40 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND ii 



are reproduced exactly, and it would seem 

 almost certain that " Didymus Mountaine " is 

 no other than Thomas Hill, and that Master 

 Dethicke yielded to the temptation to exploit 

 materials collected by another man. Dethicke 

 or " Mountaine " leads off with a grand list of 

 twenty -eight authors, in which " Vergile " 

 appears between Palladius Rutiliusand Didymus, 

 and Hesiod stands next to Africanus. The first 

 part deals with the garden, the second with the 

 distillation of herbs. Some suggestions are given 

 for the formation of arbours and labyrinths and 

 the spacing of beds and alleys, but the greater 

 part of the book is taken up with advice as to 

 planting, and quotations from authors, such as 

 '' the skilful Rutilius," " the learned Democritus," 

 ''the worthie Pliny," and "the well-practised 

 Apuleius." Generally speaking, the writer 

 conceived of a garden as a small enclosed space, 

 with a broad walk inside the wall on all four 

 sides of a rectangular plot ; and the latter was 

 to be subdivided into a number of smaller plots 

 divided by narrow alleys. The maze, or the 

 labyrinth, or any of the various knots, would 

 occupy one of the smaller plots. The book 

 is written in a tedious style, and with much 

 repetition. Its value consists in the light 

 which it throws on the average English garden 

 of the sixteenth century, as contrasted with the 

 princely garden sketched by Bacon. A further 

 point of interest in the book is its curious 



