THE HISTORY OF GARDENING. 39 



solitudes ; and every improvement that was made, was but a step 

 farther from nature. The tricks of water- works to wet the unwary, 

 not to refresh the panting spectator, and parterres embroidered in 

 patterns like a petticoat, were but the childish endeavours of fashion 

 and novelty to reconcile greatness to what it had surfeited on. To 

 crown these impotent displays of false taste, the shears were applied 

 to the lovely wildness of form with which Nature has distinguished 

 each various species of tree and shrub. The venerable Oak, the 

 romantic Beech, the useful Elm, even the aspiring circuit of the 

 Lime, the regular round of the Chestnut, and the almost moulded 

 Orange Tree, were corrected by such fantastic admirers of symmetry. 

 The compass and square were of more use in plantations than the 

 nurseryman. The measured walk, the quincunx, and the etoile, 

 imposed their unsatisfying sameness on every royal and noble garden. 

 Trees were headed, and their sides pared away ; many French 

 groves seem green chests set upon poles. Seats of marble, arbours, 

 and summer-houses, terminated every visto ; and symmetry, even 

 where the space was too large, to permit its being remarked at one 

 view, was so essential, that, as Pope observed, 



Each alley has a brother, 

 And half the garden just reflects the other. 



Knots of flowers were more defensibly subjected to the same regu- 

 larity. Leisure, as Milton expressed it, 

 In trim gardens took his pleasure. 



In the garden of Marshal de Biron, at Paris, consisting of fourteen 

 acres, every walk was buttoned on each side by lines of flower-pots, 

 which succeeded in their seasons : there were nine thousand pots of 

 Asters, or la Reine Marguerite. 



We do not precisely know what our ancestors meant by a bower ; 

 it was probably an arbour ; sometimes it meant the whole frittered 

 inclosure, and in one instance it certainly included a labyrinth. 

 Rosamond's bower was indisputably of that kind, though whether 

 composed of walls or hedges we cannot determine.* A square and 



* Draytoii, in a note to his Epistle of Rosamond, i-ays, her labyrinth was 

 built of vaults under ground, arched and walled with brick and stone; but. as 

 Mr. Gough observes, he gives no authority tor that assertion. V. pref. to 2d 

 edit, of British Topography, p. xxx. Such vaults might remain to Drayton's 

 time, but did not prove that there had been no superstructure. 



