GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



and its twisted branches, which in summer are closely covered 

 with foliage, have embraced one another, laced and interlaced, 

 until it has become a tangle of greenery and timber, reminding one 

 of the fairy hedge that grew round the Palace of the Sleeping 

 Beauty. And as the kiss of the Prince awakened the Princess 

 so will the kiss of the sun in due season recall to life and unfold 

 the sleeping buds of the wisteria, hanging them like violet tassels 

 among its branches. 



The piece of ground it encloses is almost triangular in shape, 

 for the wisteria hedge sweeps round till it almost meets the old 

 wall and the vinery, on our right. It is cut up into scores of small 

 ' knots " or flower-beds, each with its own particular low fence 

 of immemorial box, intersected by little winding cinder-walks, 

 so narrow that only one person at a time can walk there. This 

 is the true old-English flower-garden, the equivalent to the French 

 parterre. 



Opposite to us, and the proper entrance to this lovely old corner, 

 is a fine Tudor gateway. It is of brick, coeval with the Fitzjames 

 quadrangle, and bears the Fitzjames arms above it. It is as 

 picturesque a bit of old English building, on a small scale, as one 

 might hope to see, near London, and out of Hampton Court. 



The little garden is primarily a rose-garden, although a few late 

 irises of a shade approaching mauve a more refined variety of 

 the earlier and common purple flag are prominently introduced. 

 It was strange to see irises and roses in juxtaposition, and 

 flowering in the same month but in this garden, and probably 

 in others, that year, the seasons met each other, and April and 

 May clasped hands with June. The bishop's head-gardener himself 

 remarked to me that : " This year everything has come up to- 

 gether ! ' So lovely it was in consequence Nature with immense 

 prodigality pouring out all her wealth and beauty at one and the 

 same time, that by slightly altering the words of the old madrigal, 

 one might apply them to this garden, and say : 



" When first I saw its face I resolved 

 To honour and renown it." 



And to this end I had meant to spend most loving labour on it. 

 Alas ! April, May, and June, were lovely months, then " followed 

 the deluge," and very literally so; the rose beds were swept by 



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