50 THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



I would make cabinets for thee, my love, 

 Sweet-smelling arbors made of eglantine. 



And in Spenser's "Bower of Bliss" : 



Art, striving to compare 

 With Nature, did an arbor green dispread 

 Framed of wanton ivy, flow'ring fair, 

 Through which the fragrant eglantine did spread 

 His prickling arms, entrayl'd with roses red, 

 Which dainty odors round about them threw; 

 And all within with flowers was garnished, 

 That when Zephyrus amongst them blew 

 Did breathe out bounteous smells and painted odors 

 shew. 



A beautiful method of obtaining shady walks was 

 to make a kind of continuous arbor or arcade of 

 trees, trellises, and vines. This arcade was called 

 poetically the "pleached alley." * For the trees, 

 willows, limes (lindens), and maples were used, and 

 the vines were eglantine and other roses, honeysuckle 

 (woodbine), clematis, rosemary, and grapevines. 



Another feature of the garden was the maze, or 



1 Pleaching means trimming the small branches and foliage of 

 trees, or bushes, to bring them to a regular shape. Certain trees 

 only are submissive to this treatment holly, box, yew privet, 

 whitethorn, hornbeam, linden, etc., to make arbors, hedges, bowers, 

 colonnades and all cut-work. 



"Plashing is the half-cutting, or dividing of the quick growth 

 almost to the outward bark and then laying it orderly in a slope 

 manner as you see a cunning hedger lay a dead hedge and then 

 with the smaller and more pliant branches to wreath and bind 

 in the tops." Markham, "The County Farm" (London, 1616). 



