to the outward bark and then laying it orderly in a slope manner as you
see a cunning hedger lay a dead hedge and then with the smaller and
more pliant branches to wreath and bind in the tops." Markham, "The
County Farm" (London, 1616).
Another feature of the garden was the maze, or labyrinth. It was a
favorite diversion for a visitor to puzzle his way through the green
walls, breast high, to the center; and the owner took delight in
watching the mistakes of his friend and was always ready to give him
the clue. When James I on his "Southern Progress" in 1603 visited the
magnificent garden known as Theobald's and belonging to Lord Burleigh,
where we have already seen[7] Gerard was the horticulturist, the King
went into the labyrinth of the garden "where he re-created himself in
the meanders compact of bays, rosemary and the like, overshadowing his
walk."
[7] Page 33.
The labyrinth, or maze, was a fad of the day. It still exists in many
English gardens that date from Elizabethan times and is a feature of
many more recent gardens. Perhaps of all mazes the one at Hampton Court
Palace is the most famous.
The orchard was another feature of the Elizabethan garden. It was
the custom for gentlemen to retire after dinner (which took place at
eleven o'clock in the morning) to the garden arbor, or to the orchard,
to partake of the "banquet" or dessert. Thus _Shallow_ addressing
_Falstaff_ after dinner exclaims:
"Nay, you shall see mine orchard, where, in an arbor, we will eat a
last year's pippin of my own grafting with a dish of carraways and so
forth."[8]
[8] "King Henry IV"; Part II, Act V, Scene III.
The uses of the Elizabethan garden were many: to walk in, to sit in, to
dream in. Here the courtier, poet, merchant, or country squire found
refreshment for his mind and recreation for his body. The garden was
also intended to supply flowers for nosegays, house decoration, and
the decoration of the church. Sweet-smelling herbs and rushes were
strewn upon the floor as we know by _Grumio's_ order for _Petruchio's_
homecoming in "The Taming of the Shrew." One of Queen Elizabeth's
Maids of Honor had a fixed salary for keeping fresh flowers always in
readiness. The office of "herb-strewer to her Majesty the Queen" was
continued as late as 1713, through the reign of Anne and almost into
that of George I.
The houses were very fragrant with flowers in pots and vases as well
as with the rushes on the floor. Flowers were therefore very important
features in house decoration. A Dutch traveler, Dr. Leminius, who
visited England in 1560, was much struck by this and wrote:
"Their chambers and parlors strewed over with sweet herbs refreshed
me; their nosegays finely intermingled with sundry sorts of fragrant
flowers in their bed-chambers and private rooms with comfortable smell
cheered me up and entirely delighted all my senses."
We have only to look at contemporary portraits to see how essential
flowers were in daily life. For instance, Holbein's "George Gisze,"
a London merchant, painted in 1523, has a vase of choice carnations
beside him on the table filled with scales, weights, and business
paraphernalia.
The Elizabethan lady was just as learned in the medicinal properties of
flowers and herbs as her Medieval ancestor. She regarded her garden as
a place of delight and at the same time as of the greatest importance
in the economic management of the household.
"The housewife was the great ally of the doctor: in her still-room the
lady with the ruff and farthingale was ever busy with the preparation
of cordials, cooling waters, conserves of roses, spirits of herbs and
juleps for calentures and fevers. All the herbs and flowers of the
field and garden passed through her fair white hands. Poppy-water was
good for weak stomachs; mint and rue-water was efficacious for the head
and brain; and even walnuts yielded a cordial. Then there was cinnamon
water and the essence of cloves, gilliflower and lemon water, sweet
marjoram water and the spirit of ambergris.
"These were the Elizabethan lady's severer toils, besides acres of
tapestry she had always on hand. Her more playful hours were devoted
to the manufacture of casselettes, month pastilles, sweet waters,
odoriferant balls and scented gums for her husband's pipe (God bless
her!) and there were balsams and electuaries for him to take to camp,
if he were a soldier fighting in Ireland or in the Low Countries, and
wound-drinks if he was a companion of Frobisher and bound against the
Spaniard, or the Indian pearl-diver of the Pacific. She had a specific
which was of exceeding virtue in all swooning of the head, decaying of
the spirits, also in all pains and numbness of joints and coming of
cold.
"That wonderful still-room contains not only dried herbs and drugs,
but gums, spices, ambergris, storax and cedar-bark, civet and dried
flowers and roots. In that bowl angelica, carduus benedictus (Holy
Thistle), betony, juniper-berries and wormwood are steeping to make a
cordial-water for the young son about to travel; and yonder is oil of
cloves, oil of nutmegs, oil of cinnamon, sugar, ambergris and musk, all
mingling to form a quart of liquor as sweet as hypocras. Those scents
and spices are for perfumed balls to be worn round the ladies' necks,
there to move up and down to the music of sighs and heart-beating,
envied by lovers whose letters will perhaps be perfumed by their
contact.
"What pleasant bright London gardens we dream of when we find that the
remedy for a burning fever is honeysuckle leaves steeped in water,
and that a cooling drink is composed of wood sorrel and Roman sorrel
bruised and mixed with orange juice and barley-water. Mint is good for
colic; conserves of roses for the tickling rheum; plaintain for flux;
vervain for liver-complaint--all sound pleasanter than those strong
biting minerals which now kill or cure and give nature no time to heal
us in her own quiet way."[9]
[9] Thornbury.
Bacon's "Essay on Gardening" is very detailed and very practical, and
it must be remembered that he was addressing highly cultivated and
skilfully trained amateurs and professional gardeners when he wrote:
"God almighty first planted a garden; and indeed it is the purest of
human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirit of man.
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."
The Elizabethan Age, with its superlatively cultivated men and women,
was certainly one of those ages of civility and elegancy of which Bacon
speaks. The houses were stately and the gardens perfection, affording
appropriate setting for the brilliant courtiers and accomplished ladies
of both Tudor and early Stuart times.
We sometimes hear it said that Francis Bacon's garden was his _ideal_
of what a garden should be and that his garden was never realized.
This, however, is not the case. Old prints are numerous of gardens of
wealthy persons in the reign of Elizabeth and James I. Then, too, we
have Sir William Temple's description of Moor Park, and "this garden,"
says Horace Walpole, "seems to have been made after the plan laid down
by Lord Bacon in his Forty-sixth Essay."
[Illustration: TYPICAL GARDEN OF SHAKESPEARE'S TIME--CRISPIN DE PASSE
(1614)]
Sir William's account is as follows:
"The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or
abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about
thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess of Bedford, esteemed
among the perfectest wits of her time and celebrated by Dr. Donne;
and with very great care, excellent contrivance and much cost.
"Because I take the garden I have named to have been in all kinds the
most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure and disposition,
that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a model to those that
meet with such a situation and are above the regards of common expense.
"It lies on the side of a hill, upon which the house stands, but not
very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of most
use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden; the great
parlor opens into the middle of a terrace gravel walk that lies even
with it, and which may lie, as I remember, about three hundred paces
long and broad in proportion; the border set with standard laurels and
at large distances, which have the beauty of orange-trees out of flower
and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many stone steps, in
the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre. This is divided
into quarters by gravel walks and adorned with two fountains and eight
statues in the several quarters. At the end of a terrace walk are two
summer-houses, and the sides of the parterre are ranged with two large
cloisters open to the garden, upon arches of stone, and ending with
two other summer-houses even with the cloisters, which are paved with
stone, and designed for walks of shade, there being none other in the
whole parterre. Over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with
lead and fenced with balustrades; and the passage into these airy walks
is out of the two summer-houses at the end of the first terrace walk.
The cloister facing the south is covered with vines and would have been
proper for an orange-house, and the other for myrtles or other more
common greens, and had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if
this piece of gardening had been then in as much vogue as it is now.
"From the middle of this parterre is a descent by many steps flying on
each side of a grotto that lies between them, covered with lead and
flat, into the lower garden, which is all fruit-trees ranged about the
several quarters of a wilderness which is very shady; the walks here
are all green, the grotto embellished with figures of shell rock-work,
fountains and water-works. If the hill had not ended with the lower
garden, and the wall were not bounded by a common way that goes through
the park, they might have added a third quarter of all greens; but this
want is supplied by a garden on the other side of the house, which is
all of that sort, very wild, shady, and adorned with rough rock work
and fountains."
To write of Elizabethan gardens without giving Bacon's beautifully
worked out theories would be like performing "Hamlet" without the
character of _Hamlet_. Bacon's Essay is too long to quote in its
entirety, but the specific instructions are as follows:
"For gardens (speaking of those which are indeed prince-like), 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 a half 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 enclose this
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.
"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
gentle 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, into which the two covert alleys of the green may deliver you.
But there must be no alleys with hedges at either end of this great
enclosure.
"For the main garden I do not deny there should be some fair alleys,
ranged on both sides with 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 that the main garden is for the more temperate
parts of the year and in the heat of the summer for the morning and the
evening, or overcast days.
"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 these alleys must be,
likewise, hedged at both ends to keep out the wind, and these closer
alleys must be ever finely graveled 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. And this would 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 the trees. At the end of both the side
grounds I would have a mount of some pretty height, leaving the wall
of the enclosure breast high, to look abroad into the fields.
"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 sweetbrier
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 also like 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_,[10] some with sweet williams, red, some with bear's
foot[11] 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 put 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 the like.
But these standards to be kept with cutting that they grow not out of
course.
[10] Lily-of-the-valley.
[11] _Auricula._
"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 busy 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.
"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."
Fountains Bacon considered "a great beauty and refreshment," but he
did not care for pools, nor did he favor aviaries "unless they were
large enough to have living plants and bushes set in them and supply
natural nesting for the birds."
We have already seen that Bacon was very choice regarding "the flowers
that best perfume the air"; and he felt it was very essential that
people should know what to plant for the different seasons. So he tells
us:
"There ought to be gardens for all months of the year, in which,
severally, things of beauty may be 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, pine,
apple-trees, fir-trees, rosemary, lavender, periwinkle, the white,
the purple, and the blue; germander, flags; orange-trees, lemon-trees
and myrtle, if they be stoved; and sweet marjoram warm set. There
followeth for the latter part of January and February, the mezerion
tree which then blossoms; crocus vernus, both the yellow and the
gray; primroses, anemones, the early tulip, hyacinthus orientalis,
_chamaires 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, sweetbrier. In April follow the double white violet,
the wallflower, the stock gilliflower, 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 damson and plum-trees in blossom, the white thorn in leaf,
the lilac tree. In May and June come pinks of all sorts, roses of all
kinds except the musk, which comes later, honeysuckles, strawberries,
bugloss, columbine, the French marigold (_Flos Africanus_), cherry-tree
in fruit, ribes, figs in fruit, rasps, vine-flowers, lavender in
flowers, the sweet satyrian, with the white flower, _herbal muscaria_,
_lilium convallium_, the apple-tree in blossom. In July come
gilliflowers of all varieties, musk-roses, the lime tree in blossom,
early pears and plums in fruit, gennitings, quodlins. In August come
plums of all sorts in fruit, pears, apricots, barberries, filberts,
musk-melons, monkshood of all colors. In September come grapes,
apples, poppies of all colors, peaches, melocotones, nectarines,
cornelians, wardens, quinces. In October and the beginning of November
come services, medlars, bullaces, roses cut, or removed to come late,
hollyhocks and such like. These particulars are for the climate of
London; but my meaning is perceived that you may have _ver perpetuum_,
as the place affords."
[Illustration: LABYRINTH, VREDEMAN DE VRIES]
[Illustration: "A CURIOUS-KNOTTED GARDEN"--CRISPIN DE PASSE (1614)]
Gardening was a serious business. The duties of gardeners were not
light. We are told that "Gardeners should not only be diligent and
painful, but also experienced and skilful; at the least, one of them
to have seen the fine gardens about London and in Kent; to be able to
cast out the Quarters of the garden as may be most convenient that the
Walks and the Alleys be long and large; to cast up Mounts, to tread out
Knots in the Quarters of arms and fine devices, to set and sow in them
sweet-smelling flowers and strewing herbs; to have in the finest parts
of the garden Artichokes, Pompions, Melons, Cucumbers and such-like;
in other places convenient Radishes, Keritts, Carrats and other roots
with store of all kind of herbs for the Kitchen and Apothecary; to know
what Flowers and Herbs will best endure the Sun and which need most to
be shaded: in like sort, for the East and North winds, not only to be
skilful in planting and grafting of all kinds of fruit-trees, but also
how to place them in best order; and to be able to judge of the best
times and seasons to plant and graft all fruits and to set and sow all
flowers, herbs and roots; and also the best time when to cut and gather
all herbs and seeds and fruits, and in what sort to keep and preserve
them; to make fair Bowling Alleys well banked and sealed, which, being
well kept, in many houses are very profitable to the gardeners."
The instructions in the Elizabethan manuals for grafting, pleaching,
and plashing (see page 50) are most explicit and elaborate. There are
rules for the care of every flower and herb. Nothing is too small for
attention, The old authors even say what flowers should be picked often
and what flowers prefer to be let alone. One old gardener gives the
following details with regard to the sowing of seeds:
"If you will [he writes], you may sow your seeds in rows, or trails,
either round about the edges of your beds to keep them in fashion,
and plant either herbs or flowers in the body of your beds, or you
may furnish your beds all over, making three, four, or five rows, or
trails, according to the bigness of your bed; the order, or manner,
is to make each trail of like distance and range your line and by
it, either with your finger or a small stick, to make your trail
about an inch thick, or thereabout; and therein to sow your seed, not
over-thick. If you put your seeds in a white paper, you may (if the
seeds are small) very easily and equally sow them by shaking the lower
end of your paper with the forefinger of that hand you sow with. The
paper must not be much open at the end. Then with your hand, or a
trowel, to smooth the earth into each trail."
III
_Old Garden Authors_
The books from which both professional and amateur gardeners gained
their instruction are full of delightful information, and to us are
quaintly expressed. Many of them were standard authorities for several
generations and went through various editions, which, as time went on,
were touched up by a more recent authority. One of these well-known
garden authors was Thomas Hill, who wrote under the peculiar name of
Didymus Mountain; another was Gervase Markham whose "Country Farm,"
published in London in 1616 (the year of Shakespeare's death), often
passes for an original work. "The Country Farm," however, was an
earlier book, and a French one at that, called "La Maison Rustique,"
published in Paris in 1600 by Charles Stevens and John Liébault,
"doctors of physicke." This was translated into English very soon
after its appearance by Richard Surflet and published under the title
of "The Country Farm." It became an extremely popular book before
Gervase Markham took hold of it. Markham became a great authority on
all garden topics and wrote and adapted many books on the subject. From
his edition of "The Country Farm" we learn that
"It is a commendable and seemly thing to behold out at a window many
acres of ground well-tilled and husbanded; but yet it is much more to
behold fair and comely proportions, handsome and pleasant arbors, and,
as it were, closets, delightful borders of lavender, rosemary, box and
other such-like; to hear the ravishing music of an infinite number of
pretty, small birds, which continually, day and night, do chatter and
chant their proper and natural branch-songs upon the hedges and trees
of the garden; and to smell so sweet a nosegay so near at hand, seeing
that this so fragrant a smell cannot but refresh the lord of the farm
exceedingly when going out of his bedchamber in the morning after
sunrise; and while as yet the clear and pearl-like dew doth perch on
to the grass he giveth himself to hear the melodious music of the bees
which do fill the air with a most acceptable sweet and pleasant harmony.