2 AIlllANGEMENT OF GARDENS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS 



to a mansion of the period in question. This cannot very well 

 be done, and indeed would be scarcely worth the expense. For 

 we have access to books which avowedly describe the prevailing- 

 fashions in gardening, with the then latest improvements, and do 

 so very accurately. 



The first of any importance was written by Didymns Mountain, 

 and the first edition came out towards the close of the sixteenth 

 century. It is dedicated by permission to " the Right Honourable 

 and his singular good Lorde Sir William Cecille, Knight of the 

 Most Noble Order of the Garter, Baron of Burghley, Lord High 

 Treasurer of England, &c." Nothing could demonstrate the 

 utter want of originality at that time more completely than this 

 work. Prefixed to it, and ostentatiously, is a list of twenty-eight 

 authors on which it is founded. It commences Avith Pliny, 

 Cicero, and Columella, and ends with Galen ; and the directions 

 given in the body of the work as to laying out the garden are 

 obviously only an embodiment of the fashionable style then 

 existing, for the benefit of his uninitiated readers. However 

 unoriginal, then, tlie whole compilation may be, it is in the same 

 proportion valuable as a record of facts, and its value is not 

 diminished by its illustrative woodcuts, which were doubtless 

 regarded at that day as beautiful. He first sketches certain 

 specimens of ancient gardening among the Romans, and then 

 says, " But to be brief, and leaving further to report of antiquity, 

 I think it high time to declare the effects and commodity of this 

 Avork taken in hand, and first to entreate of tiie care, helps, and 

 secrets to be learned and followed in the garden-ground, all 

 which in a pleasant manner shall after be uttered in distinct 

 chapters, to the furtherance and commodity of many gardeners, 

 and all such having pleasure therein." Of the avithor's " pleasant 

 manner," which he pi'oclaims so complacently, the less said the 

 better ; and while the substance of the book might certainly be 

 for " the commodity " of such gardeners as were before in a 

 state of utter ignorance, I confess myself unable to see what 

 "furtherance" or improvement could be gained by tliose who 

 Avere even tolerably informed or possessed any reflecting faculties 

 themselves. Tlie author starts naturally enough witli the prin- 

 ciple on which the whole garden-plot should be laid down, and 

 a most Lilliputian grasp of mind and imagination it shows. 

 There is no wide yet varied expanse of surface ; no undulation 

 is spoken of; no changing views created artificially yet natural 

 in effect ; no lake with its calm sheet of water, its broken shores, 

 and its overhanging trees and bordering shrubs and flowers ; no 

 winding paths, or purling streams, or beautiful water-falls ; no 

 well-placed groups of trees, and not a hint of a noble avenue. 

 The direction is as low-idea'd as the principle itself is bald. 



