ELIZABETHAN E LOWER GARDES. \\% 



entered men's minds. But because the garden was surrounded 

 with a high wall, and those inside wished to look beyond, a 

 terrace was contrived. As in the Middle Ages, we find an 

 eminence within the walls, as a point from which to look over 

 them ; so at the period we have now reached, the restricted 

 view from the mount did not satisfy, and to get a more extended 

 range over the park beyond and the garden within, a terrace was 

 raised along one side of the square of the wall. " I have seen 

 a garden," says Sir Henry Wotton^ "into which the first access 

 was a high walk like a terrace, from whence might be taken a 

 general view of the whole plot below." De Caux, the designer 

 of the Earl of Pembroke's garden at Wilton, made such a 

 terrace there " for the more advantage of beholding those 

 platts." * Another is described at Kenilworth in 1575, " hard 

 all along by the castle wall is reared a pleasant terrace, ten feet 

 high and twelve feet broad, even under foot, and fresh of 

 fine grass. "t The terraces, as a rule, were wide and of hand- 

 some proportions, with stone steps either at the ends or in the 

 centre, and were raised above the garden either by a sloping 

 grass bank, or brick or stone wall. At Kirby, in Northampton- 

 shire, a magnificent Elizabethan house, now rapidly falling into 

 decay, all that remains of a once beautiful garden, " enrich'd 

 with a great variety of plants," J is a terrace running the whole 

 length of the western wall of the garden. It is now planted 

 with potatoes, and the garden it overlooked is merely a 

 meadow. The lines in Spenser's Ruins of Time might have been 

 written on this garden had he but seen it in its present state. 



" Then did I see a pleasant paradize 



Full of svveete flowers' and daintiest delights, 



Such as on earth man could not more devize ; 



With pleasure's choyce to feed his cheerful sprig-hts. 



Since that I sawe this gardine wasted quite, 



That where it was scarce seemed anie sight; 



That I, which once that beautie did beholde, 



Could not from teares my melting e}'es with-holdc." 



* Le yardi)i de Wilton, De Caux, 1615. 



■f Robert Laneham, Letter describing the Pageants at Kenilworth Castle^ 

 '575' V^^iract \n Praise of Gardois. Sieveking, 1885. 

 + ^\ov\.on, Natural History of Nortliaiiiptonsliire. 17 12. 



