Varied Gardens Fair 



55 



closed paths, that opened into each other by such 

 artful contrivance that it was difficult to find one's 

 way in and out through these bewildering paths. 

 cc When well formed, of a man's height, your friend 

 may perhaps wander in gathering berries as he 

 cannot recover himself without your help." 



The maze was not a thing of beauty, it was 

 " nothing for sweetness and health," to use Lord 

 Bacon's words ; it was only a whimsical notion of 

 gardening amusement, pleasing to a generation who 

 liked to have hidden fountains in their gardens to 

 sprinkle suddenly the unwary. I doubt if any 

 mazes were ever laid out in America, though I have 

 heard vague references to one in Virginia. Knots 

 had been the choice adornment of the Tudor 

 garden. They were not wholly a thing of the past 

 when we had here our first gardens, and they have 

 had a distinct influence on garden laying-out till our 

 own day. 



An Elizabethan poet wrote : 



" My Garden sweet, enclosed with walles strong, 

 Embanked with benches to sitt and take my rest ; 

 The knots so enknotted it cannot be expressed 

 The arbores and alyes so pleasant and so dulce." 



These garden knots were not flower beds edged 

 with Box or Rosemary, with narrow walks between 

 the edgings, as were the parterres of our later 

 formal gardens. They were square, ornamental 

 beds, each of which had a design set in some 

 close-growing, trim plant, clipped flatly across 

 the top, and the design filled in with colored earth 



