HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE. 93 



arts of architecture and of qrardeninq- in the present 

 day ! 



By all the laws of human expression, I say, these 

 old gardens should be masterpieces. The sixteenth 

 century, which saw the English garden formulated, 

 was a time for grand enterprises ; indeed, to this 

 period is ascribed the making of England. These 

 gardens, then, are the handiwork of the makers of 

 England, and should bear the marks of heroes. They 

 are relics of the men and women who made our land 

 both fine and famous in the days of the Tudors ; 

 they represent the mellow fruit of the leisure, the 

 poetic reverie, the patient craft of men versed in 

 o-reat affairs — big men, who thought and did big 

 things — men of splendid genius and stately notions 

 — past-masters of the art of life who would drink life 

 to the lees. 



As gardeners, these old statesmen were no 

 dabblers. They had the good fortune to live in a 

 current of ideas of formal device that touched art at 

 all points and was Avell calculated to assist the 

 creative faculty in design of all kinds. They lived 

 before the art of bad gardening had been invented ; 

 before pretty thoughts had palled the taste, before 

 gardening had learnt routine ; while Nature smiled 

 a virgin smile and had a sense of unsolved mystery. 

 More than this, garden-craft was then no mere craze 

 or passing freak of fashion, but a serious item in the 

 round of home-life ; — gardening was a thing to be 

 done as well as it could be done. Design was fresh 

 and open to individual treatment — men needed an 



