34 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



or shall we hear tell from Chaucer how 



" When that Aprille, with his shown-s swoot 

 The drought of March hath pierced to the root, 



Then longen folk to gone on pilgrimages." 



Or hear from Stowe how the cockney of olden 

 days "In the month of May, namely, on May-day \\\ 

 the morning, every man, except impediment, would 

 walk in the sweet meddowes and green woods, ther 

 to rejoyce their spirits with the beauty and savour 

 of sweet flowers and with the harmonie of birds 

 praysing God in their kinde." 



Or shall we turn to Shakespeare's bright inci- 

 dental touches of nature-description as in Perdita's 

 musical enumeration of the flowers of the old stiff 

 garden-borders " to make you garlands of," or the 

 Queen's bit in " Hamlet," beginning 



" There is a willow grows aslant a brook. 

 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream." 



Or to the old Herbals of Wyer, and Turner, and 

 Gerard, whom Richard Jefferies* pictures walk- 

 ing about our English lanes in old days? "What 

 wonderful scenes he must have viewed when they 

 were all a tangle of wild flowers, and plants that are 

 now scarce were common, and the old ploughs and 

 the curious customs, and the wild red-deer — it would 

 make a good picture, it really would, Gerard study- 

 ing English orchids ! " 



Or shall we take down the classic volumes 

 of Bacon, Temple, Evelyn, Cowley, Isaak Walton, 



* " Field and Hedgerow," p. 27. 



