XXVIII. 



INTRODUCTION. 



monopoly of princes. " Wherein do Kings and the 

 great most delight ? and whither doe they withdraw 

 themselves from the troublous affaires of their estate, 

 being tyred with the hearing and judging of litigious 

 Controversies ? Choked (as it were) with the close 

 Ayres of their sumptuous buildings, their stomacks 

 cloyed with variety of Banquets, their ears filled and 

 over burthened with tedious discoursings ? Whither? 

 but in their Orchards ? made and prepared, 

 dressed and destinated for that purpose, to renue and 

 refresh their sences, and to call home their over 

 wearied spirits. Ney, it is (no doubt) a comfort to 

 them, to set open their cazements into a most 

 delicate Garden and Orchard, whereby they may not 

 only see that wherein they are so much delighted, 

 but also to give fresh, sweet and pleasant Ayre to 

 their Galleries and Chambers." Lord Chancellor 

 Bacon, " tyred of litigious Controversies," must 

 certainly have wished that he could have realised the 

 great garden that he only planned, and which, in 

 extent and detail, was beyond what anyone created in 

 the England of his day. Bacon needed thirty acres 

 for his garden, which was to be in three sections. 

 In front of the house lay the Green of finely-shorn 

 grass with a broad, open alley down the centre 

 and " Covert Alleys upon Carpenters Worke " 

 down the sides, so as to be able, in hot weather, to 

 reach the central or " Maine Garden " in shade. 

 Such alleys and groves continued down the narrow 

 ground which enclosed the main garden on each side, 

 beyond which, again, was "the Heath," an eirly 

 if somewhat artificial scheme of wild gardening. 

 The main garden was to occupy twelve acres and 

 to be " Incompassed on all Foure Sides by a Stately 

 Arched Hedge." A hedge on this plan is now at 

 Montacute, and appears in one of our illustrations 

 (page 96). Bacon's, however, was much more 

 elaborate, for the arches were to be on pillars of 

 carpenter's work ten feet high, while, above the 

 arcading, the hedge was to rise another four feet and 

 have " over every Arch a little Turret with a Belly 

 enough to receive a Cage of Birds." The object 

 of this arcading was to get a variety of engaging 

 garden pictures. The main garden was to be fairly 

 open, and so there would be peeps right through it 

 from the Green to the Heath through the double set 

 of arches, while the groves, lying beyond the 

 arcaded hedge along the two sides, ensured 

 privacy to the whole set of gardens, which would 

 have some kind of high enclosure of stone, 

 wood or quickset. In the exact centre of his 

 twelve-acre square, Bacon placed a "faire Mount 

 with three Ascents and Alleys enough for fowrc 

 to walk a breast," leading up to "some fine 

 Banquetting House." Fountains that sprinkle 

 and spout water, and basins of running water he 

 approves of, but stagnant pools " marre all, and make 

 the garden unwholesome and full of Flies and Frogs." 

 Have what " curiosity you like, images gilt or of 

 marble," for your fountains, or " fine Railes of low 

 Statua's " for the pools, or " fine Devices of Arching 

 Water," but you must remember that though pretty 

 they are " Nothing to Health and Sweetnesse " and 

 that the " maine Matter is so to Convey the Water 

 that it never Stay." The insistence on hygiene and 

 on the value of sweet-smelling plants (both those 

 whose scent fills the air untouched and such as need 

 walking on to render their savour, like thyme and 

 water-mint) is the most strongly-expressed plea in 



the essay, and next in importance is the demand for 

 dignified simplicity of lay out and beauty and 

 harmony of forms. He condemns the clever 

 artifices then fashionable, as of coloured earth knots 

 and over-varied and eccentric topiary work, and lays 

 down the valuable rule that the main garden " be 

 not too Busie or full of Worke." It must be 

 remembered that he is speaking of a princely garden 

 of the utmost size, sumptuousness and design, not of 

 the restricted area and homely efforts of a Lawson. 

 In the latter a little quaint clipping is fitting and apt, 

 in the former spotty eccentricities and haphazard 

 conceits are deplorable, if, instead of being kept to 

 some intimate and secluded corner, they are intruded 

 into the main picture. This is as true to-day as it was 

 in Bacon's time, and the warning is almost more needed 

 now than then. Great sums arc being spent in 

 garden-making ; it is the fashionable art and pastime. 

 But such work, even around considerable and dignified 

 houses, is apt to be done piecemeal and by inefficient 

 hands, instead of being carried out as portions of 

 a complete scheme, carefully thought out and 

 constructed by a capable and experienced mind. 

 The result is a lack of adequate proportion, an 

 absence of fine form and a clumsiness of detail 

 a jumbled collection of scrappy daubs instead of one 

 noble and balanced picture of masterly conception 

 and finished execution. It is a reproach, however, 

 which is tending to disappear from among us. The 

 creation of gardens is being more and more put into 

 the hands of designers who combine intellectual with 

 aesthetic competency. Our volumes are a proof of 

 this. For instance, The Deanery Gardens at Sonning 

 (page 3 19) and the gardens at Athelhampton (page i) 

 and at Easton Lodge (page 329) are creations of the 

 last few years. They are the work of different men, and 

 are of varied scale, situation and extent. But all three 

 show a profound knowledge of design, and all three 

 avoid being " too Busie or full of Worke." Bacon's 

 own age was undoubtedly apt to be pleased with clever 

 ingenuity rather than with quiet beauty. Except the 

 maze and certain small enclosures, there is too little 

 of the original Hatfield gardens (page 101) left 

 untouched and unaltered for us to illustrate these 

 points by means of them, and the same applies to 

 Holland House (page 1 1 5), another famous place of 

 the Baconian times. But we have plans and descrip- 

 tions of a still more typical and renowned example, 

 which certainly exhibited the features which the great 

 Lord Chancellor condemned. William and Philip 

 Herbert, Shakespeare's " Incomparable pair of 

 brethren," in turn held the Pembroke Earldom and 

 its chief seat of Wilton during the first half of the 

 seventeenth century, and under one or other of them 

 was the " Hortus Pembrochianus " (page xiii.) laid out. 

 Let it be at once clearly understood that the present 

 delightful garden, so well illustrated in this volume 

 (page 213), has nothing whatever to do with the 

 old one which the eighteenth century "landscapists" 

 totally destroyed. The new one was made in the 

 nineteenth century, and occupies a totally different 

 site, lying as it does west of the house, whereas 

 the old one, as the bird's-eye view in the " Vitruvius 

 Britannicus " shows, stretched from the south front 

 across the river and up the opposite slope. It is 

 also noticeable that already in Campbell's time 

 he published his three volumes of the " Vitruvius 

 Britannicus " in George I.'s reign they had been 

 much altered and simplified from the original plan 



