and the acanthus. Nor let pot-herbs be wanting, 

 as beet-root, sorrel and mallow. It is useful also to 

 the gardener to have anise, mustard and wormwood." 



Walter Besant. 



An Elizabethan Garden 



And all without were walkes and alleys dight 

 With divers trees enrang'd in even rankes ; 

 And here and there were pleasant arbors pight 

 And shadie seats, and sundry flowering bankes 

 To sit and rest the walkers' wearie shankes. 



Edmund Spenser. 



Pope's Satire on English Gardening 



How contrary to this simplicity (of Homer) is 

 the modern practice of gardening ! We seem to make 

 it our study to recede from nature, not only in the 

 various tonsure of greens into the most regular and 

 formal shape, but even in monstrous attempts beyond 

 the reach of the art itself: we run into sculpture, 

 and are yet better pleased to have our trees in the 

 most aukward figures of men and animals, than in 

 the most regular of their own. * * * 



For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of 

 this curious taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of 

 greens to be disposed of by an eminent town- 

 gardener, who has lately applied to me upon this 

 head. He represents, that for the advancement of 

 a politer sort of ornament in the villas and gardens 

 adjacent to this great city, and in order to distinguish 

 those places from the mere barbarous countries of 

 gross nature, the world stands much in need of a 

 virtuoso gardener, who has a turn to sculpture, and 

 is thereby capable of improving upon the ancients 

 in the imagery of evergreens. 



