HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE. 59 



And the early ballads as I have already shown are 

 full of allusion to scenery and woodland. In the 

 days of fine gardens the Englishman must still have 

 his four acres "to the green," liis adjuncts of slirub- 

 bery, wilderness, and park. Nay, Henry VIII.'s 

 earden at Nonsuch, had its wilderness of ten acres. 

 " Chaucer opens his Gierke's Tale with a bit of land- 

 scape admirable for its large style," says INlr 

 Lowell, "and as well composed as any Claude" 

 ("My Study Windows," p. 22). "What an airy 

 precision of touch is here, and what a sure eye for 

 the points of character in landscape." So, too, can 

 Milton rejoice in 



" Nature boon 

 Poured forth profuse on hill and dale and plain,' 



and Herrick : 



"Sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, 

 Of April, May, of June, and July tlowers." 



Nor is this taste for landscape surprising in a country 

 where the natural scenery is so fair and full of mean- 

 ing. There are the solemn woods, the noble trees of 

 forest and park : the " fresh green lap " of the land, 

 so vividly green that the American Hawthorne 

 declares he found "a kind of lustre in it." There 

 is the rich vegetation, and " in France, and still 

 less in Italy," Walpole reminds us, "they could 

 with difficulty attain that verdure which the humidity 

 of our climate bestows." There are the leafy forest 

 ways gemmed with flowers ; the vast hunting-grounds 

 of old kings, the woodland net of hazel coppice, the 

 hills and dales, sunned or shaded, the plains mapped 



