I love the garden wild and wide,
Where oaks have plum-trees by their side,
Where woodbines and the twisting vine
Clip round the pear tree and the pine
Where mixed jonquils and gowans grow
And roses midst rank clover grow
Upon a bank of a clear strand,
In wrimplings made by Nature's hand
Though docks and brambles here and there
May sometimes cheat the gardener's care,
_Yet this to me is Paradise_,
_Compared with prim cut plots and nice_,
_Where Nature has to Act resigned,_
_Till all looks mean, stiff and confined_.
I cannot say that I should wish to see forest trees and docks and
brambles in garden borders. Honest Allan here runs a little into the
extreme, as men are apt enough to do, when they try to get as far as
possible from the side advocated by an opposite party.
I shall now exhibit two paintings of bowers. I begin with one from
Spenser.