PARSONAGE GARDENS— ^i) CLERUM 291 



a suburban villa {Parva sed apta domino is the inscrip- 

 tion on an old Wiltshire parsonage), and of an old 

 foundation; yet with many additions and accretions 

 of different dates, each bearing some impress of the 

 successive o\vners ; and the garden is of the same 

 character, often standing (and always in the ideal par- 

 sonage garden) near the church and chiu-chyard, so 

 that the church forms the featiu'e in the garden. The 

 parsonage garden is not large, seldom exceeding two 

 acres, and more often not exceeding one, Avdth little 

 glass, and no pretension to a high-class garden, but with 

 a good spread of old lawn and many old trees and 

 flowering shrubs, all suggestive of repose and quiet, 

 pleasant shade, and freedom from the bustle of the 

 outside world. The parsonage garden some years ago 

 was a home for hundreds of good old-fashioned flowers, 

 but I am afraid no gardens suffered more from the 

 bedding craze, which swept them clear of all their old 

 long-cherished beauties, and reduced them to the dull 

 level of uniformity -with their neighbours' gardens, 

 or to miniature mockeries of Trentham or Clieveden. 

 That craze has to a great extent passed away, and the 

 parsonage gardens are gradually recovering their old 

 features, and fortunately they are able to do so more 

 easily than some other gardens, because in most of 

 them the trees and shrubs were spared, and have been 



