GARDEN-CRAFT. 



or shall we hear tell from Chaucer how 



" When that Aprille, with his showres swoot 

 The drought of March hath pierced to the root, 



Then longen folk to gone on pilgrimages." 



Or hear from Stowe how the cockney of olden 

 days " In the month of May, namely, on May-day in 

 the morning, every man, except impediment, would 

 walk in the sweet meddowes and green woods, ther 

 to rejoyce their spirits with the beauty and savour of 

 sweet flowers and with the harmonie of birds 

 praysing God in their kinde." 



Or shall we turn to Shakespeare's bright inci- 

 dental touches of nature-description as in Perdita's 

 musical enumeration of the flowers of the old stiff 

 garden-borders " to make you garlands of," or the 

 Queen's bit in " Hamlet," beginning 



" There is a willow grows aslant a brook, 

 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream." 



Or to the old Herbals of Wyer, and Turner, and 

 Gerard, whom Richard Jefferies * pictures walking 

 about our English lanes in old days ? " What won- 

 derful scenes he must have viewed when they were 

 all a tangle of wild flowers, and plants that are now 

 scarce were common, and the old ploughs and the 

 curious customs, and the wild red-deer it would 

 make a good picture, it really would, Gerard study- 

 ing English orchids ! " 



Or shall we take down the classic volumes 

 of Bacon, Temple, Evelyn, Cowley, Isaak Walton, 



* " Field and Hedgerow," p. 27. 



