ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN. 115 



herbs and flowers shall receive, by passing by them that grow 

 next unto the allies sides, and the better shall your weeders 

 cleanse both the bed and the allies." 



The hedges on either side the walks were made of 

 various plants box, yew, cypress, privet, thorne, fruit trees, 

 roses, briars, juniper, rosemary, hornbeam, cornel, " misereon/' 

 and pyracantha. " Every man taketh what liketh him best, as 

 either privet alone or sweet Bryar, and whitethorn interlaced 

 together, and Roses of one, two, or more sorts placed here and 

 there amongst them. . . . Some plant cornel trees and plash 

 them or keep them low to form them into a hedge ; and some 

 again take a low prickly shrub that abideth always green, called 

 in Latin Pyracantha. "* Of the cypress, Parkinson writes: 

 41 For the goodly proportion this tree beareth, as also for his 

 ever grene head, it is and hath beene of great account with 

 all princes, both beyond and on this side of the sea, to plant 

 them in rowes on both sides of some spatious walke, which, by 

 reason of their highe growing, and little spreading, must be 

 planted the thicker together, and so they give a pleasant and 

 sweet shadow." Gerard, writing of the same plant, says : " It 

 groweth likewise in diuers places in Englande, where it hath beene 

 planted, as at Sion, a place neere London, sometime a house of 

 nunnes ; it groweth also at Greenwich and at other places ; and 

 likewise at Hampstead in the garden of Master Waide, one of the 

 Clarkes of hir Maiesties Priuy Counsell." 



Many of the walks and alleys were " shadowed over with 

 vaulting or arch-hearbes." t Bacon thus explains the object of 

 making " these pleached alleys," or " covert " walks. " But 

 because the alley will be long, and in the great heat of the year or 

 day you ought not to buy the shade in the garden by going in the 

 sun through the greene (you ought) to plant a covert alley upon 

 carpenter's work, about twelve foot in height by which you may 

 go in shade into the garden." The " thick-pleached alley," in 

 which Antonio saw Don Pedro and Claudio walking, in Much 

 Ado About Nothing, was one of this sort. The word "pleach," 



* Thomas Hill, Gardener's Labyrinth. 

 f Ibid. 



8 * 



