CHAPTER V 



THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER-GARDEN 



HE fruitful age of Queen Elizabeth 

 brought both the planning and the 

 planting of the loveliest English gar- 

 dens very nearly to perfection. When 

 the other arts of the Renaissance had 

 reached their maturity and were on the verge of decline, 

 garden making began to develop rapidly. Most of 

 the finest houses in England were built at this period. 

 After their erection an attempt to give them fit 

 surroundings was a natural sequence. All conditions 

 were ripe for the evolution of delightful pleasure gar- 

 dens, which for form without formality have never been 

 surpassed. Both the art and craft of their construction 

 were understood as certainly never before, and perhaps 

 never afterward. Like the gardens described in Sid- 

 ney's " Arcadia," these were places " not fairer in natural 

 ornaments than artificial inventions." 



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