CHAPTER V 
WOODS AND FIELDS 
RuraAt life, says Cicero, “is not delightful 
by reason of cornfields only and meadows, and 
vineyards and groves, but also for its gardens 
and orchards, for the feeding of cattle, the 
swarms of bees, and the variety of all kinds of 
flowers.’ Bacon considered that a garden is 
“the greatest refreshment to the spirits of 
man, without which buildings and palaces 
are but gross handyworks, 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.” 
No doubt “the pleasure which we take in a 
garden is one of the most innocent delights in 
human life.”! Elsewhere there may be scat- 
1 The Spectator. 
167 
