GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



which I am writing a banked-up bowling-green was attached to 

 almost every considerable residence, and answered the same 

 purpose as the modern tennis-ground : or perhaps it would be 

 more correct to say of the golf links ; for though more limited 

 in area, it provided suitable recreation ground for men of mature 

 years ; and it is said that Drake was playing bowls when the Armada 

 was sighted. At any rate, it was the favourite pastime of the 

 sturdy squires and yeomen of England, just as the maypole dance 

 was that of her youths and maidens. 



It was under the Tudors that English gardens first assumed a 

 national character. The Tudors were richer than the Plantagenets, 

 and more secure in possession, and had also the advantage of the 

 new learning of the Renaissance that, ere long reaching our shores 

 and providing a stimulus to every form of intellectual activity, 

 inspired fresh ideas and undertakings in horticulture, scarcely less 

 than in literature and art. Henry VIII. had done much to 

 encourage gardening and garden-planning, and justly celebrated 

 appear to have been the royal gardens of Nonsuch, near Ewcll, 

 in Surrey ; but these, together with the palace, have since been 

 entirely destroyed. Although greatly altered, some portions of 

 those at Hampton Court yet testify to the care which Henry VIII. 

 spent on their embellishment when the Palace and Grounds passed 

 into his hands. Not always commendable, however, were his 

 schemes, if it be true that " Beasts and the columns they stood 

 upon" were a prominent feature of the Hampton Court Gardens 

 during the period of his ownership. 



At the time of Elizabeth's accession, English gardens had 

 probably arrived at their highest beauty, and since as yet they 

 were but little affected by French and Dutch notions of garden- 

 planning, they had acquired that peculiar, indefinable charm that 

 we have learnt to associate with the words, " an old English 

 garden." 



In Elizabeth's reign a passion for travel and discovery awoke, 

 with large results ; one of which was the advance of horticulture as 

 a science. For a new impulse was given to its study when men of 

 the type of Cavendish and Raleigh, animated by a keen spirit of 

 adventure and a desire for wider horizons, set forth to navigate 

 summer seas in the far Indies, and, ere long, to explore the newly- 

 discovered continent of America. 



