2i6 GARDEN CRAFT IN EUROPE 



was a practical agriculturist, an intelligent reformer in matters connected 

 with horse-breeding and racing, and almost the first importer of Arab horses, 

 of which he sold one to James I for ^^500. He was, moreover, a poet and 

 a playwright. 



Among the best sources of information about English Renaissance 

 gardens is a work called The Country Housewije' s Garden^ published by 

 Gervase Markham in 161 7, and also William Lawson's A new orchard and 

 garden (161 8), These two authors were friends and sometimes collabor- 

 ators, and both wrote from their own experience. Lawson in his preface 

 tells us that his work was the result of forty-eight years' experience. Gervase 

 Markham affects a supreme contempt for those garden authors who con- 

 tented themselves with merely translating the works of foreigners. " Con- 

 trary to all other authors," he writes, " I am neither beholding to Pliny, 

 Virgil, Columella, etc., according to the plaine true Enghshe fashion, thus 

 I pursue my purpose." But nevertheless in the title page of his Country 

 House he tells us that it is a " translation from Estienne and Liebault by 

 Rd. Surflet Practitioner in Physicke " but " reviewed and augmented 

 with additions out of Serres, Vinet, and others Spanish and Italian, by 

 G. M." The work is composed of five books ; book II deals with gardens. 

 A situation is recommended where the owner can enjoy the garden from 

 his windows : " Some plaine plot of ground, which is, as it were, a little 

 hanging and thereby at the foot receiving the stream of some pleasant water." 

 It must be hedged, or better, walled " if the revenues of the house will 

 beare it." 



William Lawson treats more of orchards and fruit trees ; he writes 

 in a delightful style of country life and deals with one of the most charming 

 sides of the English Renaissance, its delight in flowers and birds. " One 

 chiefe grace," he writes, " that adorns an Orcharde I cannot let slippe. 

 A brood of nightingales, who with their several notes and tunes with a strong 

 delightsome voyce, out of a weake body, will beare you company night 

 and day." 



It was not until the early years of the seventeenth century that the Eng- 

 lish gardeners seriously devoted themselves to the collection of foreign plants. 

 Amongst others the three generations of the Tradescant family stand pre- 

 eminent for their zeal and knowledge, and under their influence gardening rose 

 to be a more exact art than it had hitherto been. The family originated in 



