128 A HISTORY OF GARDEXLXG IX EXGIAXD. 



here are a great variety of trees and plants, labyrinths made 

 with a great deal of labour, a jet d'eau with its bason of white 

 marble, and columns and pyramids of wood and other materials 

 up and down the garden. After seeing these, we were led by 

 the gardener into the summer-house, in the lower part of which, 

 built semi-circular!}-, are the twelve Roman Emperors in white 

 marble and a table of truck-stone : the upper part of it is set 

 round with cisterns of lead into which the water is conveyed 

 through pipes, so that fish may be kept in them, and in 

 summer-time they are very convenient for bathing. In another 

 room for entertainment very near this and joined to it by a 

 little bridge was a noble table of red marble." 



Having now completed the survey of the several features of 

 an Elizabethan garden, terraces, walks, alleys, mazes, mounts, 

 arbours, fountains and streams having been looked at one by one ; 

 it onl\' remains to take a glance at it as a whole. The two 

 following descriptions of a garden take in all these details, 

 and are both contemporary, although from two ver}- different 

 sources. One is the description of a stage arranged to represent 

 a beautiful garden, on the occasion of the performance of a 

 " Maske of Flowers," by the gentlemen of Gray's Inn, at 

 Whitehall, upon Twelfth Night, 1613, "being last of the 

 solemnities and magnificences which were performed at the 

 marriage of the Earl of Somerset and Lady Francis, daughter 

 of the Earle of Suffolke, Lord Chamberlaine ; " "^ the other is 

 from Spenser's Faerie Qiieene, the lines in which he pictures a 

 perfect garden, a " second Paradise." 



The Maske of Flowers. 



" The Daunce ended, the lowd musicke sounded. The 

 Trauers being drawne, was seen a garden of a glorious and 

 strange beauty, cast into foure quarters, with a crosse walke 

 and allies compassing each quarter. In the middle of the 

 crosse walke stood a goodly Fountaine, raised on foure 



* This Maske was printed in 1614 by N. D. for Robert Wilson. It 

 is extremely rare, the quotation is made from a perfect copy belonging- to 

 Mrs. Rowley Smith, Plawhatch, Bishop's Stortford. 



