HIS TO RICA L A ND COM PA RA TI I'E. 87 



gardener's house at the place is still called " Beaumont 

 Hall." (See an admirable monograph upon "Col. 

 James Grahme, of Levens," by ^Ir Joscelin Bagot, 

 Kendal.) 



One who is perhaps hardly in sympathy with 

 the quaintness of the gardens, thus writes : " There 

 along a wide extent of terraced walks and walls, 

 eagles of holly and peacocks of yew still find with 

 each returning summer their wings dipt and their 

 talons ; there a stately remnant of the old promenoirs 

 such as the Frenchman taught our fathers,'" rather I 

 w^ould say to bui/d than plant — along which in days 

 of old stalked the gentlemen with periwigs and 

 swords, the ladies in hoops and furbelows — may 

 still to this day be seen." 



With the pictures of the gardens at Levens 

 before us, with memories of Arley, of Brympton, 

 of Wilton,! of Montacute, Rockingham, Penshurst, 

 Severn End, Berkeley,! and Haddon, we may 

 here pause a moment to count up and bewail our 



* With regard to this remark, we have to note a certain amount 

 of French influence throughout the reigns of the Jameses and 

 Charleses. Here is Beaumont, "gardener to James II.;" and we 

 hear also of Andre Mollet, gardener to James I. ; also that Charles 

 II. borrowed Le Notre to lay out the gardens of Greenwich and 

 St James' Park. 



+ The gardens at Wilton are exceedingly beautiful, and contain 

 noble trees, among which are a group of fine cedars and an ilex 

 beneath which Sir Philip Sidney is supposed to have reclined when 

 he wrote his "Arcadia" here. The Italian garden is one of the most 

 beautiful in England. 



X Of Berkeley, Evelyn writes : " For the rest the fore-court is 

 noble, so are the stables ; and, above all, the gardens, which are 

 incomparable by reason of the inequality of the ground, and a pretty 

 piscina. The holly-hedges on the terrace I advised the planting of.'' 



