A GARDEN OF HERBS 



CHAPTER I 

 OF HERB GARDENS 



" The worship of Demeter belongs to that older religion, 

 nearer to the Earth, which some have thought they could 

 discern behind the more definitely national mythology of 

 Homer. She is the goddess of dark caves. . . . She knows 

 the magic power of certain plants cut from her bosom to 

 bane or bless . . . She is the goddess of the fertility of the 

 earth in its wildness." WALTER PATER. 



" Talke of perfect happiness or pleasure and what place "^ 

 was so fit for that as the garden place where Adam was set I 

 to be the Herbarist." JOHN GERARD. 



" All the wide world of vegetation blooms and buds for 

 you ; the thorn and the thistle which the earth casts forth 

 as evil are to you the kindliest servants ; no dying petal nor 

 drooping tendril is so feeble as to have no help for you." 

 JOHN RUSKIN. 



" Then there are some flowers, they always seem to me 

 like over-dutiful children : tend them never so little and 

 they come up and flourish and show as I may say their 

 bright and happy faces to you." DOUGLAS JERROLD. 



*' Death, thou'rt a cordial old and rare : 

 Look how compounded, with what care, 

 Time got his wrinkles reaping thee, 

 Sweet herbs from all antiquity." 



LANIER. 



" A GARDEN of herbs, a vineyard, a garden enclosed all 

 these have the gravity of use and labour, and are as remote 

 as memory, and as familiar, secluded and secret." But 

 what do we know of herb gardens ? for we use so few 

 herbs, and those we have relegated to an obscure corner of 

 the kitchen garden. It is a little difficult even to imagine 

 a time when " vegetables " occupied only an insignificant 

 part of the herb garden, and a still earlier time when both 

 the flower garden and the vegetable garden were non- 

 existent, and the herb garden reigned supreme. We know 



