THE GARDEN AND ITS ACCESSORIES 



simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language 

 of the old dial. 



" It stood as the garden god of Christian gar- 

 dens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished ? If 

 its business use be suspended by more elaborate 

 inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have 

 pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate 

 labours, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of 

 temperance and good hours. It was the primitive 

 clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could 

 scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was the meas- 

 ure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to 

 spring by, for the birds to apportion their silver 

 warblings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to fold 

 by. The shepherd ' carved it out quaintly in the 

 sun,** and turning philosopher by the very occupa- 

 tion, provided it with mottoes more touching than 

 tombstones." 



There are two kinds of dials, the hori- 

 zontal and the perpendicular. The latter ' 

 is affixed to the side of a building or a wall, 

 and is not so much used in gardens as the 

 horizontal dial. The dial proper should 

 be made of some permanent material like 

 bronze or stone, and mounted on a simple 



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