HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE. 59 



And the early ballads as I have already shown are 

 full of allusion to scenery and woodland. In the 

 days of fine gardens the Englishman must still have 

 his four acres " to the green," his adjuncts of shrub- 

 bery, wilderness, and park. Nay, Henry VIII.'s 

 garden at Nonsuch, had its wilderness of ten acres. 

 " Chaucer opens his Clerke's Tale with a bit of land- 

 scape admirable for its large style," says Mr 

 Lowell, " and as well composed as any Claude " 

 ("My Study Windows," p. 22). "What an airy 

 precision of touch is here, and what a sure eye for 

 the points of character in landscape." So, too, can 

 Milton rejoice in 



" Nature boon 

 Poured forth profuse on hill and dale and plain,' 



and Herrick : 



" Sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, 

 Of April, May, of June, and July flowers." 



Nor is this taste for landscape surprising in a country 

 where the natural scenery is so fair and full of mean- 

 ing. There are the solemn woods, the noble trees of 

 forest and park : the " fresh green lap " of the land, 

 so vividly green that the American Hawthorne 

 declares he found " a kind of lustre in it." There 

 is the rich vegetation, and " in France, and still 

 less in Italy," Walpole reminds us, " they could 

 with difficulty attain that verdure which the humidity 

 of our climate bestows." There are the leafy forest 

 ways gemmed with flowers ; the vast hunting-grounds 

 of old kings, the woodland net of hazel coppice, the 

 hills and dales, sunned or shaded, the plains mapped 



