LORD BACON. 



OF GARDENS. 



GOD AlyMIGHTY first planted a garden. 

 And indeed, it is the purest of human 

 pleasures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the 

 spirits of man ; without which buildings and 

 palaces are but gross handy-works : and a man 

 shall ever see, that, when ages grow to civility 

 and elegancy, men come to build stately, 

 sooner than to garden finely ; as if gardening 

 were the greater perfection. 



I do hold it in the royal ordering of gardens, 

 there ought to be gardens for all the months in 

 the year, in which, severally, things of beauty 

 may be then in season. For December, and 

 January, and the latter part of November, you 

 must take such things as are green all winter : 

 holly, ivy, bays, juniper, cyprus-trees, yew, 

 pineapple-trees, fir-trees, rosemary, lavender; 

 periwinkle, the. white, the purple, and the 



