LAY-OUT OF STATELY GARDENS 279 



Didymus is even quainter as he tells of the astro- 

 logical influences: 



"The daily experience is to the gardener as a 

 schoolmaster to instruct him how much it availeth 

 and hindereth that seeds to be sown, plants to be 

 set, yea, scions to be grafted (in this or that time), 

 having herein regard, not to the time especially of 

 the year, as the Sun altereth the same, but also to 

 the Moon's increase and wane, yea, to the sign she 

 occupieth, and places both about and under the 

 earth. To the aspects also of the other planets, 

 whose beams and influence both quicken, comfort, 

 preserve and maintain, or else nip, wither, dry, con- 

 sume, and destroy by sundry means the tender seeds, 

 plants, yea, and grafts; and these after their prop- 

 erty and virtue natural or accidental." 



Then he goes on to say: 



"To utter here the popular help against thunder, 

 lightnings and the dangerous hail, when the tempest 

 approacheth through the cloud arising, as by the 

 loud noise of guns shot here and there, with a loud 

 sound of bells and such like noises which may hap- 

 pen, I think the same not necessary, nor properly 

 available to the benefit of the garden. 



"The famous learned man, Archibus, which wrote 

 unto Antiochus, King of Syria, affirmeth that 



