2i 8 Old Time Gardens 



beds, and the flowers are not so large or brilliant as 

 our modern favorites ; but, quiet as they are, they 

 are said to excel the blossoms of the same plants of 

 Shakespeare's own day, which we learn from the old 

 herbalists were smaller and less varied in color and 

 of simpler tints than those of their descendants. 

 At the first glance this Shakespeare Border shines 

 chiefly in the light of the imagination, as stirred by 

 the poet's noble words ; but do not dwell on this 

 border as a whole, as something only to be looked 

 at ; read the pages of this garden, dwell on each 

 leafy sentence, and you are entranced with its beau- 

 tiful significance. It was not gathered with so much 

 thought, and each plant and seed set out and watched 

 and reared like a delicate child, to become a show 

 place; it appeals for a more intimate regard; and 

 we find that its detail makes its charm. 



Such a garden as this appeals warmly to any- 

 one who is sensitive to the imaginative element of 

 flower beauty. Many garden makers forget that a 

 flower bed is a group of living beings — perhaps of 

 sentient beings — as well as a mass of beautiful color. 

 Modern gardens tend far too much toward the dis- 

 play of the united effect of growing plants, to a 

 striving for universal brilliancy, rather than atten- 

 tion to and love for separate flowers. There was 

 refreshment of spirit as well as of the senses in the 

 old-time garden of flowers, such as these planted in 

 this Shakespeare Border, and it stirred the heart of 

 the poet as could no modern flower gardens. 



The scattering inflorescence and the tiny size of 

 the blossoms give to this Shakespeare Border an 



