LAY-OUT OF STATELY GARDENS 275 



known, of course, to Shakespeare, as it is in War- 

 wickshire : 



"His Honor's the Earl of Leicester's exquisite 

 appointment of a beautiful garden, an acre or more 

 in quantity, that lieth on the north. Whereon all 

 along the Castle wall is reared a pleasant terrace, 

 ten feet high and twelve feet broad, even under foot 

 and fresh of fine grass, as is also the side, thereof, 

 towards the garden, in which, by sundry equal dis- 

 tances with obelisks and spheres and white bears 

 all of stone upon their curious bases by goodly shew, 

 were set. To these, two fine arbors, redolent by 

 sweet trees and flowers, at each end, one ; the garden- 

 plot under that, with fair alleys, green by grass, even 

 voided from the borders on both sides, and some 

 (for change) with sand, smooth and firm, pleasant 

 to walk on, as a sea-shore when the water is avoided. 

 Then much gracified by due proportion of four even 

 quarters, in the midst of each upon a base of two 

 feet square and high, seemingly bordered of itself, a 

 square pilaster rising pyramidically fifteen feet 

 high." 



Thus Robert Laneham wrote in a letter describ- 

 ing the pageant at Kenil worth in 1575. 



The garden of varying ascents and descents was 



