Poet,' has already been given1-although the 'intricacy' of its 'setting' hardly seems to equal the 'twisting, turnings and windings' of the poet's rhetorical conceits; and if the symbolical three arbours standing in a triangle cannot be detected, the walks one within another like the rind of an onion' are certainly visible. According to the letter-press with the copper-plates, the garden was 1000 feet long by 400 feet broad, and was divided into three long squares or parallelograms. The first from the house contained four platts embroidered, each with a fountain in the midst, marble statues, platts of flowers, and a little 'terrass.' The second comprised two groves or woods, with the River Nadar running through them under a bridge, the breadth of the Great Walk. In the groves were two white marble statues, 8 feet high, of Bacchus and Flora; and at the sides two covered arbours, 300 feet long, and alleys. In the third division were two ponds with fountains, and two columns in the middle, the water causing two crowns to revolve. Then came a green 'Compartment,' the walks planted with cherry-trees, and in the middle a great Oval with an antique Statue of a Gladiator in brass; at the sides were three arbours with 'twining Galleryes.' At the end of the Great Walk stood a stone portico with pilasters and niches containing white marble figures, and a 'terrass' with sea-monsters upon the steps casting water from top to bottom; and above the portico was a 'reserve' of water for the grotto. Of Elizabethan writers not before quoted Sir Hugh Platt of Lincoln's Inn, Gentleman, 'the most ingenious husbandman of the age he lived in,'2 should be remembered as the author of "The Jewel House of Art and Nature,' 'The Paradise of Flora' and 'The Garden of Eden.' He was an advocate for complete individuality of action in shaping or fashioning a Garden'-and considered that 'every Drawer or Embroiderer, nay (almost) 1 Ante p. 87. 2 Tracts on practical Agriculture and Gardening, to which is added a complete Chronological Catalogue of English Authors on Agriculture, Gardening, etc., by Richard Weston, London, 1769, 8vo, each Dancing-master, may pretend to such niceties, how long, broad or high, the Beds, Hedges, or Borders should be contrived, in regard they call for very small Invention and less learning;'-but he takes much trouble to explain, in anticipation of modern Window-gardening, how 'a faire Gallery, great chamber or other lodging, may be inwardly garnished with sweet herbs and flowers, yea, and fruit- and how to make apt frames for letting down flower-pots with a pulley from your chamberwindow, and flower-boxes of lead, or bordes well pitched within, and planted with Rosemary 'running up the transums or movels of your windowes.' The illustration from the 'Hortus Floridus' by Crispin de Pass shows more in detail the pleached Galleries supported by sculptured columns, and the beds cut up into quaint geometrical snippets strewn upon a sea of sand, and 'set with fine flowers, but thin and sparingly'; a Book of Designs of a similar character by a Flemish Artist, de Vries,1 plays more variations upon the same theme. The name of Rembert Dodonæus 2 associated with Clusius and Crispin de Pass, recalls the long list of Herbals which appeared in connection with the Physic Gardens of Europe. The translation of Peter Treveris's 'Grete Herball' was the first published in English, in 1568. But William Turner's 'Herball,' which he claims to have written thirty years before, makes its author rather than Gerard 'the Father of the English Herbal.' 3 Dodoens-Lyte's 'Niewe Herball' appeared in 1578, and finally John Gerarde, the most renowned of all, published in London his 'Herball,' of which a reduced facsimile of the title-page is given. Gerarde was born in 1545, educated as a surgeon, and for twenty years superintended the Garden of Lord Burleigh, to whom the Herbal is dedicated 1I. Vredeman de Vries, 'Hortorum Viridariorumque Elegantes Formae.' Antwerp, 1583. 2 1517-1586 Physician to the Emperor Maximilian II., Professor of Physic at Leyden, and author of 'Sterpium Historia Pemptades' upon which Lyte and Gerard founded their Herbals. 3 Dean of Wells, and M.D.; First Book, Black Letter, small fo., 1551; 2nd Book, Cologne 1562. Turner had physic gardens at Cologne and later at Wells and Kew-(Preface addressed to Queen Elizabeth). An Engraving of a garden by Crispin de Pass, from the 'Hortus Floridus,' by Dodonæus, Clusius and himself, Arnheim, 1614. |