'THE CURIOUS KNOTTED GARDEN" 59 



the house, which is all of that sort, very wild, shady, 

 and adorned with rough rock work and fountains." 



To write of Elizabethan gardens without giving 

 Bacon's beautifully worked out theories would be 

 like performing "Hamlet" without the character of 

 Hamlet. Bacon's Essay is too long to quote in its 

 entirety, but the specific instructions are as follows : 



"For gardens (speaking of those which are in- 

 deed prince-like), the contents ought not well to 

 be under thirty acres of ground; and to be divided 

 into three parts : a green in the entrance ; a heath or 

 desert in the going forth; and the main garden in 

 the midst, besides alleys on both sides. And I like 

 well that four acres of ground be assigned to the 

 green, six to the heath, four and a half to either 

 side and twelve to the main garden. The green hath 

 two pleasures: the one because nothing is more 

 pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely 

 shorn ; the other because it will give you a fair alley 

 in the midst, by which you may go in front upon 

 a stately hedge, which is to enclose this garden. 

 But because the alley will be long, and in great heat 

 of the year or day, you ought not to buy the shade 

 in the garden by going in the sun through the green ; 

 therefore, you are of either side the green to plant 



