"THE CURIOUS KNOTTED GARDEN" 47 



have required much study on the part of the gar- 

 deners, who kept pace with the seasons and always 

 had their beds in bloom. Sir Henry Wotton, Am- 

 bassador to Venice in the reign of James I, and 

 author of the "Elements of Architecture," but far 

 better known by his lovely verse to Elizabeth of 

 Bohemia beginning, "You meaner beauties of the 

 night," was an ardent flower lover. He was greatly 

 impressed by what he called "a delicate curiosity 

 in the way of color" : 



"Namely in the Garden of Sir Henry Fanshaw 

 at his seat in Ware Park, where I well remember he 

 did so precisely examine the tinctures and seasons 

 of his flowers that in their settings, the inwardest 

 of which that were to come up at the same time, 

 should be always a little darker than the outmost, 

 and so serve them for a kind of gentle shadow, like 

 a piece not of Nature but of Art." 



Browne also gives a splendid idea of the color 

 effect of the garden beds of this period: 



As in a rainbow's many color'd hue, 

 Here we see watchet deepen'd with a blue ; 

 There a dark tawny, with a purple mix'd; 

 Yellow and flame, with streaks of green betwixt; 

 A bloody stream into a blushing run, 

 And ends still with the color which begun; 

 Drawing the deeper to a lighter strain, 



