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318 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



A happy rural seat of various view : 



Groves^ whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm ; 



Betwixt them lawns or level downs, and flocks 

 Grazing the tender herb. . . . 

 Another side, umbrageous grots and caves 

 Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine 

 Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps 

 Luxuriant : meanwhile murm'ring waters fall 

 Down the slope hills, dispers'd or in a lake, 

 That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown'd 

 Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams. 



— Paradise Lost, Book IV. 



The earliest historical gardens are those of ancient Egypt, of 

 which a description from the pen of Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson has 

 been quoted in the text, and Mr Percy Newberry now seems to 

 be convinced that the illustration reproduced from Rosellini is the 

 design of the gardener Nekht for the Great Temple at Karnak.^ 



Besides the Monuments and Herodotus's mention of the sacred 

 groves and gardens of Amnion and Osiris in Egypt as of extra- 

 ordinary beauty, we have little authentic record. 



Those who will penetrate into the mystery of the Hanging 

 Gardens of Babylon further than is disclosed by Diodorus Siculus,^ 

 may dip into the learned Dr Falconer's ' Historical View of the 

 Gardens of Antiquity.' ^ The Hill Amron-Ibn-Ali is the supposed 

 site of the 'Horti Pensiles.' Some may have their imagination 

 of the subject quickened by the sight of the stupendous columns 

 and cypresses in Martin's pictures of the ' Destruction of Babylon ' 

 and the ' Fall of Nineveh,' ^ or by De Brosse's description of the 

 terraced gardens of Isola Bella — perhaps the nearest comparison 

 to be found in Europe : — 



" Imagine a quantity of arcades formed in the centre of a lake, 

 supporting a conical-shaped hill, cut on four sides, covered with 



^ See ante pages 1-3. ^ See ante page 12. 



3 See also Dr Sickler's Introduction to his ' Geschichte der Obst Cultur,' 

 1802. 



^ See, too, a fine fanciful sketch by A. Castaigne in Century Magazine for 

 June 1898. 



