CHAPTER III 



VARIED GARDENS FAIR 



' And all without were walkes and alleys dight 

 With divers trees enrang'd in even rankes ; 

 And here and there were pleasant arbors pight 

 And shadie seats, and sundry flowering bankes 

 To sit and rest the walkers wearie shankes." 



Faerie ^ueene, EDMUND SPENSER. 



ANY simple forms of gardens 

 were common besides the en- 

 closed front yard; and as wealth 

 poured in on the colonies, the 

 beautiful gardens so much thought 

 of in England were copied here, 

 especially by wealthy merchants, as is noted in the 

 first chapter of this book, and by the provincial 

 governors and their little courts ; the garden of 

 Governor Hutchinson, in Milford, Massachusetts, 

 is stately still and little changed. 



English gardens, at the time of the settlement of 

 America, had passed beyond the time when, as old 

 Gervayse Markham said, " Of all the best Orna- 

 ments used in our English gardens, Knots and 

 Mazes are the most ancient." A maze was a 

 placing of low garden hedges of Privet, Box, or 

 Hyssop, usually set in concentric circles which en- 



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