334 A BOOK OF ENGLISH GARDENS 



Serpentine River." Fortunately for the present 

 generation, Brown did not tamper with other parts 

 of the Garden, nor with the formal ponds that 

 give such a delicious feeling of old-worldness to 

 Wrest. 



One of these, a beautiful long-shaped pool, almost 

 classical in the severity of its treatment, is called 

 " the Lady's Canal," or "the Lily Pool " ; it is shut 

 in with high Yew hedges (cut in a fashion started in 

 Queen Anne's reign, the lower part clipped close 

 and the top allowed to grow quite feathery), and 

 against it, at the end of the pond, is a small statue 

 of a Greek goddess, with tall trees standing like 

 sentinels behind ; all round the water is a wide 

 grass verge, sprinkled with little white Daisies in 

 the springtime, while later in the year the Lily 

 leaves begin to rise to the surface of the water, 

 covering it with a carpet of shining leaves. 



It is all so quiet, this green solitude, that fancy 

 repeoples it with the men and women who took 

 such pride and pleasure in planning and making 

 this Garden, and who must have had great powers 

 of imagination to plant by faith, realising, as if 

 in a mirror, how beautiful it would be for the 

 generations yet to come. 



In a circular space amidst the trees near "the 

 Lady's Canal " are the antique altars (supposed to 

 be genuine), placed there by Lady de Grey in 1817. 

 The ornamentation, of flowers and the usual rams' 



