164 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



white flower called ' everlasting/ And at either end one of 

 your flower or Rosemary pots. . . . You may also hang in the 

 roof and about the sides of the room small pompions or 

 cowcumbers pricked full of Barley. . . You may also plant vines 

 without the walls, which being let in at some quarrels, may 

 run about the sides of your windows, and all over the sealing of 

 your rooms. So may you do with Apricot trees, or other plum 

 trees, spreading them against the sides of your windows." 



This great delight in growing flowers for domestic decoration, 

 was a marked feature in English life at this period. A Dutch 

 traveller, Levimus Leminius, a physician and a native of 

 Zierikzee, visited England in 1560. He was charmed with 

 English comfort, and thus writes*": "Their chambers and 

 parlours strawed over with sweete herbes refreshed mee ; 

 their nosegays finely intermingled with sundry sorts of fragraunte 

 floures, in their bed chambers and privi rooms with comfortable 

 smell cheered me up and entirely delyghted all my senses." 



* Translation by Thomas Newton, published in The Touchstone of 

 Complexions, 1581 reprinted in England as Seen by Foreigners. Brenchley 

 Rye. 



