208 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



to falconry, and the letters contain 

 many allusions to it. Thus writes 

 Sir John the younger: "Mr. 

 Harpur, son of John Harpur of 

 Calke, comes hither (to Melbourne) 

 pretending to see my hawkers fly, 

 but in reality to see my sister." 

 It was a brother's remark ; but we 

 may hope that the gentle swain 

 loved to see the lady with the 

 hawk upon her wrist, for it is a 

 sport in which a graceful woman 

 may well look her best, and 

 bring down other game than such 

 as fly. 



The house about which these 

 pleasant diversions went en was, 

 of course, not that which we 

 depict. In it Baxter, the Puritan 

 divine, wrote some part of his 

 " Saints' Everlasting Rest," and 

 it was a house of gables and 

 mullioned windows, with an old 

 garden of its own. The present 

 solid and substantial structure 

 may wdl date from about the 

 year 1700. 



The older garden seems to 

 have consisted of a terrace, 

 with two levels below it, and 

 brick walls on either side, a 



quaint and beautiful arrangement, where the clipped 

 hedges a d fragrant (lowers would be very charming 

 to view. These pleasaunces, however, were entirely 

 remodelled for Thomas Coke, afterwards Vice-Chamber- 

 lain to George I., from designs by the "famous Henry 



Copyright. 



THE BLACK 



"Country Life." 



Wise. This was between the years 1704 and 1711, 

 a time when the grand style of Le Noire, made 

 known largely through the work at Hampton Court, was 

 very popular. Gardens were then necessarily formed 

 upon a larger scale, for the long avenues were 



Copyright. 



THE UPLAND VISTA. 



"Country Life." 



