78 GA RDEN- CRA FT. 



ness is not to be wholly ascribed to the fastidious 

 bent of a mind that Hved in a labyrinth ; it speaks 

 equally of the fineness of the man's ideal, which 

 lifts his standard sky-high and keeps him watchful 

 to a fault in attaining desired effects without run- 

 ning upon " trifles and jingles." The master-text of 

 the whole Essay seems to be the writer's own apo- 

 thegm : " Nature is commanded by obeying her." 



That a true gardener should love Nature goes 

 without saying. And Bacon loved Nature passion- 

 ately, and gardens only too well. He tells us 

 these were his favourite sins in the strange document 

 — half prayer, half Apologia — written after he had 

 made his will, at the time of his fall, when he pre- 

 sumably concluded that anything might happen. 

 " Thy creatures have been my books, but Thy Scrip- 

 tures much more. I have sought Thee in the courts, 

 fields, and gardens, but I have found Thee in Thy 

 temples." 



Three more points about the essay I would like 

 to comment upon. First, That in spite of its lofty 

 dreaming, it treats of the hard and dry side of gar- 

 dening as a science in so methodical a manner that 

 but for what it contains besides, and for its mint- 

 mark of a great spirit, the thing might pass as an 

 extract from a more-than-ordinary practical gardener's 

 manual. Bacon does not write upon the subject like 

 a man in another planet, but like a man in a land of 

 living men. 



Secondly, As to the attitude of Bacon and his 

 school towards external Nature. In them is no trace 



