ON ART IN A GARDEN. 33 



and there the well-schemed surroundings of our 

 iMigllsh homes — park, avenue, wood, and water — 

 the romantic scenery that hems in Tintern, Foun- 

 tains, Dunster. to testify to the inborn genius of the 

 English for planting. If the tree, shrub, and tlower 

 be gone from the grounds outside the old Tudor 

 mansion, there still remains the blue-green world in 

 the tapestries upon the walls, with their airy land- 

 scapes of trees and hills, hanging-gardens, flower- 

 beds, terraces, and embowered nooks — a little ian- 

 tastical it may be, but none the less eloquent of 

 appreciation of natural beauty not confined to the 

 gardener, but shared by the artist-maid, who 



, . . " with her neeld composes 

 Nature's own shape, of bird, branch, or berry, 

 That even Art sisters the natural roses."' 



And should these relics be gone, we still have the 

 books in the library, rich in Nature-allusion. The 

 simple ecstasies of the early ballad in the opening 

 stanzas of " Robin Hood and the Monk " — 



" In somer when the shawes be sheyne, 

 And leves be large and longe, 

 Hit is full mery in feyre foreste 

 To here the foulys song ; 



To se the dere draw to the dale, 



And leve the hilles hee, 

 And shadow hem in the leves grene. 



Under the grene-wode tre" ; 



or in a " ^lusical Dreame" — 



" Now wend we home, stout Robin Hood, 

 Leave we the woods behind us. 

 Love passions must not be withstood, 



Love everywhere will find us. 

 I livde in fielde and downe, and so did he ; 

 I got me to the woods, love followed me." 



C 



