34 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND n 



Strawberries, primroses, and the like low flowers, 

 being withal sweet and sightly." The English 

 garden became in the sixteenth century a much 

 more important affair in every way than it ever 

 had been before ; much money was spent on it, 

 and great care given to its design. Bacon talks 

 of 30 acres of ground as the minimum for a 

 prince's garden. But, apart from this matter 

 of size and elaboration, the only specific importa- 

 tions from Italy appear to have been the use of 

 terraces and balustrades and great flights of 

 stairs, and the free use of statuary ; a habit of 

 mythological allusion in various parts of the 

 garden ; and the practice of clipping trees into 

 various shapes, and distributing them symmetri- 

 cally. The alleys, green walks, and covered 

 walks, the " deambulationes ligneae horti," the 

 arbours, the knots or figures, labyrinths and 

 mazes, the conduits, tanks, and fountains, and 

 particularly, the. enclosing walls and definite 

 boundary lines, were only the development of 

 features which had existed already in the 

 mediaeval garden. Some of the more extrava- 

 gant fancies which were caught up in England 

 in the first flush of the Renaissance were aban- 

 doned in the following century. One doubts 

 if any " little Figures with broad plates of 

 round coloured glasse gilt for the sunne to play 

 upon," perched on the top of a high hedge, 

 were ever used in the seventeenth century. 

 Caprices of this sort obtained no permanent 



