Gardens of the Poets 227 



Dr. Holmes was also a master in the description 

 of garden flowers. I should know, had I never 

 been told save from his verses, just the kind of a 

 Cambridge garden he was reared in, and what 

 flowers grew in it. Lowell, too, gives ample evi- 

 dence of a New England childhood in a garden. 



The gardens of Shenstone's Schoolmistress and 

 of Thomson's poems come to our minds without 

 great warmth of welcome from us ; while Clare's 

 lines are full of charm : — 



"And where the Marjoram once, and Sage and Rue, 

 And Balm, and Mint, with curl'd leaf Parsley grew, 

 And double Marigolds, and silver Thyme, 

 And Pumpkins 'neath the window climb. 

 And where I often, when a child, for hours 

 Tried through the pales to get the tempting flowers, 

 As Lady's Laces, everlasting Peas, 

 True-love-lies-bleeding, with the Hearts-at-ease 

 And Goldenrods, and Tansy running high, 

 That o'er the pale tops smiled on passers by." 



A curious old seventeenth-century poet was the 

 Jesuit, Rene Rapin. The copy of his poem en- 

 titled Gardens which I have seen, is the one in my 

 daughter's collection of garden books; it was " Eng- 

 lish'd by the Ingenious Mr. Gardiner," and pub- 

 lished in 1728. Hal lam in his Introduction to the 

 Literature of Europe gives a capital estimate of this 

 long poem of over three thousand lines. I find 

 them pretty dull reading, with much monotony of 

 adjectives, and very affected notions for plant names. 

 I fancy he manufactured all his tedious plant tradi- 

 tions himself. 



