stone is wrought into lace-like fretwork of arabesque, whereof the chief 

 features are her coronet and the initials of her name. 



A spacious forecourt occupies the ground upon the western — the 

 main entrance front. It stretches the whole length of the house, and 

 projects as much forward ; its outer sides being inclosed with a wall 

 that bears in constant succession an ornament of a Jieur-de-lys with tall 

 pyramidal top, a detail imported direct from Italy, from the Renaissance 

 gardens of earlier date. Such an ornament occurs at the Villa d'Este at 

 Tivoli, crowning a retaining wall. The entrance to the inclosed forecourt 

 is by a handsome stone gateway. This gateway forms the background of 

 the picture, which shows one of the well-planted flower borders that 

 abound at Hardwick, and that strike that lightsome and cheerful note of 

 human care and delight that is so welcome in this place whose scale is 

 rather too large, and somewhat coldly forbidding, in relation to the more 

 ordinary aspects of daily comfort. 



Indeed — for all the good planting — the long wall-backed flower 

 border facing south, whose wall is in part of its length that or the house 

 itself, looks as if, in relation to the great building towering above it — its 

 occupants were still too small, although they include flowering plants 

 seven to nine feet high, such as Gyneriums and the larger herbaceous 

 Spirasas. A well-directed effort has evidently been made to have the 

 planting on a scale with the lordly building, but the items want to be 

 larger still and the grouping yet bolder, to overcome the dwarfing effect 

 of the towering structure. In such a place the Magnolias, both evergreen 

 and deciduous, would have a fine effect, though possibly they would 

 hardly thrive in the midland climate. 



Within the forecourt, along the wall parallel to the house and 

 furthest from it, this need is not so apparent. In the subject of the 

 picture, the Honeysuckle, the magnificently grown purple Clematis upon 

 the wall, the Mulleins, Bocconia and Japan Anemones, are in due pro- 

 portion ; the Tufted Pansies and Mignonette bringing their taller brethren 

 happily down to the grassy verge. Approaching the pathway from the 

 right, stretch some of the long loose growths of one of the two large 

 Cedars that are such prominent objects in the forecourt garden. 



The main open spaces of this garden repeat in flower beds on grass 

 53 



