7 8 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



ness is not to be wholly ascribed to the fastidious 

 bent of a mind that lived in a labyrinth ; it speaks 

 equally of the fineness of the man's ideal, which 

 lifts his standard sky-high and keeps him watchful 

 to a fault in attaining desired effects without run- 

 ning upon " trifles and jingles." The master-text of 

 the whole Essay seems to be the writer's own apo- 

 thegm : "Nature is commanded by obeying her." 



That a true gardener should love Nature goes 

 without saying. And Bacon loved Nature passion- 

 ately, and gardens only too well. He tells us 

 these were his favourite sins in the strange document 

 half prayer, half Apologia written after he had 

 made his will, at the time of his fall, when he pre- 

 sumably concluded that anything might happen. 

 " Thy creatures have been my books, but Thy Scrip- 

 tures much more. I have sought Thee in the courts, 

 fields, and gardens, but I have found Thee in Thy 

 temples." 



Three more points about the essay I would like 

 to comment upon. First, That in spite of its lofty 

 dreaming, it treats of the hard and dry side of gar- 

 dening as a science in so methodical a manner that 

 but for what it contains besides, and for its mint- 

 mark of a great spirit, the thing might pass as an 

 extract from a more- than- ordinary practical gardener's 

 manual. Bacon does not write upon the subject like 

 a man in another planet, but like a man in a land of 

 living men. 



Secondly, As to the attitude of Bacon and his 

 school towards external Nature. In them is no trace 



