carry any of these four shapes: that is to say, either square, round,
oval, or diamond. This is but the outward proportion, or the verge
and girdle of your garden. As for the inward proportions and shapes
of the Quarters, Beds, Banks, Mounts and such-like, they are to be
divided by Alleys, Hedges, Borders, Rails, Pillars and such-like;
and by these you may draw your garden unto what form you please, not
respecting whatsoever shape the outward verge carrieth. For you may
make that garden which is square without to be round within, and that
which is round, either square, or oval; that which is oval, either
of the former, and that which is diamond any shape at all,--and yet
all exceedingly comely. You may also, if your ground be naturally so
situated, or if your industry please so to bring it to pass, make your
garden rise and mount by several degrees, one level ascending above
another, in such sort as if you had divers gardens one above another,
which is exceedingly beautiful to the eye and very beneficial to your
flowers and fruit-trees, especially if such ascents have the benefit
of the Sun rising upon them; and thus, if you please, you may have in
one level a square plot; in another, a round; in a third a diamond; and
in a fourth, an oval; then amongst the ascending banks, which are on
either side the stairs, you mount into your several gardens, you shall
make your physic garden or places to plant your physic herbs."
We also learn from "The Country Farm" that
"The Garden of Pleasure shall be set about and compassed with arbors
made of jessamin, rosemarie, box, juniper, cypress-trees, savin,
cedars, rose-trees and other dainties first planted and pruned
according as the nature of every one doth require, but after brought
into some form and order with willow or juniper poles, such as may
serve for the making of arbors. The ways and alleys must be covered
and sown with fine sand well beat, or with the powder of the sawing of
marble, or else paved handsomely with good pit stone.
"This garden, by means of a large path of the breadth of six feet,
shall be divided into two equal parts; the one shall contain the herbs
and flowers used to make nosegays and garlands of, as March violets,
Provence gilliflowers, purple gilliflowers, Indian gilliflowers, small
pansies, daisies, yellow and white gilliflowers, marigolds, lily
connally,[12] daffodils, Canterbury bells, purple velvet flowers,
anemones, corn-flag,[13] mugwort, lilies and other such-like; and it
may be indeed the Nosegay Garden.
[12] Lily-of-the-valley.
[13] Gladiolus.
"The other part shall have all other sweet-smelling herbs whether they
be such as bear no flowers, or, if they bear any, yet they are not put
in nosegays alone, but the whole herb be with them, as Southernwood,
wormwood, pellitory, rosemary, jessamine, marierom, balm-mints,
pennyroyal, costmarie, hyssop, lavender, basil, sage, savory, rue,
tansy, thyme, camomile, mugwort, bastard marierum, nept, sweet balm,
all-good, anis, horehound and others such-like; and this may be called
the garden for herbs and good smell.
"These sweet herbs and flowers for nosegays shall be set in order upon
beds and quarters of such-like length and breadth as those of the
kitchen garden; others in mazes made for the pleasing and recreating
of the sight, and other some are set in proportions made of beds
interlaced and drawn one within another or broken off with borders, or
without borders."
This arrangement is interesting as not only showing the division of
flower-beds but that certain herbs were used in nosegays. It did not,
therefore, strike Shakespeare's audiences as strange that _Perdita_
offered to her guests rosemary and rue on an equality with marigolds,
violets, the crown-imperial (then so rare), daffodils, and lilies of
all kinds.
[Illustration: THE KNOT-GARDEN, NEW PLACE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON]
In William Lawson's "A New Orchard and Garden," which also appeared
about the time of Shakespeare's death, the gardens of the period are
perfectly described. Lawson was a practical gardener and had a poetic
appreciation of flowers and trees. His book was long an authority.
Every one had it. Lawson writes quaintly and delightfully:
"The Rose, red, damask, velvet and double-double, Provence rose,
the sweet musk Rose double and single, the double and single white
Rose, the fair and sweet-scenting Woodbine double and single and
double-double, purple Cowslips and double-double Cowslips, Primrose
double and single, the Violet nothing behind the best for smelling
sweetly and a thousand more will provoke your content.
"And all these by the skill of your gardener, so comely and orderly
placed in your borders and squares and so intermingled that none
looking thereon cannot but wonder to see what Nature corrected by Art
can do.
"When you behold in divers corners of your Orchard Mounts of stone,
or wood, curiously wrought within and without, or of earth covered
with fruit-trees: Kentish cherry, damsons, plums, etc., with stairs of
precious workmanship; and in some corner a true Dial or Clock and some
antique works and especially silver-sounding music--mixt Instruments
and Voices--gracing all the rest--how will you be rapt with delight!
"Large walks, broad and long, close and open, like the Tempe groves
in Thessaly, raised with gravel and sand, having seats and banks of
Camomile,--all this delights the mind and brings health to the body.
Your borders on every side hanging and drooping with Raspberries,
Barberries and Currants and the roots of your trees powdered with
strawberries--red, white and green,--what a pleasure is this!
"Your gardener can frame your lesser wood (shrubs) to the shape of men
armed in the field ready to give battle, or swift-running greyhounds,
or of well-scented and true running hounds to chase the deer or hunt
the hare. This kind of hunting shall not waste your corn nor much your
coin.
"Mazes, well formed, a man's height, may, perhaps, make your friend
wander in gathering of berries till he cannot recover himself without
your help.
"To have occasion to exercise within your Orchard, it shall be a
pleasure to have a Bowling-Alley.
"Rosemary and sweet Eglantine are seemly ornaments about a door, or
window; so is Woodbine.
"One chief grace that adorns an Orchard I cannot let slip. A brood of
nightingales, who with their several notes and tunes with a strong,
delightsome voice out of a weak body, will bear you company, night
and day. She will help you cleanse your trees of caterpillars and all
noisome worms and flies. The gentle Robin Redbreast will help her and
in Winter in the coldest storms will keep a part. Neither will the
silly Wren be behind in summer with her distinct whistle (like a sweet
Recorder)[14] to cheer your spirits. The Blackbird and Throstle (for I
take it the Thrush sings not but devours) sing loudly on a May morning
and delight the ear much (and you need not want their company if you
have ripe Cherries or Berries) and would gladly, as the rest, do you
pleasure. But I had rather want their company than my fruit.
"What shall I say? A thousand of delights are in an Orchard."
[14] A kind of flute. See "Hamlet"; Act II, Scene II.
Parkinson endeavors in the kindliest way to help the amateur. He is
genuinely desirous to encourage gardening and offers his knowledge and
experience with bounteous generosity. He has no preference regarding
site. He says:
"According to the situations of men's dwellings, so are the situations
of their gardens. And, although divers do diversely prefer their own
several places which they have chosen, or wherein they dwell; as some
those places that are near unto a river or brook to be best for the
pleasantness of the water, the ease of transportation of themselves,
their friends and goods, as also for the fertility of the soil, which
is seldom near unto a river's side; and others extol the side or top of
an hill, be it small or great, for the prospect's sake. And again, some
the plain or champian ground for the even level thereof. Yet to show
you for every of these situations which is the fittest place to plant
your garden in and how to defend it from the injuries of the cold winds
and frosts that may annoy it, I hope be well accepted.
"To prescribe one form for every man to follow were too great
presumption and folly; for every man will please his own fancy, be
it orbicular or round, triangular or three-square, quadrangular or
four-square, or more long than broad. Let every man choose which him
liketh best. The four-square form is the most usually accepted with all
and doth best agree to any man's dwelling. To form it therefore with
walks cross the middle both ways and round about it also with hedges,
knots or trayles, or any other work within the four-square parts is
according to every man's conceit. For there may be therein walls either
open or close, either public or private, a maze or wilderness, a rock
or mount with a fountain in the midst to convey water to every part of
the garden either in pipes under the ground, or brought by hand and
emptied into large cisterns or great Turkey jars placed in convenient
places. Arbors also being both graceful and necessary may be appointed
in such convenient places as the corners, or elsewhere, as may be most
fit to serve both for shadow and rest after walking.
"To border the whole square to serve as a hedge thereunto everyone
taketh what liketh him best, as either privet alone, or sweetbriar
and whitethorn enlaced together and roses of one, or two, or more
sorts, placed here and there amongst them. Some also take lavender,
rosemary, sage, southernwood, lavender-cotton, or some such thing. Some
again plant Cornell trees and plash them, or keep them low to form
into a hedge. And some again take a low prickly shrub that abideth
always green called in Latin _Pyracantha_, which in time will make an
evergreen hedging, or border, and when it beareth fruit, which are red
berries like unto hawthorn berries, make a glorious show among the
green leaves in winter time when no other shrubs have fruit, or leaves."
For the borders of the knots, Parkinson recommends thrift, hyssop and
germander, but "chiefly above all herbs the small low, or dwarf French
or Dutch box, because it is evergreen, thick and easily cut and formed."
Roses, he says, should be planted in "the outer borders of the
quarters, or in the middle of the long beds"; and lilies should be
placed in a "small, round or square in a knot without any tall flowers
growing about them."
IV
_"Outlandish" and English Flowers_
The flowers for the knots, or beds, Parkinson divides into two classes:
the "Outlandish flowers" and the "English flowers."
Of the outlandish flowers first of all he mentions daffodils, of which
there were "almost a hundred sorts, some either white, or yellow, or
mixed, or else being small or great, single or double, and some having
but one flower on a stalk; others, many." Other daffodils were so
exceedingly sweet that a very few were sufficient to perfume a whole
chamber: the "single English Bastard daffodil, which groweth wild in
many woods, groves and orchards in England; the double English Bastard,
the French single white, the French double yellow, the Spanish yellow
Bastard, the great or little Spanish white, and the Turkie single white
Daffodil" are some of the varieties Parkinson mentions. Then of the
_Fritillaria_ or the "checkerd Daffodil" Parkinson gives "half a score,
several sorts, both white and red, both yellow and black, which are a
wonderful grace and ornament in a garden in regard of the checker-like
spots in the flower."
Hyacinths in Parkinson's book are about "half a hundred sorts: some
like unto little bells or stars, others like unto little bottles or
pearls, both white and blue, sky colored and blush, and some star-like
of many pretty various forms and all to give delight to them that will
be curious to observe them."
Shakespeare does not mention hyacinths.
Of crocus, or saffron flowers, there were twenty sorts, some flowering
in the spring, others in the autumn, but all of "glorious beauty."
Of lilies there were "twenty several sorts and colors," among which the
Crown Imperial, "for her stately form deserveth some special place in
the garden, as also the Martagons, both white and red, both blush and
yellow, that require to be set by themselves apart."
Tulips (which are never mentioned by Shakespeare) were so many and
various that Parkinson considered it beyond his ability to describe
them all "for there is such a wonderful variety and mixture of colors
that it is almost impossible for the wit of man to decipher them and to
give names," and he added that "for every one that he might name ten
others would probably spring up somewhere" and "besides this glory of
variety in colors that these flowers have, they carry so stately and
delightful a form and do abide so long in their bravery, there is no
lady or gentlewoman of any worth that is not caught with this delight,
or not delighted with these flowers."
Then the anemones, or windflowers, "so full of variety, so dainty, so
pleasant and so delightsome, so plentiful in bearing and durable," he
tells us were great favorites.
[Illustration: BORDER, NEW PLACE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON]
Then the bear's-ears,[15] or French cowslips, each one "seeming to be
a nosegay of itself alone" and of so many colors as "white, yellow,
blush, purple, red, tawny, murray, hair color and so on" and "not
unfurnished with a pretty sweet scent, which doth add an increase of
pleasure in those that make them an ornament for wearing."
[15] _Auriculas._
Flower-de-luces also of many sorts, one kind "being the Orris roots
that are sold at the Apothecaries whereof sweet powders are made to
lie among garments" and "the greater Flag kind frequent enough in this
land" and which "well doth serve to deck up both garden and house with
Nature's beauties."
Chief of all was "Your Sable Flower, so fit for a mourning habit that
I think in the whole compass of Nature's store there is not a more
pathetical."
The hepatica, or noble liverwort, white, red, blue, or purple,
somewhat resembling violets; the cyclamen, or sow-bread, a "flower
of rare receipt with flowers like unto red, or blush-colored violets
and leaves having no small delight in their pleasant color, being
spotted and circled white upon green"; the _Leucoinum_, or bulbous
violet; _Muscari_, or musk grape flower; star-flowers of different
sorts; _Phalangium_, or spiderwort; winter crowfoot, or wolfsbane; the
Christmas flower, "like unto a single white rose"; bell-flowers of many
kinds; yellow larkspur,[16] "the prettiest flower of a score in the
garden"; flower gentle, or Floramour; Flower-of-the-Sun;[17] the Marvel
of Peru, or of the World; double marsh marigold, or double yellow
buttons; double French marigolds; and the double red _Ranunculus_,
or crowfoot, "for exceeding the most glorious double anemone,"
completes Parkinson's list for flowers to be planted in the beds. The
jasmine, white and yellow; the double honeysuckle and the lady's-bower
(clematis), both white, and red and purple, single and double are "the
fittest of Outlandish plants to set by arbors and banqueting-houses[18]
that are open both before and above, to help to cover them and to give
sight, smell and delight."
[16] Nasturtium.
[17] Sunflower.
[18] The banqueting-house does not signify a place for great
entertainments. It was a simple summer-house, or arbor, to which people
repaired after dinner to eat the dessert, then called "banquet."
Parkinson has not quite finished, however, with the outlandish flowers
for he calls attention to the cherry bay, or _Laurocerasus_, saying
that "the Rose Bay, or Oleander, and the white and blue Syringa, or
Pipe Tree,[19] are all graceful and delightful to set at several
distances in the borders of knots, for some of them give beautiful and
sweet flowers."
[19] Lilac-tree.
Furthermore Parkinson writes that "the Pyracantha, or Prickly Coral
Tree, doth remain with green leaves all the year and may be plashed, or
laid down, or tyed to make up a fine hedge to border the whole knot"
and that "the Dwarf Bay, or Mezereon, is most commonly either placed
in the middle of a knot, or at the corners thereof, and sometimes all
along a walk for the more grace."
So much for the "outlandish" flowers!
Turning now to the "English flowers," we find that Parkinson includes
primroses and cowslips, single rose campions, white, red, and blush
and the double red campion and the Flower of Bristow, or Nonesuch, "a
kind of Campion, white and blush as well as orange-color." And here
Parkinson stops a moment to talk about this Nonesuch, for he was so
fond of it that he holds it in his hand in the portrait that appears as
a frontispiece to his "Paradisus" and from which our reproduction is
made. Of it he writes: "The orange color Nonesuch with double flowers
as is rare and not common so for his bravery doth well deserve a Master
of account that will take care to keep and preserve it."
Then he continues: Bachelors'-buttons, both white and red;
wall-flowers, double and single; stock-gilliflowers, queen's
gilliflowers (which some call dame's violets and some winter
gilliflowers, a kind of stock-gilliflower); violets, "the spring's
chief flowers for beauty, smell and use," both single and double;
snap-dragons, "flowers of much more delight"; columbines, "single
and double, of many sorts, fashions and colors, very variable, both
speckled and parti-colored--no garden would willingly be without them."
Next "Larks' heels, or spurs, or toes, as they are called, single and
double"; pansies, or heartsease, of divers colors, "although without
scent yet not without some respect and delight"; double poppies
"adorning a garden with their variable colors to the delight of the
beholders"; double daisies, "white and red, blush and speckled and
parti-colored, besides that which is called Jack-an-Apes-on-Horseback,"
double marigolds; French marigolds "that have a strong, heady scent,
both single and double, whose glorious show for color would cause
any to believe there were some rare goodness or virtue in them; and
carnations and gilliflowers."
Here again Parkinson's enthusiasm causes him to pause, for he exclaims:
"But what shall I say to the Queen of Delight and of Flowers,
Carnations and Gilliflowers, whose bravery, variety and sweet smell
joined together tieth every one's affection with great earnestness
both to like and to have them?"
Of the overwhelming number he singles out the red and gray Hulo,
the old carnation, the Grand Père; the Cambersive, the Savadge, the
Chrystal, the Prince, the white carnation or delicate, the ground
carnation, the French carnation, the Dover, the Oxford, the Bristow,
the Westminster, the Daintie, the Granado, and the orange tawny
gilliflower and its derivatives, the Infanta, the striped tawny, the
speckled tawny, the flaked tawny, the Grifeld tawny, and many others.
Many sweet pinks are included, "all very sweet coming near the
Gilliflowers, Sweet Williams and Sweet Johns," both single and double,
red and spotted, "and a kind of wild pinks, which for their beauty and
grace help to furnish a garden." Then, too, we have peonies, double and
single; hollyhocks, single and double; and roses.
The Elizabethan gardens, therefore, presented a magnificent array
of flowers; and it was not only in the grand gardens of castles and
manor-houses, but in the estates of London merchants along the Strand
and of the florists in Holborn, Westminster, and elsewhere that fine
flower shows were to be enjoyed during every month of the year. In the
country before the simple dwellings and the half-timbered and thatched
cottages bright flowers blossomed in the same beauty and profusion as
to-day.
The charming cottage garden has changed little.
Finally, in summing up, if we imagine as a background a group of
Tudor buildings in the Perpendicular style of architecture of red
brick broken with bay-windows and groups of quaint chimneys variously
ornamented with zigzag and other curious lines, gables here and
there--the whole façade rising above a terrace with broad flights of
steps--one at the middle and one at each end--and from the terrace
"forthrights" and paths intersecting and in the squares formed by them
bright beds of flowers so arranged that the colors intermingle and
blend so as to produce the effect of a rich mosaic and redolent with
the sweetest perfumes all mingled with particular and peculiar care
and art, we shall have a mental picture of the kind of garden that lay
before _Olivia's_ house in "Twelfth Night," where _Malvolio_ parades
up and down the "forthrights," as Shakespeare distinctly tells us, in
his yellow cross-garters, to pick up the letter dropped on the path
by _Maria_ while the rollicking _Sir Toby Belch_, witless _Sir Andrew
Aguecheek_, and merry _Maria_ watch his antics from their hiding-place
in the box-tree, or hedge.
Such also was the garden at Belmont, _Portia's_ stately home, in which
_Lorenzo_ and _Jessica_, while waiting for their mistress on that
moonlight night "when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they
did make no noise," voiced their ravishing duet, "On Such a Night."
Such also was the garden into which _Romeo_ leaped over the high
wall to sing before _Juliet's_ window a song that in her opinion was
far sweeter than that of the nightingale that nightly sang in the
pomegranate-tree by her balcony.
If, on the other hand, we wish to visualize _Perdita's_ garden--that
of a simple shepherdess--we must imagine a tiny cottage enclosure
gay and bright with blooms of many hues, arranged in simple beds
neatly bordered with box or thrift, but where there are no terraces,
forthrights, or ornamental vases, urns or fountains. This little
cottage garden is the kind that brightened the approach to Anne
Hathaway's house at Shottery and Shakespeare's own dwelling at
Stratford.
This is a descendant, as we have seen, of the little Garden of Delight,
the Pleasance of the Medieval castle. The simple cottage garden is the
easier of the two to reproduce to-day. Although it only occupies a
small corner in the garden proper, yet _all_ the flowers mentioned by
Shakespeare can be grown in it.
In rural England it is not rare to come across old gardens that owed
their existence to disciples of Didymus Mountain, Markham, Lawson,
and Parkinson--gardens that have been tended for three hundred years
and more with loving care, where the blossoms are descendants of
"outlandish" importations of Nicholas Leate and Lord Burleigh, and of
simple English flowers. These gladden the eyes of their owners to-day
as the original flowers gladdened the eyes of those who planted them.
Generations of people in the house and generations of flowers in the
garden thus flourished and faded side by side while the old stock put
forth new blossoms in both house and garden to continue the family
traditions of both the human and the floral world.
[Illustration: HERBACEOUS BORDER, NEW PLACE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON]
A typical garden dating from Shakespearean times was thus described a
few years ago in "The Gentleman's Magazine":
"In all England one could, perhaps, find no lovelier garden than that
of T----, an old manor-house, sheltered by hill and bounded by the
moat, which is the only relic of the former feudal castle. The tiled
roof, the gables inlaid with oaken beams, are almost hidden by fragrant
roses and jasmine flowers that shine like stars against their darker
foliage. A sun-dial stands in the square of lawn before the porch, and
the windows to your right open upon a yew-hedged bowling-green. Beyond,
the smooth lawn slopes down to a little stream, thick with water-loving
reeds and yellow flags; and lime-trees, whose fragrance the breeze
wafts to us, sweep the greensward in magnificent curves. If you turn
to the left, along yonder grassy path you will find yourself between
borders gorgeous with poppies and sweet william and hollyhocks and
lilies that frame distances of blue hills and clear sky.