THE HISTORY OF GARDEN-MAKING 



regards of common expense. It lies at the side of a hill, upon which 

 the house stands, but not very steep. The length of the house, 

 where the best rooms and of most use and pleasure are, lies upon 

 the breadth of the garden; the great parlour opens into the midst of 

 a terrace gravel-walk that lies even with it, and which may be about 

 three hundred paces long and broad in proportion ; the border set 

 with standard laurels, which have the beauty of orange-trees out of 

 flower and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many stone 

 steps, in the middle and at each end, with a very large parterre. 

 This is divided into quarters by gravel-walks, and adorned with two 

 fountains and eight statues at the several quarters. At the end of 

 the terrace walks are two summer-houses, and the sides of the 

 parterre are ranged with two large cloisters open to the garden. 

 Over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and 

 fenced with balusters ; and the passage into these airy walks is out 

 of the two summer-houses at the end of the first terrace walk. The 

 cloister facing the south is covered with vines. From the middle of 

 the parterre is a descent by many steps into the lower garden, which 

 is all fruit-trees, ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness, 

 which is very shady ; the walks here are all green, and there is a 

 grotto embellished with figures of shell, rockwork, fountains, and 

 waterworks." 



As Sir William Temple can be counted among the advocates of the 

 formal style, his praise of the Moor Park garden as it was when he 

 wrote the character of the place has since been radically altered 

 is certainly significant. The arrangement he describes must have 

 been admirably effective, and excellent both in its stateliness of 

 planning and its richness of detail ; and the garden must have pro- 

 vided a quite satisfactory illustration of the Italian manner. How 

 far its beauties can be referred to Bacon's suggestions cannot now be 

 said, but it is quite possible that the real designer was inspired by 

 the theories so pleasantly set forth in the " Essay on Gardens," and 

 that he found in the fancies of a cultivated and intelligent literary 

 man much which was capable of being put into actual practice. 

 The first books of English writers in which the art of garden de- 

 signing was treated from the standpoint of personal knowledge 

 appeared early in the seventeenth century. They were by Gervase 

 Markham and William Lawson, both of whom had tested by many 

 years of practical experience the principles which they advocated, 

 Markham, though he wrote for the man of ordinary means rather 

 than for the few wealthy personages, was a strong believer in the 

 need for orderly formality in even the least ambitious garden; and 

 b vii 



