162 A BOOK OF ENGLISH GARDENS 



Garden as one that "the hireling knave" had no 

 part in. But this brings under the name many that 

 have no right to it. Many suburban Gardens are 

 worked in the most praiseworthy manner, entirely 

 by their owners, yet no one would dream of calling 

 them Cottage Gardens. 



It may appear a dogmatic statement, but ex- 

 perience seems to show that a true Cottage Garden 

 can only be created by a villager. Of course they 

 have been imitated, but in the imitation a strange 

 under-current of educated taste peeps out that spoils 

 in the copy the character of the original ; much of 

 the charm of which lies in the simple combination 

 of flowers and vegetables that only a cottager can 

 produce. 



There is always an exception to every rule, and 

 the friend who writes so lovingly of the village of 

 her childhood mentions the Garden which stands 

 out in her memory. " Of all the Gardens long 

 ago, that which perhaps has the greatest hold on 

 my imagination is one which belonged to a dear 

 old French lady who, nurse declared, was very well 

 born, and had seen better days, and who took 

 a quaint cottage in our village. The little building 

 was thatched, and but for a Vine growing over its 

 whitewashed walls, the Garden was represented by 

 a perfect wilderness of weeds, a storehouse of mis- 

 cellaneous rubbish so apt to be attracted by any 



