110 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



garden of the Elizabethan era. What is meant now by a 

 " formal " or " old-fashioned " garden, is one of this type ; 

 but, as genuine and unaltered Elizabethan gardens are rare, 

 it is generally the further development of the same style a 

 hundred years later, which is known as a " formal old 

 English garden." 



The garden of this period .was laid out strictly in connexion 

 with the house. The architect who designed the house, 

 designed the garden also. There are some drawings extant 

 by John Thorpe, one of the most celebrated architects of 

 the time, of both houses and the gardens attached to them. 

 The garden was held to be no mere adjunct to a house, or 

 a confusion of green swards, paths, and flower-beds, but the 

 designing of a garden was supposed to require even more 

 skill than the planning of a house ; " men come to build 

 stately sooner than to garden finely ; as if gardening were 

 the greater perfection.""* Sir Hugh Platt's opiniont seems 

 to have been the exception that proves the rule, as most 

 other writers were particular in describing the correct form 

 for a garden, but he writes: "I shall not trouble the reader 

 with any curious rules for shaping and fashioning of a garden 

 or orchard how long, broad or high, the Beds, Hedges, or 

 Borders should be contrived. . . . Every Drawer or Embroid- 

 erer, nay (almost) each Dancing Master, may pretend to such 

 niceties ; in regard they call for very small invention, and 

 lesse learning." 



In front of the house there was usually a terrace, from 

 which the plan of the garden could be surveyed. Flights of 

 steps and broad straight walks, called " forthrights," J connected 

 the parts of the garden, as well as the garden with the 

 house. Smaller walks ran parallel with the terrace, and the 

 spaces between were filled with grass plots, mazes, or knotted 

 beds. The " forthrights " corresponded to the plan of the 



* Bacon, Essay on Gardens. 



f Floraes Paradise, or Garden of Eden, ist cd., 1608. 



J . . . "here's a maze trod indeed, 



Through forthrights and meanders . . . 



Tempest, act iii. scene 8. 



