LOVERS OF GARDENS. 67 



round their houses than they could, from necessity, 

 in the flat swamps of their native land. Sir John 

 Hobhouse discovered an Englishman's residence on 

 the shore of the Hellespont by the character of his 

 shrubs and flowers. Louis XVIII. on his restoration 

 to France made in the park of Versailles the fac- 

 simile of the garden at Hartwell ; and there was no 

 more amiable trait in the life of that accomplished 

 prince. Napoleon used to say that he should know 

 his father's garden in Corsica blindfold by the smell 

 of the earth ; and the hanging gardens of Babylon 

 are said to have been raised by the Median queen of 

 Nebuchadnezzar on the flat and naked plains of her 

 adopted country, to remind her of the hills and 

 woods of her childhood. 



Why should we speak of the plane-trees of Plato 

 Shakspere's mulberry-tree Pope's willow By- 

 ron's elm ? Why describe Cicero at his Tusculum 

 Evelyn at Wooton Pitt at Holcot Walpole at 

 Houghton Grenville at Dropmore ? Why dwell on 

 Bacon's " little tufts of thyme," or Conde's pinks, or 

 Fox's geraniums ? There is a spirit in the garden as 

 well as in the wood, and " the lilies of the field " 

 supply food for the imagination as well as materials 

 for sermons. " Talke of perfect happiness or pleasure," 

 says old Gerarde to the " courteous and well- willing 

 reader," from his " house in Holborn, within the 

 suburbs of London " " and what place was so fit for 

 that as the garden-place wherein Adam was set to be 

 the herbalist ? Whither did the poets hunt for their 

 sincere delights but into the gardens of Alcinous, of 



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