66 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



diameter" wliicli lie could show in liis "poor 

 gardens at any time of the year, glitt'ring with its 

 arm'd and vernish'd leaves the taller standards, at 

 orderly distances, blushing with their natural corall" 

 that mocked at " the rudest assaults of the 

 weather, the beasts, or hedge-breaker" even this 

 is vanished without a solitary sucker to show where 

 it once stood. Proof it long was against the wind 

 and " weather," nay, against time itself, but not 

 against the autocratic pleasure of a barbarian Czar. 

 The " beast " and the " hedge-breaker " were united 

 in the person of Peter the Great, whose great plea- 

 sure, when studying at Deptford, was to be driven 

 in a wheelbarrow, or drive one himself, through this 

 very hedge, which its planter deemed impregnable ! 

 If he had ever heard, which he probably had not, of 

 Evelyn's boast, he might have thus loved to illus- 

 trate the triumph of despotic will and brute force 

 over the most amiable and simple affections ; but at 

 any rate the history of this hedge affords a curious 

 instance not only of the change of gardening taste, 

 but of the mutability and strangeness of all earthly 

 things. 



No associations are stronger than those connected 

 with a garden. It is the first pride of an emigrant 

 settled on some distant shore to have a little garden 

 as like as he can make it to the one he left at home. 

 A pot of violets or mignionette is one of the highest 

 luxuries to an Anglo-Indian. In the bold and pic- 

 turesque scenery of Batavia, the Dutch can, from 

 feeling, no more dispense with their little moats 



