARLY YEARS TO THE APPRECIATION
OF SHAKESPEARE AND ALL MANIFESTATIONS
OF BEAUTY IN LITERATURE AND ART
PREFACE
In adding another book to the enormous number of works on Shakespeare,
I beg indulgence for a few words of explanation.
Having been for many years an ardent and a devoted student of
Shakespeare, I discovered long ago that there was no adequate book
on the Elizabethan garden and the condition of horticulture in
Shakespeare's time. Every Shakespeare student knows how frequently
and with what subtle appreciation Shakespeare speaks of flowers.
Shakespeare loved all the simple blossoms that "paint the meadows
with delight": he loved the mossy banks in the forest carpeted with
wild thyme and "nodding violets" and o'er-canopied with eglantine and
honeysuckle; he loved the cowslips in their gold coats spotted with
rubies, "the azured harebells" and the "daffodils that come before
the swallow dares"; he loved the "winking mary-buds," or marigolds,
that "ope their golden eyes" in the first beams of the morning sun; he
loved the stately flowers of stately gardens--the delicious musk-rose,
"lilies of all kinds," and the flower-de-luce; and he loved all the
new "outlandish" flowers, such as the crown-imperial just introduced
from Constantinople and "lark's heels trim" from the West Indies.
Shakespeare no doubt visited Master Tuggie's garden at Westminster, in
which Ralph Tuggie and later his widow, "Mistress Tuggie," specialized
in carnations and gilliflowers, and the gardens of Gerard, Parkinson,
Lord Zouche, and Lord Burleigh. In addition to these, he knew the
gardens of the fine estates in Warwickshire and the simple cottage
gardens, such as charm the American visitor in rural England. When
Shakespeare calls for a garden scene, as he does in "Twelfth Night,"
"Romeo and Juliet," and "King Richard II," it is the "stately garden"
that he has in his mind's eye, the finest type of a Tudor garden, with
terraces, "knots," and arbors. In "Love's Labour's Lost" is mentioned
the "curious knotted garden."
Realizing the importance of reproducing an accurate representation of
the garden of Shakespeare's time the authorities at Stratford-upon-Avon
have recently rearranged "the garden" of Shakespeare's birthplace; and
the flowers of each season succeed each other in the proper "knots"
and in the true Elizabethan atmosphere. Of recent years it has been a
fad among American garden lovers to set apart a little space for a
"Shakespeare garden," where a few old-fashioned English flowers are
planted in beds of somewhat formal arrangement. These gardens are not,
however, by any means replicas of the simple garden of Shakespeare's
time, or of the stately garden as worked out by the skilful
Elizabethans.
It is my hope, therefore, that this book will help those who desire a
perfect Shakespeare garden, besides giving Shakespeare lovers a new
idea of the gardens and flowers of Shakespeare's time.
Part One is devoted to the history and evolution of the small enclosed
garden within the walls of the medieval castle into the Garden of
Delight which Parkinson describes; the Elizabethan garden, the
herbalists and horticulturists; and the new "outlandish" flowers. Part
Two describes the flowers mentioned by Shakespeare and much quaint
flower lore. Part Three is devoted to technical hints, instruction and
practical suggestions for making a correct Shakespeare garden.
Shakespeare does not mention all the flowers that were familiar in
his day, and, therefore, I have described in detail only those spoken
of in his plays. I have chosen only the varieties that were known to
Shakespeare; and in a Shakespeare garden only such specimens should
be planted. For example, it would be an anachronism to grow the
superb modern pansies, for the "pansy freaked with jet," as Milton so
beautifully calls it, is the tiny heartsease, or "johnny-jump-up."
On the other hand, the carnations (or "sops-in-wine") and gilliflowers
were highly developed in Shakespeare's day and existed in bewildering
variety.
We read of such specimens as the Orange Tawny Gilliflower, the
Grandpère, the Lustie Gallant or Westminster, the Queen's Gilliflower,
the Dainty, the Fair Maid of Kent or Ruffling Robin, the Feathered
Tawny, Master Bradshaw's Dainty Lady, and Master Tuggie's Princess,
besides many other delightful names.
I have carefully read every word in Parkinson's huge volume, _Paradisi
in Sole; Paradisus Terrestris_ (London, 1629), to select from his
practical instructions to gardeners and also his charming bits of
description. I need not apologize for quoting so frequently his
intimate and loving characterizations of those flowers that are
"nourished up in gardens." Take, for example, the following description
of the "Great Harwich":
I take [says Parkinson] this goodly, great old English Carnation as a
precedent for the description of all the rest, which for his beauty
and stateliness is worthy of a prime place. It riseth up with a great,
thick, round stalk divided into several branches, somewhat thickly set
with joints, and at every joint two long, green (rather than whitish)
leaves turning or winding two or three times round. The flowers stand
at the tops of the stalks in long, great and round green husks, which
are divided into five points, out of which rise many long and broad
pointed leaves deeply jagged at the ends, set in order, round and
comely, making a gallant, great double Flower of a deep carnation
color almost red, spotted with many bluish spots and streaks, some
greater and some lesser, of an excellent soft, sweet scent, neither
too quick, as many others of these kinds are, nor yet too dull, and
with two whitish crooked threads like horns in the middle. This kind
never beareth many flowers, but as it is slow in growing, so in
bearing, not to be often handled, which showeth a kind of stateliness
fit to preserve the opinion of magnificence.
It will amaze the reader, perhaps, to learn that horticulture was
in such a high state of development. Some wealthy London merchants
and noblemen, Nicholas Leate, for example, actually kept agents
traveling in the Orient and elsewhere to search for rare bulbs and
plants. Explorers in the New World also brought home new plants and
flowers. Sir Walter Raleigh imported the sweet potato and tobacco (but
neither is mentioned by Shakespeare) and from the West Indies came the
_Nasturtium Indicum_--"Yellow Lark's Heels," as the Elizabethans called
it.
Many persons will be interested to learn the quaint old flower names,
such as "Sops-in-Wine," the "Frantic Foolish Cowslip," "Jack-an-Apes on
Horseback," "Love in Idleness," "Dian's Bud," etc.
The Elizabethans enjoyed their gardens and used them more than we use
ours to-day. They went to them for _re-creation_--a renewing of body
and refreshment of mind and spirit. They loved their shady walks, their
pleached alleys, their flower-wreathed arbors, their banks of thyme,
rosemary, and woodbine, their intricate "knots" bordered with box or
thrift and filled with bright blossoms, and their labyrinths, or mazes.
Garden lovers were critical and careful about the arrangement and
grouping of their flowers. To-day we try for masses of color; but the
Elizabethans went farther than we do, for they blended their hues and
even shaded colors from dark to light. The people of Shakespeare's day
were also fastidious about perfume values--something we do not think
about to-day. The planting of flowers with regard to the "perfume on
the air," as Bacon describes it, was a part of ordinary garden lore.
We have altogether lost this delicacy of gardening.
This book was the logical sequence of a talk I gave two years ago upon
the "Gardens and Flowers of Shakespeare's Time" at the residence of
Mrs. Charles H. Senff in New York, before the International Garden
Club. This talk was very cordially received and was repeated by request
at the home of Mrs. Ernest H. Fahnestock, also in New York.
I wish to express my thanks to Mr. Norman Taylor of the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden, for permission to reprint the first chapter, which
appeared in the "Journal of the International Garden Club," of which
he is the editor. I also wish to thank Mr. Taylor for his valued
encouragement to me in the preparation of this book.
I wish to direct attention to the remarkable portrait of Nicholas
Leate, one of the greatest flower collectors of his day, photographed
especially for this book from the original portrait in oils, painted by
Daniel Mytens for the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, of which Leate
was master in 1616, 1626, and 1627.
The portrait of this English worthy has never been photographed
before; and it is a great pleasure for me to bring before the public
the features and personality of a man who was such a deep lover of
horticulture and who held such a large place in the London world in
Shakespeare's time. The dignity, refinement, distinction, and general
atmosphere of Nicholas Leate--and evidently Mytens painted a direct
portrait without flattery--bespeak the type of gentleman who sought
_re-creation_ in gardens and who could have held his own upon the
subject with Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney,
Lord Burleigh, and Sir Henry Wotton--and, doubtless, he knew them all.
It was not an easy matter to have this portrait photographed, because
when the Hall of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers was destroyed by
a German bomb in 1917 the rescued portrait was stored in the National
Gallery. Access to the portrait was very difficult, and it was only
through the great kindness of officials and personal friends that a
reproduction was made possible.
I wish, therefore, to thank the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers
for the gracious permission to have the portrait photographed and to
express my gratitude to Mr. Collins Baker, keeper of the National
Gallery, and to Mr. Ambrose, chief clerk and secretary of the
National Gallery, for their kind co-operation; to Mr. C. W. Carey,
curator of the Royal Holloway College Gallery, who spent two days
in photographing the masterpiece; and also to Sir Evan Spicer of the
Dulwich Gallery and to my sister, Mrs. Carrington, through whose joint
efforts the arrangements were perfected.
I also wish to thank the Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare's
Birthplace, who, through their Secretary, Mr. F. C. Wellstood, have
supplied me with several photographs of the Shakespeare Garden at
Stratford-upon-Avon, especially taken for this book, with permission
for their reproduction.
E. S.
New York, September 4, 1922.
CONTENTS
PART ONE
THE GARDEN OF DELIGHT
PAGE
EVOLUTION OF THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 3
I. The Medieval Pleasance 3
II. Garden of Delight 11
III. The Italian Renaissance Garden 15
IV. Bagh-i-Vafa 19
V. New Fad for Flowers 21
VI. Tudor Gardens 25
VII. Garden Pleasures 29
THE CURIOUS KNOTTED GARDEN 31
I. Flower Lovers and Herbalists 31
II. The Elizabethan Garden 40
III. Old Garden Authors 68
IV. "Outlandish" and English Flowers 78
PART TWO
THE FLOWERS OF SHAKESPEARE
SPRING: "THE SWEET O' THE YEAR" 93
I. Primroses, Cowslips, and Oxlips 93
II. "Daffodils That Come Before the Swallow
Dares" 109
III. "Daisies Pied and Violets Blue" 118
IV. "Lady-smocks All Silver White" and
"Cuckoo-buds of Every Yellow Hue" 130
V. Anemones and "Azured Harebells" 133
VI. Columbine and Broom-flower 137
SUMMER: "SWEET SUMMER BUDS" 145
I. "Morning Roses Newly Washed with
Dew" 145
II. "Lilies of All Kinds" 160
III. Crown-Imperial and Flower-de-Luce 167
IV. Fern and Honeysuckle 175
V. Carnations and Gilliflowers 181
VI. Marigold and Larkspur 189
VII. Pansies for Thoughts and Poppies for
Dreams 200
VIII. Crow-flowers and Long Purples 207
IX. Saffron Crocus and Cuckoo-flowers 210
X. Pomegranate and Myrtle 215
AUTUMN: "HERBS OF GRACE" AND "DRAMS OF
POISON" 224
I. Rosemary and Rue 224
II. Lavender, Mints, and Fennel 231
III. Sweet Marjoram, Thyme, and Savory 236
IV. Sweet Balm and Camomile 243
V. Dian's Bud and Monk's-hood Blue 246
WINTER: "WHEN ICICLES HANG BY THE WALL" 253
I. Holly and Ivy 253
II. Mistletoe and Box 261
PART THREE
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS
THE LAY-OUT OF STATELY AND SMALL FORMAL GARDENS 269
I. The Stately Garden 271
II. The Small Garden 276
III. Soil and Seed 278
IV. The Gateway 280
V. The Garden House 281
VI. The Mount 282
VII. Rustic Arches 282
VIII. Seats 284
IX. Vases, Jars, and Tubs 284
X. Fountains 285
XI. The Dove-cote 287
XII. The Sun-dial 288
XIII. The Terrace 289
XIV. The Pleached Alley 292
XV. Hedges 293
XVI. Paths 294
XVII. Borders 295
XVIII. Edgings 297
XIX. Knots 298
XX. The Rock Garden 302
XXI. Flowers 302
XXII. Potpourri 324
A MASKE OF FLOWERS 325
COMPLETE LIST OF SHAKESPEAREAN FLOWERS WITH
BOTANICAL IDENTIFICATIONS 331
APPENDIX 333
ELIZABETHAN GARDENS AT SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE 333
INDEX 347
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Stratford-upon-Avon, New Place, Border of Annuals _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Fifteenth Century Garden within Castle Walls, French 8
Lovers in the Castle Garden, Fifteenth Century MS. 17
Garden of Delight, Romaunt of the Rose, Fifteenth
Century 17
Babar's Garden of Fidelity 20
Italian Renaissance Garden, Villa Giusti, Verona 29
John Gerard, Lobel and Parkinson 32
Nicholas Leate 36
The Knot-Garden, New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon 45
Typical Garden of Shakespeare's Time, Crispin de
Passe (1614) 56
Labyrinth, Vredeman de Vries 64
A Curious Knotted Garden, Crispin de Passe (1614) 64
The Knot-Garden, New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon 72
Border, New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon 81
Herbaceous Border, New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon 88
Carnations and Gilliflowers; Primroses and Cowslips;
and Daffodils: from Parkinson 97
Gardeners at Work, Sixteenth Century 112
Garden Pleasures, Sixteenth Century 112
Garden in Macbeth's Castle of Cawdor 116
Shakespeare's Birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon 125
Elizabethan Manor House, Haddon Hall 136
Rose Arbor, Warley, England 145
Red, White, Damask and Musk-Roses; Lilies and Eglantines
and Dog-Roses: from Parkinson 160
Martagon Lilies, Warley, England 168
Wilton Gardens from de Caux 176
Wilton Gardens To-day 176
A Garden of Delight 184
Sir Thomas More's Gardens, Chelsea 193
Pleaching and Plashing, from The Gardener's Labyrinth 209
Small Enclosed Garden, from The Gardener's Labyrinth 209
A Curious Knotted Garden, Vredeman de Vries 224
Garden with Arbors, Vredeman de Vries 224
Shakespeare Garden, Van Cortlandt House Museum,
Van Cortlandt Park, Colonial Dames of the State
of New York 241
Tudor Manor House with Modern Arrangement of
Gardens 256
Garden House in Old English Garden 272
Fountains, Sixteenth Century 289
Sunken Gardens, Sunderland Hall, with Unusual
Treatment of Hedges 304
Knots from Markham 321
Simple Garden Beds 321
PART ONE
THE GARDEN OF DELIGHT
EVOLUTION OF THE SHAKESPEARE
GARDEN
I
_The Medieval Pleasance_
SHAKESPEARE was familiar with two kinds of gardens: the stately and
magnificent garden that embellished the castles and manor-houses of
the nobility and gentry; and the small and simple garden such as he
had himself at Stratford-on-Avon and such as he walked through when he
visited Ann Hathaway in her cottage at Shottery.
The latter is the kind that is now associated with Shakespeare's
name; and when garden lovers devote a section of their grounds to
a "Shakespeare garden" it is the small, enclosed garden, such as
_Perdita_ must have had, that they endeavor to reproduce.
The small garden of Shakespeare's day, which we so lovingly call by
his name, was a little pleasure garden--a garden to stroll in and to
sit in. The garden, moreover, had another purpose: it was intended
to supply flowers for "nosegays" and herbs for "strewings." The
Shakespeare garden was a continuation, or development, of the Medieval
"Pleasance," where quiet ladies retired with their embroidery frames
to work and dream of their Crusader lovers, husbands, fathers, sons,
and brothers lying in the trenches before Acre and Ascalon, or storming
the walls of Jerusalem and Jericho; where lovers sat hand in hand
listening to the songs of birds and to the still sweeter songs from
their own palpitating hearts; where men of affairs frequently repaired
for a quiet chat, or refreshment of spirit; and where gay groups of
lords and ladies gathered to tell stories, to enjoy the recitation of
a wandering _trouvère_, or to sing to their lutes and viols, while
jesters in doublets and hose of bright colors and cap and bells lounged
nonchalantly on the grass to mock at all things--even love!
In the illuminated manuscripts of old _romans_, such as "Huon of
Bordeaux," the "Romaunt of the Rose," "Blonde of Oxford," "Flore et
Blancheflore, Amadis de Gaul," etc., there are many charming miniatures
to illustrate the word-pictures. From them we learn that the garden
was actually within the castle walls and _very_ small. The walls of
the garden were broken by turrets and pierced with a little door,
usually opposite the chief entrance; the walks were paved with brick
or stone, or they were sanded, or graveled; and at the intersection
of these walks a graceful fountain usually tossed its spray upon the
buds and blossoms. The little beds were laid out formally and were
bright with flowers, growing singly and not in masses. Often, too, pots
or vases were placed here and there at regular intervals, containing
orange, lemon, bay, or cypress trees, their foliage beautifully
trimmed in pyramids or globes that rose high above the tall stems.
Not infrequently the garden rejoiced in a fruit-tree, or several
fruit-trees. Stone or marble seats invitingly awaited visitors.
The note here was _charming intimacy_. It was a spot where gentleness
and sweetness reigned, and where, perforce, every flower enjoyed the
air it breathed. It was a Garden of Delight for flowers, birds, and men.
To trace the formal garden to its origin would take us far afield. We
should have to go back to the ancient Egyptians, whose symmetrical and
magnificent gardens were luxurious in the extreme; to Babylon, whose
superb "Hanging Gardens" were among the Seven Wonders of the World; and
to the Romans, who are still our teachers in the matter of beautiful
gardening. The Roman villas that made Albion beautiful, as the great
estates of the nobility and gentry make her beautiful to-day, lacked
nothing in the way of ornamental gardens. Doubtless Pliny's garden was
repeated again and again in the outposts of the Roman Empire. From
these splendid Roman gardens tradition has been handed down.
There never has been a time in the history of England where the
cultivation of the garden held pause. There is every reason to believe
that the Anglo-Saxons were devoted to flowers. A poem in the "Exeter
Book" has the lines:
Of odors sweetest
Such as in summer's tide
Fragrance send forth in places,
Fast in their stations,
Joyously o'er the plains,
Blown plants,
Honey-flowing.
No one could write "blown-plants, honey-flowing" without a deep and
sophisticated love of flowers.
Every Anglo-Saxon gentleman had a _garth_, or garden, for pleasure, and
an _ort-garth_ for vegetables. In the _garth_ the best loved flower
was the lily, which blossomed beside the rose, sunflower, marigold,
gilliflower, violet, periwinkle, honeysuckle, daisy, peony, and
bay-tree.
Under the Norman kings, particularly Henry II, when the French and
English courts were virtually the same, the citizens of London had
gardens, "large, beautiful, and planted with various kinds of trees."
Possibly even older scribes wrote accounts of some of these, but the
earliest description of an English garden is contained in "De Naturis
Rerum" by Alexander Neckan, who lived in the second half of the Twelfth
Century. "A garden," he says, "should be adorned on this side with
roses, lilies, the marigold, _molis_ and mandrakes; on that side with
parsley, cort, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savory, hyssop,
mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, _ortulano_,
and the peony. Let there also be beds enriched with onions, leeks,
garlic, melons, and scallions. The garden is also enriched by the
cucumber, which creeps on its belly, and by the soporiferous poppy, as
well as by the daffodil and the acanthus. Nor let pot-herbs be wanting,
if you can help it, such as beets, herb mercury, orache, and the
mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to have anise, mustard, white
pepper, and wormwood." And then Neckan goes on to the fruit-trees
and medicinal plants. The gardener's tools at this time were merely a
knife for grafting, an ax, a pruning-hook, and a spade. A hundred years
later the gardens of France and England were still about the same. When
John de Garlande (an appropriate name for an amateur horticulturist)
was studying at the University of Paris (Thirteenth Century) he had
a garden, which he described in his "Dictionarus," quaintly speaking
of himself in the third person: "In Master John's garden are these
plants: sage, parsley, dittany, hyssop, celandine, fennel, pellitory,
the rose, the lily, the violet; and at the side (in the hedge), the
nettle, the thistle and foxgloves. His garden also contains medicinal
herbs, namely, mercury and the mallows, agrimony with nightshade and
the marigold." Master John had also a special garden for pot-herbs
and "other herbs good for men's bodies," i.e., medicinal herbs, and a
fruit garden, or orchard, of cherries, pears, nuts, apples, quinces,
figs, plums, and grapes. About the same time Guillaume de Lorris wrote
his "Roman de la Rose"; and in this famous work of the Thirteenth
Century there is a most beautiful description of the garden of the
period. _L'Amant_ (the Lover) while strolling on the banks of a river
discovered this enchanting spot, "full long and broad behind high
walls." It was the Garden of _Delight_, or Pleasure, whose wife was
_Liesse_, or Joy; and here they dwelt with the sweetest of companions.
_L'Amant_ wandered about until he found a small wicket door in the
wall, at which he knocked and gained admittance. When he entered he was
charmed. Everything was so beautiful that it seemed to him a spiritual
place, better even than Paradise could be. Now, walking down a little
path, _bordered with mint and fennel_, he reached the spot where
_Delight_ and his companions were dancing a carol to the song of Joy.
_L'Amant_ was invited to join the dance; and after it was finished he
made a tour of the garden to see it all. And through his eyes we see
it, too.
[Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY GARDEN WITHIN CASTLE WALLS, FRENCH]
The Garden of Delight was even and square, "as long as it was large."
It contained every known fruit-tree--peaches, plums, cherries, apples,
and quinces, as well as figs, pomegranates, dates, almonds, chestnuts,
and nutmegs. Tall pines, cypresses, and laurels formed screens and
walls of greenery; and many a "pair" of elms, maples, ashes, oaks,
aspens, yews, and poplars kept out the sun by their interwoven branches
and protected the green grass. And here deer browsed fearlessly and
squirrels "in great plenty" were seen leaping from bough to bough.
Conduits of water ran through the garden and the moisture made the
grass as thick and rich as velvet and "the earth was as soft as a
feather bed." And, moreover, the "earth was of such a grace" that it
produced plenty of flowers, both winter and summer:
There sprang the violet all new
And fresh periwinkle rich of hue
And flowers yellow, white and red,
Such plenty grew there, never in mead.
Full joy was all the ground and quaint
And powdered as men had it paint
With many a fresh and sundry flower
That casteth up full good savor.
Myriads of birds were singing, too--larks, nightingales, finches,
thrushes, doves, and canaries. _L'Amant_ wandered on until he came to a
marvelous fountain--the Fountain of Love--under a pine-tree.
Presently he was attracted to a beautiful rosebush, full of buds and
full-blown roses. One bud, sweeter and fresher than all the rest and
set so proudly on its spray, fascinated him. As he approached this
flower, _L'Amour_ discharged five arrows into his heart. The bud, of
course, was the woman he was destined to love and which, after many
adventures and trials, he was eventually to pluck and cherish.
This fanciful old allegory made a strong appeal to the illustrators
of the Thirteenth and later centuries; and many beautiful editions
are prized by libraries and preserved in glass cases. The edition
from which the illustration (Fifteenth Century) is taken is from the
Harleian MS. owned by the British Museum.
II
_The Garden of Delight_
The old _trouvères_ did not hesitate to stop the flow of their stories
to describe the delights and beauties of the gardens. Many romantic
scenes are staged in the "Pleasance," to which lovers stole quietly
through the tiny postern gate in the walls. When we remember what the
feudal castle was, with its high, dark walls, its gloomy towers and
loop-holes for windows, its cold floors, its secret hiding-places,
and its general gloom, it is not surprising that the lords and ladies
liked to escape into the garden. After the long, dreary winter what joy
to see the trees burst into bloom and the tender flowers push their
way through the sweet grass! Like the birds, the poets broke out into
rapturous song, as, for instance, in _Richard Cœur de Lion_:
Merry is in the time of May,
Whenne fowlis synge in her lay;
Flowers on appyl trees and perye;[1]
Small fowlis[2] synge merye;
Ladyes strew their bowers
With red roses and lily flowers;
Great joy is in grove and lake.
[1] Pear.
[2] Birds.
In Chaucer's "Franklyn's Tale" _Dorigen_ goes into her garden to try to
divert herself in the absence of her husband:
And this was on the sixte morne of May,
Which May had painted with his softe shoures.
This gardeyn full of leves and of flowers:
And craft of mannes hand so curiously
Arrayed had this gardeyn of such pris,
As if it were the verray paradis.
In the "Roman de Berte" _Charles Martel_ dines in the garden, when the
rose is in bloom--_que la rose est fleurie_--and in "La Mort de Garin"
a big dinner-party is given in the garden. Naturally the garden was
the place of all places for lovers. In "Blonde of Oxford" _Blonde_ and
_Jean_ meet in the garden under a blossoming pear-tree, silvery in the
blue moonlight, and in the "Roman of Maugis et la Belle Oriande" the
hero and heroine "met in a garden to make merry and amuse themselves
after they had dined; and it was the time for taking a little repose.
It was in the month of May, the season when the birds sing and when all
true lovers are thinking of their love."
In many of the illuminated manuscripts of these delightful _romans_
there are pictures of ladies gathering flowers in the garden, sitting
on the sward, or on stone seats, weaving chaplets and garlands; and
these little pictures are drawn and painted with such skill and beauty
that we have no difficulty in visualizing what life was like in a
garden six hundred years ago.
So valued were these gardens--not only for their flowers but even more
for the potential drugs, salves, unguents, perfumes, and ointments
they held in leaf and petal, seed and root, in those days when every
castle had to be its own apothecary storehouse--that the owner kept
them locked and guarded the key. Song, story, and legend are full
of incidents of the heroine's trouble in gaining possession of the
key of the postern gate in order to meet at midnight her lover who
adventurously scaled the high garden wall. The garden was indeed the
happiest and the most romantic spot in the precincts of the feudal
castle and the baronial manor-house.
We do not have to depend entirely upon the _trouvères_ and poets for a
knowledge of Medieval flowers. A manuscript of the Fifteenth Century
(British Museum) contains a list of plants considered necessary for
a garden. Here it is: violets, mallows, dandelions, mint, sage,
parsley, golds,[3] marjoram, fennel, caraway, red nettle, daisy, thyme,
columbine, basil, rosemary, gyllofre,[4] rue, chives, endive, red rose,
poppy, cowslips of Jerusalem, saffron, lilies, and Roman peony.
[3] Marigolds.
[4] Gilliflower.
Herbs and flowers were classed together. Many were valued for
culinary purposes and for medicinal purposes. The ladies of the
castle and manor-house were learned in cookery and in the preparation
of "simples"; and they guarded, tended, and gathered the herbs with
perhaps even more care than they gave to the flowers. Medieval pictures
of ladies, in tall peaked head dresses, fluttering veils, and graceful,
flowing robes, gathering herbs in their gardens, are abundant in the
old illustrated manuscripts.
III
_The Italian Renaissance Garden_
It is but a step from this Medieval "Pleasance" to the Shakespeare
garden. But before we try to picture what the Tudor gardens were like
it will be worth our while to pause for a moment to consider the
Renaissance garden of Italy on which the gardens that Shakespeare knew
and loved were modeled. No one is better qualified to speak of these
than Vernon Lee:
"One great charm of Renaissance gardens was the skillful manner in
which Nature and Art were blended together. The formal design of the
_Giardino segreto_ agreed with the straight lines of the house, and
the walls with their clipped hedges led on to the wilder freer growth
of woodland and meadow, while the dense shade of the _bosco_ supplied
an effective contrast to the sunny spaces of lawn and flower-bed.
The ancient practice of cutting box-trees into fantastic shapes,
known to the Romans as the topiary art, was largely restored in the
Fifteenth Century and became an essential part of Italian gardens.
In that strange romance printed at the Aldine Press in 1499, the
_Hypernotomachia_ of Francesco Colonna, Polyphilus and his beloved
are led through an enchanted garden where banquet-houses, temples and
statues stand in the midst of myrtle groves and labyrinths on the
banks of a shining stream. The pages of this curious book are adorned
with a profusion of wood-cuts by some Venetian engraver, representing
pergolas, fountains, sunk parterres, pillared _loggie_, clipped box
and ilex-trees of every variety, which give a good idea of the garden
artist then in vogue.
"Boccaccio and the Italians more usually employ the word _orto_, which
has lost its Latin signification, and is a place, as we learn from the
context, planted with fruit-trees and potherbs, the sage which brought
misfortune on poor Simona and the sweet basil which Lisabetta watered,
as it grew out of Lorenzo's head, only with rosewater, or that of
orange-flowers, or with her own tears. A friend of mine has painted a
picture of another of Boccaccio's ladies, Madonna Dianora, visiting
the garden which the enamored Ansaldo has made to bloom in January
by magic arts; a little picture full of the quaint lovely details of
Dello's wedding-chests, the charm of roses and lilies, the flashing
fountains and birds singing against a background of wintry trees, and
snow-shrouded fields, dainty youths and damsels treading their way
among the flowers, looking like tulips and ranunculus themselves in
their fur and brocade. But although in this story Boccaccio employs the
word _giardino_ instead of _orto_, I think we must imagine that magic
flower garden rather as a corner of orchard connected with fields of
wheat and olive below by the long tunnels of vine-trellis and dying
away into them with the great tufts of lavender and rosemary and fennel
on the grassy bank under the cherry trees. This piece of terraced
ground along which the water spurted from the dolphin's mouth, or the
Siren's breasts--runs through walled channels, refreshing impartially
violets and salads, lilies and tall, flowering onions under the
branches of the peach-tree and the pomegranate, to where, in the shade
of the great pink Oleander tufts, it pours out below into the big tank
for the maids to rinse their linen in the evening and the peasants
to fill their cans to water the bedded out tomatoes and the potted
clove-pinks in the shadow of the house.
[Illustration: LOVERS IN THE CASTLE GARDEN, FIFTEENTH CENTURY MS.]
[Illustration: GARDEN OF DELIGHT, ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE, FIFTEENTH
CENTURY]
"The Blessed Virgin's garden is like that where, as she prays in the
cool of the evening, the gracious Gabriel flutters on to one knee
(hushing the sound of his wings lest he startle her) through the pale
green sky, the deep blue-green valley; and you may still see in the
Tuscan fields clumps of cypress, clipped wheel shape, which might mark
the very spot."
I may recall here that the early Italian and Flemish painters were
fond of representing the Madonna and the Infant Jesus in a garden; and
the garden that they pictured was always the familiar little enclosed
garden of the period. The flowers that grew there were limited by the
Church. Each flower had its significance: the rose and the pink both
expressed divine love; the lily, purity; the violet, humility; the
strawberry, fruit and blossom, for the fruit of the spirit and the good
works of the righteous; the clover, or trefoil, for the Trinity; and
the columbine for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, because of its
dove-shaped petals.
The enclosed garden is ancient indeed.
O garden enclosed--a garden of living waters
And flowing streams from Lebanon:
Awake O North Wind; and come thou South;
Blow upon my garden that the spices may thereof flow out!
So sang the esthetic Solomon.
A garden enclosed, a garden of living waters, a garden of
perfumes--these are the motives of the Indian gardens of the luxurious
Mogul emperors, whose reigns coincide with Tudor times.
Symbolism played an important part in Indian gardens. The beautiful
garden of Babar (near Kabul) was called the Bagh-i-vafa--"The Garden of
Fidelity." This has many points in common with the illustration of the
"Romaunt of the Rose," particularly the high walls.
There is also great similarity with the gardens of Elizabethan
days. The "pleached allies" and "knots" of the English gardens
of Shakespeare's time find equivalents in the vine pergolas and
geometrical parterres of the Mogul emperors; and the central platform
of the Mogul gardens answered the same purpose as the banqueting-hall
on the mound, which decorated nearly every English nobleman's garden.
IV
_Bagh-i-vafa_
Babar's "Garden of Fidelity" was made in the year 1508. We see Babar
personally superintending the laying out of the "four-field plot." Two
gardeners hold the measuring line and the architect stands by with
his plan. The square enclosure at the bottom of the garden (right) is
the tank. The whole is bordered with orange and pomegranate trees. An
embassy knocks at the gate, but Babar is too absorbed in his gardening
to pay any attention to the guests.
Fifteen years later Babar stole three days away from his campaign
against the Afghans and visited his beautiful garden. "Next morning,"
he wrote in his "Memoirs," "I reached Bagh-i-vafa. It was the season
when the garden was in all its glory. Its grass-plots were all covered
with clover; its pomegranate trees were entirely of a beautiful yellow
color. It was then the pomegranate season and pomegranates were hanging
red on the trees. The orange-trees were green and cheerful, loaded with
innumerable oranges; but the best oranges were not yet ripe. I never
was so much pleased with the 'Garden of Fidelity' as on this occasion."
[Illustration: BABAR'S "GARDEN OF FIDELITY"]
Several new ideas were introduced into English gardens in the first
quarter of the Sixteenth Century. About 1525 the geometrical beds
called "knots" came into fashion, also rails for beds, also mounds,
or "mounts," and also arbors. Cardinal Wolsey had all these novelties
in his garden at Hampton Court Palace. It was a marvelous garden, as
any one who will read Cavendish may see for himself; but Henry VIII
was not satisfied with it when he seized the haughty Cardinal's home
in 1529. So four years later the King had an entirely new garden made
at Hampton Court (the Privy Garden is on the site now) with gravel
paths, beds cut in the grass, and railed and raised mounds decorated
with sun-dials. Over the rails roses clambered and bloomed and the
center of each bed was adorned with a yew, juniper, or cypress-tree.
Along the walls fruit-trees were planted--apples, pears, and
damsons--and beneath them blossomed violets, primroses, sweet williams,
gilliflowers, and other old favorites.
Toward the end of his reign Henry VIII turned his attention to
beautifying the grounds of Nonsuch Palace near Ewell in Surrey. These
gardens were worthy of the magnificent buildings. A contemporary wrote:
"The Palace itself is so encompassed with parks full of deer, delicious
gardens, groves ornamented with trellis-work, cabinets of verdure and
walks so embowered with trees that it seems to be a place pitched upon
by Pleasure herself to dwell in along with health."
V
_New Fad for Flowers_
An example of a typical Tudor estate, Beaufort House, Chelsea, later
Buckingham House, is said to have been built by Sir Thomas More in
1521 and rebuilt in 1586 by Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who
died in 1615. The flowers at this period were the same for palace and
cottage. Tudor gardens bloomed with acanthus, asphodel, auricula,
anemone, amaranth, bachelor's buttons, cornflowers or "bottles,"
cowslips, daffodils, daisies, French broom (genista), gilliflowers
(three varieties), hollyhock, iris, jasmine, lavender, lilies,
lily-of-the-valley, marigold, narcissus (yellow and white), pansies
or heartsease, peony, periwinkle, poppy, primrose, rocket, roses,
rosemary, snapdragon, stock gilliflowers, sweet william, wallflowers,
winter cherry, violet, mint, marjoram, and other sweet-smelling herbs.
During "the great and spacious time" of Queen Elizabeth there was
an enormous development in gardens. The Queen was extremely fond of
flowers and she loved to wear them. It must have pleased her hugely
when Spenser celebrated her as "Eliza, Queen of the Shepherds," and
painted her portrait in one of the pretty enclosed gardens, seated
among the fruit-trees, where the grass was sprinkled with flowers:
See where she sits upon the grassy green,
O seemly sight!
Yclad in scarlet, like a Maiden Queen,
And ermines white;
Upon her head a crimson coronet,
With daffodils and damask roses set;
Bay leaves between,
And primeroses green,
Embellish the sweet violet.
So fond was the Queen of gardens that Sir Philip Sidney could think
of no better way to please her than to arrange his masque of the
"May Lady" so that it would surprise her when she was walking in the
garden at Wanstead in Essex. Then, too, in 1591, when visiting Cowdry,
Elizabeth expressed a desire to dine in the garden. A table forty-eight
yards long was accordingly laid.
The Tudor mansions were constantly growing in beauty. Changes
and additions were made to some of them and many new palaces and
manor-houses were erected. Architects--among them John Thorpe--and
landscape gardeners now planned the pleasure-grounds to enhance the
beauty of the mansion they had created, adapting the ideas of the
Italian Renaissance to the English taste. The Elizabethan garden
in their hands became a setting for the house and it was laid out
according to a plan that harmonized with the architecture and continued
the lines of the building. The form of the garden and the lay-out of
the beds and walks were deemed of the greatest importance. Flowers,
also, took a new place in general estimation. Adventurous mariners
constantly brought home new plants and bulbs and seeds from the East
and lately discovered America; merchants imported strange specimens
from Turkey and Poland and far Cathay; and travelers on the Continent
opened their eyes and secured unfamiliar curiosities and novelties.
The cultivation of flowers became a regular fad. London merchants
and wealthy noblemen considered it the proper thing to have a few
"outlandish" flowers in their gardens; and they vied with one another
to develop "sports" and new varieties and startling colors.
Listen to what an amateur gardener, William Harrison, wrote in 1593:
"If you look into our gardens annexed to our houses how wonderfully is
their beauty increased, not only with flowers and variety of curious
and costly workmanship, but also with rare and medicinable herbs sought
up in the land within these forty years. How Art also helpeth Nature
in the daily coloring, doubling and enlarging the proportion of one's
flowers it is incredible to report, for so curious and cunning are our
gardeners now in these days that they presume to do in manner what they
list with Nature and moderate her course in things as if they were her
superiors. It is a world also to see how many strange herbs, plants
and annual fruits are daily brought unto us from the Indies, Americas,
Taprobane, Canary Isles and all parts of the world.
"For mine own part, good reader, let me boast a little of my garden,
which is but small, and the whole area thereof little above 300 foot of
ground, and yet, such hath been my good luck in purchase of the variety
of simples, that, notwithstanding my small ability, there are very near
300 of one sort and another contained therein, no one of them being
common or usually to be had. If, therefore, my little plat void of all
cost of keeping be so well furnished, what shall we think of those of
Hampton Court, Nonesuch, Theobald's, Cobham Garden and sundrie others
appertaining to divers citizens of London whom I could particularly
name?"
VI
_Tudor Gardens_
Several men of the New Learning, who, like Shakespeare, lived into the
reign of James I, advanced many steps beyond the botanists of the early
days of Queen Elizabeth. The old Herbals--the "Great Herbal," from
the French (1516) and the "Herbals" published by William Turner, Dean
of Wells, who had a garden of his own at Kew, treat of flowers chiefly
with regard to their properties and medical uses.
The Renaissance did indeed "paint the lily" and "throw a perfume on
the violet"; for the New Age brought recognition of their esthetic
qualities and taught scholastic minds that flowers had beauty and
perfume and character as well as utilitarian qualities. Elizabeth as
Queen had very different gardens to walk in than the little one in the
Tower of London in which she took exercise as a young Princess in 1564.
Let us look at some of them. First, that of Richmond Palace. Here the
garden was surrounded by a brick wall and in the center was "a round
knot divided into four quarters," with a yew-tree in the center.
Sixty-two fruit-trees were trained on the wall.
This seems to have been of the old type--the orchard-garden, where a
few old favorite flowers bloomed under the trees and in the central
"knot," or bed. In the Queen's locked garden at Havering-atte-Bower
trees, grass, and sweet herbs seem to have been more conspicuous than
the flowers. The Queen's gardens seem to have been overshadowed by
those of her subjects. One of the most celebrated belonged to Lord
Burleigh, and was known as Theobald's. Paul Hentzner, a German traveler
who visited England in 1598, went to see this garden the very day that
Burleigh was buried.
He described it as follows:
"We left London in a coach in order to see the remarkable places in its
neighborhood. The first was Theobald's, belonging to Lord Burleigh, the
Treasurer. In the Gallery was painted the genealogy of the Kings of
England. From this place one goes into the garden, encompassed with a
moat full of water, large enough for one to have the pleasure of going
in a boat and rowing between the shrubs. Here are great variety of
trees and plants, labyrinths made with a great deal of labor, a _jet
d'eau_ with its basin of white marble and columns and pyramids of wood
and other materials up and down the garden. After seeing these, we were
led by the gardener into the summer-house, in the lower part of which,
built semicircularly, are the twelve Roman Emperors in white marble and
a table of touchstone. The upper part of it is set round with cisterns
of lead into which the water is conveyed through pipes so that fish
may be kept in them and in summer time they are very convenient for
bathing. In another room for entertainment near this, and joined to it
by a little bridge, was an oval table of red marble."
Another and accurate picture of a stately Elizabethan garden is by a
most competent authority, Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), who had a superb
garden of his own in Kent. In "Arcadia" we read:
"Kalander one afternoon led him abroad to a well-arrayed ground he had
behind his house which he thought to show him before his going, as the
place himself more than in any other, delighted in. The backside of the
house was neither field, garden, nor orchard; or, rather, it was both
field, garden and orchard: for as soon as the descending of the stairs
had delivered they came into a place curiously set with trees of the
most taste-pleasing fruits; but scarcely had they taken that into their
consideration but that they were suddenly stept into a delicate green;
on each side of the green a thicket, and behind the thickets again new
beds of flowers which being under the trees, the trees were to them a
pavilion, and they to the trees a mosaical floor, so that it seemed
that Art therein would needs be delightful by counterfeiting his enemy,
Error, and making order in confusion. In the midst of all the place
was a fair pond, whose shaking crystal was a perfect mirror to all the
other beauties, so that it bare show of two gardens; one in deed and
the other in shadows; and in one of the thickets was a fine fountain."
[Illustration: ITALIAN RENAISSANCE GARDEN, VILLA GIUSTI, VERONA]
VII
_Garden Pleasures_
There were many such splendid gardens. Shakespeare was familiar, of
course, with those of Warwickshire, including the superb examples at
Kenilworth, and with those in the vicinity of London.
The Elizabethans used their gardens in many ways. They took recreation
in them in winter and summer, and enjoyed the perfume and colors of
their flowers with an intensity of delight and appreciation rarely
found to-day. In their gardens the serious and the frivolous walked and
talked, and here they were frequently served with refreshments.
It was also a fashion to use the garden as a setting for masques and
surprises, such as those Leicester planned on a grand scale to please
Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth. Several of Ben Jonson's entertainments
were arranged for performance on the terrace opening from house to
garden.
By looking into that mirror of the period, "Euphues and His England,"
by John Lyly (1554-1606), we can see two charming ladies in ruffs and
farthingales and a gallant in rich doublet and plumed hat walking in
a garden, and we gain an idea of the kind of "garden talk" that was
_comme il faut_:
"One of the ladies, who delighted much in mirth, seeing Philautus
behold Camilla so steadfastly, said unto him: 'Gentleman, what flower
do you like best in all this border? Here be fair Roses, sweet Violets,
fragrant Primroses; here be Gilliflowers, Carnations, Sops-in-Wine,
Sweet Johns, and what may either please you for sight, or delight you
with savor. Loth we are you should have a posie of all, yet willing
to give you one, not that which shall look best but such a one as you
shall like best.'"
What could _Philautus_ do but bow gallantly and say: "Of all flowers, I
love a fair woman."
"THE CURIOUS KNOTTED GARDEN"
I
_Flower Lovers and Herbalists_