IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 7 



was made the scene of an arrangement as unnatural as the 

 ground-plan of the wliole garden itself. This system long pre- 

 vailed ; so long that Milton could not resist giving a condemna- 

 tory allusion to it in his description of Paradise. Pie speaks of — 



" Flow'rs worthy of Paradise, which not nice art 

 In beds and curious knots, but nature boon 

 Poured forth profuse on hill and dale and plain." 



I refer to the curious k7iots of flowers which first appeared in 

 print in Mountain's work, and for variations in which ingenuity 

 was taxed to the utmost. Nothing, indeed, can prove moi'e 

 clearly the degree in which this art was prized than the fact that 

 a pamphlet was published in the year 1623, called "Knots for 

 Gardens," and the title in full runs thus : — " Certaine excellent 

 and new-invented Knots and Mazes for plots for Gardens, by 

 which you may truly learne the art of drawing out any Knot 

 according to the plot of your Garden, be it never so bigg ; the 

 like not yet published in our language by any author what- 

 soever." Each page after this title is devoted to a woodcut of 

 some peculiar, and then thought, beautiful knot. Some of the 

 ugliest among them are thus headed: — "A curious Knot;" 

 " A rare Knot for a fine Garden ;" "A flourishing Knot ;" and 

 *' A curious fine Knot." It would have occupied too much 

 space to have given for insertion copies of these woodcuts ; 

 but some of the other headings are very singular, and I 

 should like very much to see if any knot designed from 

 some of these headings alone would be intelligible, or at all 

 like the respective woodcuts, to which the headings are pre- 

 fixed. For example, one knot is described as " the triangular 

 square," another as " the square of diamonds," and a third as 

 "a square triangular or circular." A knot in the shape of a 

 circular square would entitle the author to the honour of liaving 

 accomplished what has been imagined an impossible feat — the 

 squaring of the circle. But imagine this system fully carried 

 out in all its variety — a rare knot covering the surface of each 

 flower-bed — and we come nearer still to a general idea of the 

 whole effect. Certainly the absurdity of formality could not go 

 much beyond this point. It might have been hoped that nature, 

 however cramped within the whole surface laid out, might have 

 been allowed to luxuriate freely within each of these small nar- 

 row beds. But the same formal system reigns even there : and 

 so in every particular division, as well as over tlie whole plan, 

 formality, straight lines, angles, squares, triangles, and oblongs, 

 rule supreme. 



It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that these are the 

 only beauties, although it must be confessed that they were the 



