86 THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



during every month of the year. In the country 

 before the simple dwellings and the half-timbered 

 and thatched cottages bright flowers blossomed in 

 the same beauty and profusion as to-day. 



The charming cottage garden has changed little. 



Finally, in summing up, if we imagine as a back- 

 ground a group of Tudor buildings in the Perpen- 

 dicular style of architecture of red brick broken with 

 bay-windows and groups of quaint chimneys vari- 

 ously ornamented with zigzag and other curious 

 lines, gables here and there the whole faQade rising 

 above a terrace with broad flights of steps one at 

 the middle and one at each end and from the ter- 

 race "forthrights" and paths intersecting and in 

 the squares formed by them bright beds of flowers 

 so arranged that the colors intermingle and blend 

 so as to produce the effect of a rich mosaic and 

 redolent with the sweetest perfumes all mingled 

 with particular and peculiar care and art, we shall 

 have a mental picture of the kind of garden that 

 lay before Olivia's house in "Twelfth Night," where 

 Malvolio parades up and down the "forthrights," 

 as Shakespeare distinctly tells us, in his yellow 

 cross-garters, to pick up the letter dropped on the 

 path by Maria while the rollicking Sir Toby Belch, 

 witless Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and merry Maria 



