'J'UF. aARPEXl'.R'S MOXlllI.y 



{March. 



It'avi-' iiolliiiiji but till' appoaraiict'of <;ri'i'ii paint- 

 like sliim-, but whic'li, under a lens, could be seen 

 as a minute moss. Columns ol' red and white 

 sandstone here and there sujijiorted the roofs, 

 and made beautiful cathedral-like resemblances, 

 in kefpiuLj with the <.'raves. The lirounds are 

 wisely kept as uiiture washed Ihem out for us, 

 and the chief tloral adornments are the yellow 

 bedstraw.the furze, and the broom ; and in spite 

 of the beauty of many an artilical cemetery, 

 there did seem to me a singular api)ropriateness 

 Jii the return of '"dust to dust, and ashes to 

 ashes,'' in a place so fresh from the baud of 

 naiin-e as this. 



We pass on through ISherwood Forest, made 

 memwable by Sir Walter Scott, and the nianj^ 

 stories of Robin Hood and his men ; but little is 

 left to suixijost the tales of the olden time but 

 tavern siu;ns. and the names of old ruins or vil- 

 lages, as we pass throui^h. The " Forest" must 

 have di.sappeared long ago, and the places where 

 the good old monks 



•' Sang nncl laughed, 

 Anrt the rich wine qnxff 'd, 

 Till they shook the olden walls,"' 



are gradualh' disappearing too, in spite of the 

 traditional regard for old ruins in England. But 

 we found the old abbey still there. This is built 

 on this ancient royal forest land. King Henr}^ 

 had slain the Archbishop a Becket of Canter- 

 bury, and, as was the custom at that time, had 

 to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance before 

 his sins could be forgiven, so he built this glor- 

 rious pile and presented it to the church, in 

 whose possession it remained until King Henry 

 VIII. 's time. 



I was fortunatf^ in finding my friend, Mr. John 

 Lawrence, at home. The gardens are kept up 

 very much as the old monks left it, and it was 

 particularly interesting to notice in their work 

 thus fortunately preserved for us, what good 

 gardeners they were. The huge terraces must 

 have involved an immense amount of manual 

 labor, which, if really performed by the novices, 

 shows that they did not altogether despise hard 

 work in their efforts for a better life. We are 

 told by history that it is to the labor and skill of 

 the old monks that we owe many of our enjo}'- 

 able fruits and vegetables. The long, straight 

 garden wall border, in which they made their 

 experiments, now so many hundreds of years 

 ago, possessed a great charm for me. They were 

 also adepts in fish culture. They managed al- 

 ways to keep a good supply of the best in the 

 ■" slew pond," and this so artistically arranged bv 



their great skill in comljining the beautiful with 

 the useful, that I have rarely seen a sheet of 

 water that seemed to make everything about it 

 so beaulil'ul. They, however, unlike so many 

 wealthy people of our own time, knew the ad- 

 vantages of good advice, and in the planning of 

 their grounds had the assistance of the celebrated 

 Le Notre, who designed the Palace (irounds of 

 Versailles, and assisted the great Cardinal 

 Woolsey in his gardens at Hampton Court. These 

 sheets of water are rectaiiLrular, but the blanches 

 of neighboring trees, stooping down to kiss the 

 placid waters, have extended some more and 

 some less, until tin' margins are bayed out and 

 inletted in a manner sulfieient to .satisfy the 

 devotee of the most irregular in garden art. A 

 great amount of this overhanging foliage was of 

 the yew, some of the trees kiu)wn to be at least 

 700 years old. These dark grci'U masses gave a 

 peculiar tint to the waters that can scarcely be 

 described. AVater birds, with their young, were 

 darting in and out uiubr the living shade, seem- 

 ingly so little in fear of interruption, that at first 

 I thought them tame. The breast-works of 

 some of the dams were so completely overgrown 

 with cotoneaster, creeping on through the cen- 

 turies, that the only knowledge of their existence 

 came from the foaming water as it dashed through 

 the scarlet-berried branches. The landscape 

 gardener may iiKike a place which will be pro- 

 nounced perfect, but the charm which age brings 

 is Nature's own. 



The fern garden seems especially a favoi'ite 

 with English ladies. It affords scope for a nice 

 combination of earth and rock with the shade and 

 romance of the wild w^oods; and here, also, I 

 found one bcautifull}- designed. There are piles 

 of rocks and caves, and everywhere, inside and 

 out, the filmy foliage of some beautiful fern. 

 Even history is made to lend a hand in tlie intel- 

 lectual feast in many memorials; raid among 

 them all I could not help feeling a more than 

 usual interest in a small carved seyenite column 

 from Thebes, perhaps among the oldest pieces of 

 workmanship of civilized man. We may have 

 advanced some in the arts as we have had oppor- 

 tunities afforded us, but here is the evidence that 

 when the human race was being rocked in its 

 cradle, it knew how to do first-class work. 



The grounds are full of interesting memorials. 

 Livingston was a guest of Captain AVebb, and 

 here wrote the last work he ever published. As 

 is the prevalent custom in this country, his pres- 

 ence here is marked b}' a tree planted b}' his 



