AND CELEBRATED GARDENS 



The garden thus overlooked would be very gay indeed, and 

 very sweet also. In the sixteenth century Spenser could write 

 of one wherein 



' Nature lavish, in her best attire 



Puts forth sweet odours and alluring sight 

 And art with her contending doth aspire 

 T" excell the natural with made delight." 



He further describes how all things " fair and pleasant " in this 

 garden abound " in riotous excess," which surely includes the 

 English singing-birds. William Lawson, in his " New Orchard," 

 published in 1618, remarks that " Blackbirds on a May morning 

 may gratify the senses," but he had rather want their company 

 than his fruit ; but " nightingales," he says, " are another matter ; 

 a brood of them is a chefe grace ; but they will clear you of cata- 

 pillars and noysome wormes, and the gentle Robin Redbreast, 

 and the silly wren will help in this." 



The gardens that I have been chiefly describing were, of course, 

 those of the noble, or the squire, or, at any rate, of the substantial 

 yeoman and richer citizen. They were the pleasure places of 

 palaces and manor houses, and, in an earlier age, of the feudal 

 castle, when, unless they overflowed beyond the walls, they were 

 necessarily circumscribed. They appear always to have taken up 

 a considerable part of the demesne, and even in Plantagenet times 

 were used for pleasure and refreshment as well as for utility. 



4 Wherein," asks Lawson, " do kings and the great most delight ? 

 And whither do they withdraw themselves from the troublous 

 affairs of State, being tyred with the hearing and judging of 

 litigious controversies ? choked (as it were) with the close Ayre 

 of their sumptuous buildings, their stomacks cloyed with a variety 

 of Banquets, their ears filled and overburdened with tedious dis- 

 coursings ? Whither but in their orchards ? made and prepared^ 

 dressed and destinated for that purpose, to renue and refresh 

 their sences, and to call home their over-wearied spirits, it is 

 (no doubt) a comfort to them to set open their casements into a 

 most delicate Garden and Orchard, whereby they may not only 

 see that wherein they are so much delighted, but also to give fresh 

 and sweet and pleasant Ayre to Galleries and Chambers." 



W. C. Hazlitt is of opinion that the cottage garden cannot be 

 confidently referred to a date anterior to Worledge, whose 



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