76 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



and prophesies of all time. Thus does he lift his 

 theme to its full height at starting, and the re- 

 mainder holds to the same heroic measure. 



If the ideal garden be fanciful, it is also grand and 

 impressive. Nor could it well be otherwise. For 

 when the essay was written fine gardening was in 

 the air, and the master had special opportunities for 

 studying and enjoying great gardens. More than 

 this, Bacon was an apt craftsman in many fields, a 

 born artist, gifted with an imagination at once rich 

 and curious, whose performances of every sort de- 

 clare the student's love of form, and the artist's nice 

 discrimination of expression. Then, too, his mind 

 was set upon the conquest of Nature, of which gar- 

 dening is a province, for the service of man, for 

 physical enjoyment, and for the increase of social 

 comfort. Yet was he an Enorlishman first, and a fine 

 gardener afterwards. Admit the author's sense of 

 the delights of art-magic in a garden, none esteemed 

 them more, yet own the discreet economy of his 

 imaginative strokes, the homely bluntness of his 

 criticisms upon foreign vagaries, the English sane- 

 mindedness of his points, his feeling for broad effects 

 and dislike of niggling, the mingled shrewdness and 

 benignity of his way of putting things. It is just 

 because Bacon thus treats of idealisms as though 

 they were realisms, because he so skilfully wraps 

 up his fanciful figures in matter-of-fact language that 

 even the ordinary English reader appreciates the 

 art of Bacon's stiff garden, and entertains art-aspira- 

 tions unawares. ^ 



