22 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



a certain superadded quality of pensive interest, 

 which, so far as it can be reduced to words, tells of 

 the blent influences of past and present, of things 

 seen and unseen, of the joint effects of Nature and 

 Man. The old ground embodies bygone conceptions 

 of ideal beauty ; it has absorbed human thought 

 and memories ; it registers the bequests of old 

 time. Dead men's traits are exemplified here. The 

 dead hand still holds sway, the pictures it conjured 

 still endure, its cunning is not forgotten, its strokes 

 still make the garden's magic, in shapes and hues 

 that are unchanged save for the slow moulding of 

 the centuries. Really, not less than metaphorically, 

 the garden-growths do keep green the memories of 

 the men and women who placed them there, as the 

 flower that is dead still holds its perfume. And few 

 will say that the chronicles of the dead do not 



" Shine more bright in these contents 

 Than unwept stone besmeared with sluttish time." 



There is a wealth of quiet interest in an old gar- 

 den. We feel instinctively that the place has been 

 warmed by the sunshine of humanity ; watered from 

 the secret spring of human joy and sorrow. Sleeping 

 echoes float about its glades ; its leafy nooks can tell 

 of felicities sweeter than the bee-haunted cups of 

 flowers ; of glooms graver than the midnight black- 

 ness of the immemorial yews. It is their suggestion 

 of antique experiences that endues the objective 

 elements in an old garden like H addon, or Berkeley, 

 or Levens, or Rockingham, with a strange eloquence. 

 The recollections of many a child have centred 



