286 



THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



as much as himself. He asks a city friend which he will have 

 put into his carriage — a basket of flowers or a hamper of vegetables ; 

 — and the answer is, ' Both ! ' To make it perfect in its way, all 

 the spare decoration he can afford to bestow upon it should tend 

 to make it a winter garden. 



—^\J\f\t\r— 



A S for our love of gardens, it is the last refuge of art in the 

 •'*' minds and souls of many Englishmen : if we did not care 



SIR 



ARTHUR 

 HELPS 



(1817-1875). for gardens, I hardly know what m the way of beauty we should 



care for. — Co7npanions of my Solitude. 



— 'A/VV^ — 



SIR pMBOSOMED in a valley and an unshorn forest, and refreshed 



^t/rVtnt ^y ^^^ Tagus and the Xarama which mingle their streams 



MAXWELL beneath the palace-walls, Aranjuez has long been the Tivoli or 

 (1818-1878). Windsor of the princes, and the Tempe of the poets of Castile. 

 Even now, the traveller who comes weary and adust from brown 

 La Mancha, and from the edge of the desert, looks down on the 

 palace, sparkling with its long white arcades and gilded vanes 

 amongst woods and waters, may share the raptures of Garcilasso 

 and Calderon. The island garden, though deserted by royalty 

 and grandeeship, has yet its bright sun and rivers, its marble 

 statues and fountains half hid in thickets ; the old elms of 

 Charles V. ; ^ and cathedral-walks of hornbeam, peopled with a 

 melodious multitude of nightingales. The fountain-pipes that 

 once climbed unseen amongst the branches, and played from 

 the tops of the trees,^ have long ceased to play ; others, however, . 

 are still in full force; and a few camels, parading too and fro 

 with garden burdens, preserve an oriental custom of the place, as 

 old as the days of Philip II. Here Velasquez attended his 

 master in his walks, or sat retired in ' pleached bowers,' noting 



1 Beckford, ' Letters from Spain, ' xvii. 

 - Lady Fanshaw, ' Memoirs,' pp. 222-3. | 



