100 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



Evelyn remarks,* " no man has been more industrious than 

 this noble Lord in planting about his seate adorn'd with 

 walkes, ponds, and other rural elegancies. . . . The gardens 

 at Cassiobury are very rare, and cannot be otherwise, having 

 so skilful an artist to govern them as Mr. Cooke, who is, as 

 to the mechanical part, not ignorant in mathematics, and 

 pretends to astrology." Sir Henry does not appear to have 

 had such assistance ; " his garden has the choicest fruit of 

 any plantation in England, as he is the most industrious and 

 understanding in it." t 



Another distinguished Royalist and gardener was John 

 Evelyn. His great work on Forest trees does not really 

 come into our subject. It was written for the Royal Society 

 (of which Evelyn was one of the first Fellows) with the idea 

 of being a practical assistance in the planting of trees in 

 parks, woods and forests, and went far beyond the narrow 

 limits of a garden. But gardens are incidentally referred to, 

 as the following extracts show. He urges the hardiness of 

 cedars, and regrets they are not more grown. Perhaps it 

 was at his suggestion that some were planted in the Chelsea 

 physic garden in 1683. The ilex, also, he proves to be 

 hardy by the remains of one in the Privy Garden, Whitehall, 

 " Where once flourished a goodly tree of more than four score 

 years." " Phillyrea is sufficiently hardy, which makes me wonder 

 to find angustifolia planted in cases and so charily set into 

 the stoves among the oranges and lemons." He had " four large 

 round " Phillyreas, " smooth-clipped," in his own garden at Says 

 Court, Deptford.J Under Hornbeam, he notices the "admirable" 

 hedges at " Hampton Court and New Park," " the delicious villa 

 of the noble Earl of Rochester." " These hedges are tonsile, but 

 where they are maintained to 15 or 20 feet height . . . they 

 are to be kept in order with a scythe of 4 foot long, and very 

 little falcated, that is, fixed in a long sneed or straight handle, 

 and does wonderfully expedite the trimming." . . These hedges 

 are a great " convenience for the protection of our orange trees, 

 myrtles, and other rare perennials and exotics." The laurel 



* Evelyn's Diary. -J- Ibid. J Gibson, Gardens about London, 1691. 



