GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



may be justly called good ; and from the earliest Cherry and 

 Strawberry to the last Apples and Pears, may furnish every Day 

 of the circling year." 



To achieve this end, the production in this country of fruit in 

 great abundance and variety, Temple himself worked assiduously. 

 And perhaps we shall never know how much in this respect we 

 owe to the author of the Triple Alliance. 



Lysons, who wrote in 1792, nearly one hundred years after 

 Temple's death, speaks of the visits which King William III. was 

 in the habit of paying to Sir William Temple at Moor Park, and of 

 his futile efforts to induce him to become his Secretary of State. 

 If the King called when Temple was laid up with the gout, Swift, 

 the Irish amanuensis, was deputed to show him round the garden. 

 On one of these occasions, it is said William offered to make Swift 

 his Master of the Horse, and taught him how to cut asparagus in 

 the Dutch manner. 



But far more interesting to many of us it is to know that pretty 

 and dark-eyed Hester Johnson was about this time employed 

 in Temple's household as waiting-maid to his sister, Lady Giffard, 

 w r ho lived with him, and that in the garden at Moor Park Swift 

 first made love to Stella. 



William III. no doubt would have had everybody, not only cut 

 asparagus, but also lay out gardens in the Dutch manner. At any 

 rate, Dutch taste in garden-planning now came much into vogue ; 

 and it continued so, despite all ridicule and criticism, for many years. 



By the time of Addison the love of stiffness and topiary work 

 had gone to such extravagant lengths that The Spectator inveighs 

 against it. " The Chinese," he points out, " laugh at the planta- 

 tions of our Europeans, which are laid out by the rule and line ; 

 because they say anyone may place trees in equal rows and uni- 

 form figures. . . . Our British gardeners, instead of humouring 

 nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our Trees 

 rise in Cones, Globes, and Pyramids. We see the mark of the 

 scissors upon every plant and Bush. . . . For my own part, I 

 would rather look upon a Tree in all its luxuriance and diffusion 

 of Boughs and Branches than when it is cut and trimmed into 

 Mathematical Figures, and cannot but fancy that an Orchard in 

 Flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the labyrinths of 

 the most finished Parterre." 



26 



