GARDENS IN LITERATURE 



have the alleys spacious and fair. ... I wish also, in the 

 very middle, a fair mount, with three ascents and alleys, 

 enough for four to walk abreast. . . . For fountains, they 

 are a great beauty and refreshment ; but pools mar all, 

 and make the garden unwholesome, and full of flies and 

 frogs." 



This garden was to be divided into three portions, "a 

 green in the entrance, a heath, or desert, in the going 

 forth, and the main garden in the midst, besides alleys 

 on both sides." Nothing, he tells us, is more pleasant 

 to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn. And as 

 for the heath, he would wish that " framed, as much as 

 may be, to a natural wildness. Trees, I would have 

 none in it, but some thickets made only of sweet-briar 

 and honeysuckle and some wild vine amongst ; and the 

 ground set with violets, strawberries, and primroses, for 

 these are sweet and prosper in the shade." 



A sweet place enough, stately and spacious, full of 

 English posies and safeguarded from inroad by those 

 tall arched hedges, all bespeaking an Elizabethan 

 magnificence. 



Some fifty years later Sir William Temple wrote his 

 delightful book on the gardens of Epicurus, as well as 

 many others, all over the then known world. But it is 

 when he comes home again that he gives his most 

 charming picture, and falls into his chiefest rhapsody. 



"But after much Ramble into Ancient Times and 

 Remote Places, to return Home and consider the Way 



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