140 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



who, with his morbid melancholy, was at times full of 

 cheerfulness, could say, speaking of winter — 



' I love thee, all unlovely as thou seemest, 

 And dreaded as thou art.' 



But I go to a greater poet than Cowper. During 

 Advent we always use the Benedicite in our Advent 

 services ; and as I read it in December I am forcibly 

 struck with the way in which the writer speaks of 

 winter. Whilst to almost every other 'work of the 

 Lord ' he gives but one verse or less of his grand hymn, 

 to winter he gives no less than four — '0 ye winter 

 and summer,' ' ye dews and frosts,' ' ye frost and 

 cold,' '0 ye ice and snow,' ^Benedicite Domino, laudate et 

 superexaltate Bum in saecula.' 



I have been asked by some, who seem to think 

 that I grow many plants which are not usually seen in 

 gardens of hardy plants, to say if I have any special 

 rules for the successful cultivation of them. I know 

 of no secrets in gardening, and I do not work or 

 manage the garden on any hard-and-fast rules. If I 

 have any rule, it is to leave my plants as much as 

 possible to nature, and to let them grow in the ways 

 which they choose for themselves. For this reason I 

 dislike all tyings and nailings, all sticks, and everything 

 that tends to cramp the free growth of the plants. Of 



