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his countryineii over to embellish the grounds at 



Hampton Court and Kensington Palace. There 



were probably gardens planted in Britain bj' the 



Romans, as we know both the Roman and Greek 



* nations carried the art to a very high degree of 



. excellence. ]\Iedi;eval gardens were on very formal 



lines, with flower beds in geometrical patterns, and 



high stiff hedges. A beautiful description of a garden in the fifteenth 



century is given in the " Kings Ouhair," when the Royal lover from his 



prison tower sees his mistress walking in the garden at Windsor : 



•■ Fast by the towris wall 

 A garden fair, and in the corners set 

 Ane arbour green with wandis long and small 

 Railed about and so with trees set 

 W'.-is all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet." 



There is an indefinable "something" about these old-world 

 that appeals to us all, and the\- afford delightful 

 opportunities for the flower painter who would make 

 his studies from plants as they grow, for they have 

 the charm of a sentimental interest as well as a < 



decorative one. 



Those mossy flagged walks where bjgone genera- 

 tions have trod ; those richly-coloured old brick walls, 

 to which the old-fashioned clematis and roses cling 

 lovingly as of yore. Everywhere an old-world charm 

 that the flight of Time has enhanced rather than 

 lessened, for with the passing years the girth and 

 beauty of those majestic trees have increased, and 

 everything has settled into a great harmonious 

 " whole " impossible to find in the most carefully- 

 planned new garden. 



Some of my earliest recollections are of an old 

 garden 1 used to visit in very tender y-ears ; and its 

 beauty so impressed m\' childish miiul that I can 

 see it plainly before me even now. 



A broad flight of stone steps, mossy green and 

 splashed with orange-coloured lichens, led down from 

 the casement windows of the old red-brick house, 

 over a sinooth, sloping lawn gay with flower beds, to 

 where beyond, in the orchard, one came upon the 

 remnant of an old-time moat, its still surface thickly- 

 studded with water-lilies white and yellow, over 

 which the ancient apple-trees bent their gnarled 

 and whitened trunks, in spring shedding a shower 

 of rosy petals into the water below. An old 



warden > 



60 



