284 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



Bacon took the Garden in hand, some ten years after 

 he became a Bencher. In the accounts of that year 

 jCj. 15s. 4d. appears "due to Mr. Bacon for planting 

 of trees in the walkes." In 1598 it was resolved to 

 " supply more yonge elmc trees in the places of such as 

 are decayed, and that a new Rayle and quicksett hedge 

 be sett upon the upper long walke at the good discretion 

 of Mr. Bacon, and Mr. Wilbraham, soe that the charges 

 thereof doe not exceed the sum of seventy pounds." On 

 29th April 1600, £60. 6s. 8d. was paid to "Mr. Bacon 

 for money disbursed about garnishing of the walkes." 



Bacon's own ideas of what a garden should be 

 are so delightfully set forth in his essay on gardens, 

 that the whole as it left his hand is not difficult to 

 imagine. The fair alleys, the great hedge, were 

 essentials, and the green, " because nothing is more 

 pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn." 

 His list of plants which bloom in all the months of 

 the year was compiled of those specially suited " for 

 the Climate of London," so no doubt some would 

 be included in this Garden under his eye, although 

 they do not appear in the records. He wished " also 

 in the very middle a fair mount," and even this desire 

 he carried out in Gray's Inn. In a description of the 

 Garden as late as 1761, a summer-house which Bacon 

 put up in 1609 to the memory of his friend Jeremiah 

 Bettenham is mentioned as only recently destroyed. 

 " Till lately," it says, " there was a summer-house 

 erected by the great Sir Francis Bacon upon a small 

 mount : it was open on all sides, and the roof supported 

 by slender pillars. A few years ago the uninterrupted 

 prospect of the neighbouring fields, as far as the hills 

 of Highgatc and Hampstead, was obstructed by a hand- 



