CITY TREES 



1119 



annual and perennial flowers, self-sown ; 

 and, not less welcome, some of those well- 

 known familiar weeds that push with such 

 an easy confidence into the most exclusiw 

 garden circles. 



StiU more agreeable, perhaps, are the 

 moat gardens on the south side, between 

 the buildings and the river, for these are 

 cultivated in the countiy or veget- 

 able-cum-flower-border style. Lozenge- 

 shaped beds, edged with irregular tiles, 

 or bits of old coping-stone, and filled 

 with an irregular setting of old-fashioned 

 flowers — larkspurs, wallflowers, and tuhps, 

 paeonies and stocks, cabbage roses, 

 madonna hlies and hollyhocks — with a 

 hedge, and paths innocent of gravel, 

 and growing httle bunches of grass on 

 their own account ; whilst close by may 

 be a heap of well-dried manure, a rhubarb 

 bed, and a series of thriving plots of 

 parsnips, cabbages and all manner of 

 " garden stuff." with a long screen of 

 scarlet runners in their season. Butter- 

 flies hover about the cabbages, and a stray 

 bee hums its way to or from the flower 

 borders. Perhaps there may be a scent 

 of broad beans in flower ; and I can well 

 fancy the dock labourer, lately from the 

 country, meditatively regarding these 



matters through the smoke of his pipe, 

 and wondering whether, after all, Ufe had 

 been so very bad back there in shire. 



Pigeons sit in a nnv ujxm Traitor's 

 Gate ; and the old grey mascmry, trailed 

 over with vines, wistaria, and Virginia 

 creeper, forms a picture of mellow and 

 peaceful age. Time and change have 

 worked their beneficent will, subduing the 

 defiant strength of the fortress, and the 

 cruelty of the prison, and turning the 

 field of blood into a garden. 



Moving westward, one passes through 

 Seething Lane and Hart Street, a region 

 given over to the immortal memory of 

 Mr. Pepys. There is the very gateway 

 by which he was wont to enter the old 

 Navy Yard ; but one glances in vain now 

 into the back regions for any green spot 

 as a reminder of the garden — the garden 

 where Mr. Pepys buried his money in the 

 time of the Fire, and where afterwards he 

 raked the grass and sifted the mould in 

 the dead of night to find it again. 



Of the many trees and greens of the 

 Central City, one can only speak in 

 passing. There is St. Michael's .\Uey, 

 where I once saw, of all strange City 

 sights, a haymaking — regular swathes 

 cut with a scythe, and then turned and 



TREES AT THE TOWKR OF LONDON 



Phetcirafh O 



