164 ENGLISH PLEASURE GARDENS 



its bason of white marble ; and columns and pyra- 

 mids of wood and other material up and down the 

 garden. After seeing these, we were led by the 

 gardiner into the summer-house, in the lower part 

 of which, built semi-circularly, are the twelve Roman 

 emperors in white marble, and a table of touchstone: 

 the upper part of it is set around with cisterns of lead 

 into which the water is conveyed through pipes, so 

 that fish may be kept there, and in summer-time they 

 are very convenient for bathing: in another room 

 for entertainment very near this and joined to it by a 

 little bridge, was an oval table of red marble." 



A small garden, but one of the most delightful, 

 must have been that laid out by Leicester at Kenil- 

 worth. His secretary's description of its charms 

 is too vivid not to be given at length, and will serve 

 as a last word as to the appearance of an actual 

 Elizabethan garden. 



" Unto this, his Honor's exquisite appointment 

 of a beautiful garden, an acre or more in quantity, 

 that lieth on the north there; Whereon hard all along 

 by 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: In 

 which, by sundry equal distances, with obelisks and 

 spheres, and white bears, all of stone upon their 

 curious bases, by goodly shew were set ; To these, two 



