14 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



Another well-known treatise which appeared 

 about the same time as this second edition of Ger- 

 ard's "Herball," the " Paradisus Terrestris " of 

 John Parkinson, is a more genuine work, and may 

 take rank as the first English gardening book ever 

 published. The full extent of the influence on the 

 gardening of their own day of these famous writ- 

 ings, and of their wondrously faithful illustrations, 

 can hardly be estimated at this distant date. Before 

 these, and one or two others of like character, were 

 published, any real knowledge of plants, much 

 less of their properties and affinities, had been at 

 a standstill in England for centuries. It was not, 

 indeed, until the great awakening of the Middle 

 Ages that botanical science, among other learning, 

 received any serious impetus in Europe. The 

 reason for going back to these early times is be- 

 cause it was certainly, first of all, to the revival 

 of medicinal plant-lore, and later on to the botani- 

 cal collections fostered by that new learning, rather 

 than to any inherent love for the cultivation of the 

 beautiful, that we may trace back the real initia- 

 tive of all our modern proficiency in the art of 

 gardening. 



Strangely enough, besides, as must occur to any 

 impartial student in respect of this national taste 

 of ours, we English have never been an originat- 

 ing, though we have undoubtedly been a receptive 

 people, and having once grasped a new idea, in 

 true British bull-dog fashion we hold it fast. This 

 much may be added, however, that while adopting 

 the conceptions of other nations, we have contrived 

 in many ways to put into them our own interpre- 



