38 THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



"Our English gardeners are all, or most of them, 

 ignorant in the ordering of their outlandish 1 flowers, 

 as not being trained to know them. And I do wish 

 all gentlemen and gentlewomen whom it may con- 

 cern for their own good, to be as careful whom they 

 trust with the planting and replanting of their fine 

 flowers as they would be with so many jewels; for 

 the roots of many of them, being small and of great 

 value, may soon be conveyed away and a clean, fair 

 tale told that such a root is rotten, or perished in the 

 ground, if none be seen where it should be; or else 

 that the flower hath changed in color when it had 

 been taken away, or a counterfeit one had been put 

 in the place thereof; and thus many have been de- 

 ceived of their daintiest flowers, without remedy or 

 knowledge of the defect." 



The influence of the Italian Renaissance upon 

 the Elizabethan garden has already been shown 

 (see page 15), but the importance of this may be 

 appropriately recalled here in the following extract 

 from Bloom: 



"The Wars of the Roses gave little time for gar- 

 dening ; and when matters were settled and the edu- 

 cational movements which marked the dawn of the 

 Renaissance began, the gardens once again, after a 



Exotic. 



