28 Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. 



under the windows of the house on that side 

 which the garden stands, they be but toys : 

 you may see as good sights many times in 

 tarts " ; and when these lines were composed 

 the fashion was running very strongly in the 

 direction of these artifices, and two or three 

 of the writers of the day recommended them 

 as novel experiments. Nor was Bacon's con- 

 demnation of them in print sufficiently influ- 

 ential to suppress a taste which, in some form 

 or other, has ever since prevailed. 



Bacon approved of fountains in a garden, 

 but not of aviaries. His heath or desert, as 

 he calls it, he wished to be " framed as much 

 as may be to a natural wildness." It was to 

 be a plantation, not of trees, but purely of 

 undergrowth and bushes, including sweet- 

 briar, honeysuckle, and the wild vine, "and 

 the ground set with violets, strawberries, and 

 primroses ; for these are sweet, and prosper 

 in the shade." The strawberry here men- 

 tioned must have been, like the vine, the 

 wild sort, for the cultivated one prefers and 

 requires the sun. " I like also," he goes on, 

 "little heaps, in the nature of molehills 



