6 THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



Romans, who are still our teachers in the matter of 

 beautiful gardening. The Roman villas that made 

 Albion beautiful, as the great estates of the nobility 

 and gentry make her beautiful to-day, lacked noth- 

 ing in the way of ornamental gardens. Doubtless 

 Pliny's garden was repeated again and again in the 

 outposts of the Roman Empire. From these splen- 

 did Roman gardens tradition has been handed 

 down. 



There never has been a time in the history of 

 England where the cultivation of the garden held 

 pause. There is every reason to believe that the 

 Anglo-Saxons were devoted to flowers. A poem in 

 the "Exeter Book" has the lines: 



Of odors sweetest 

 Such as in summer's tide 

 Fragrance send forth in places, 

 Fast in their stations, 

 Joyously o'er the plains, 

 Blown plants, 

 Honey-flowing. 



No one could write "blown-plants, honey-flow- 

 ing" without a deep and sophisticated love of 

 flowers. 



Every Anglo-Saxon gentleman had a garth, or 

 garden, for pleasure, and an ort-garth for vegetables. 



