io A GARDEN OF HERBS 



roses, lilies, violets, mandrakes, parsley, fennel, southern- 

 wood, coriander, sage, savory, hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, 

 smallage, lettuce, garden cress, peonies, onions, garlic, leeks, 

 beets, herb mercury, orach, sorrel and mallows. But it is 

 not till we come to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries 

 that we have any definite knowledge of what the gardens 

 looked like and what they grew in them. 



From the Tudor days onwards began the separation of 

 the flowers from the herbs. As new vegetables were intro- 

 duced, the modern kitchen garden was gradually established, 

 and the herb garden decreased in size ; but in importance 

 not for another two centuries at least. It became the 

 special province of the housewife, and in it she grew all the 

 herbs she needed for the kitchen : for teas, ointments and 

 simple medicines, for making distilled waters, for sweet 

 bags to scent the linen, for washing-balls and pomanders. 

 The post of still-room maid in those days was not a sinecure. 

 There was no lack of books to guide the housewife of Tudor 

 and Stewart days : the most notable being Hill's Art of 

 Gardening, William Lawson's The Country Housewife's 

 Garden, and Gervase Markham's various works. Gervase 

 Markham gives a delightful description of the ideal gardener 

 who should be " religious, honest and skilful." " Religious/' 

 he proceeds to explain (" because many thinke religion but 

 a fashion or custome to goe to Church "), to be one " who 

 cherishes above all God's word and the Preachers thereof " 

 (so much as he is able), and by " honest " he means " one 

 who will not hinder your pleasures in the garden," and he 

 adds that he must not be a " lazy lubber." When he comes 

 to gillyflowers (why have we given up this delightful name 

 for carnations?) in his list of herbs he gives one of those 

 personal touches, which are so irresistibly charming in the 

 old writers. With a childlike faith in his readers' sympathy 

 he tells us, "I have of them nine or ten severall colours 

 and divers of them as bigge as Roses. Of all flowers (save 

 the Damaske Rose) they are the most pleasant to smell. 

 There use is much in ornament and comforting the spirits 

 by the sense of smelling." Biographies full of facts and 



