Vlll 



PREFATORY NOTE 



ings that remain of garden scenes. Perhaps the Summers 

 were hotter then in those distant days, and fair ladies and 

 courtly gentlemen walked together under the trees, or con- 

 versed sitting in temples and arbours (which I think we in 

 these unromantic days less often care to do). 



If the modern love for flower-gardens be a fashion of 

 the day, a purer or more innocent fashion could scarcely be 

 imagined. If the sweet old childlike delight of our fore- 

 fathers and mothers in their groves and fountains and hidden 

 paths and hedged -in lawns be lost now in the rivalry of 

 cultivation of unnumbered species of plants and brilliant 

 bands of " bedding out," it must be forgiven for the sake 

 of the healthful, happy, garden-love which does everywhere 

 prevail. 



Everybody loves a garden ! Men feel the charm to the 

 full as much as women do, though the latter may have more 

 leisure to enjoy it. And labour or dreaming in a garden, 

 may often suggest to the gardener's mind beautiful and fruit- 

 ful thoughts. So was it but a short while since, with Miss 

 Close, to whom the nation owed the inspiration of the people's 

 laurel wreaths, for the passing of The Queen's Funeral on the 

 2nd of February 1901. This lady has elected to be a practical 

 working gardener ; and she is a devoted lover of the art. It 

 was when at work in her garden that she willed that the poorest 

 in the land should unite with the richest to honour the passing 

 of the Great Queen through the streets of London. She asked 

 the public for laurel wreaths. Instantly thousands responded 

 to the call. Thousands of green garlands were woven and 

 sent forth, till they reached in double line along the whole 

 route of the splendid procession. And thus it came to 

 pass that the love-tributes of England's poor, even from 

 remotest villages throughout the country, hung side by side 



