2 GARDEN CRAFT IN EUROPE 



From the flat nature of their situation the gardens of ancient Egypt 

 must always have lacked variety ; this element, however, was not wanting in 

 the gardens of ancient Greece, where the physical character of the country 

 gave far greater scope for artistic display. To a nation like the Greeks, so 

 eager to take advantage of every device for embellishing their surroundings, 

 the cultivation of beautiful gardens became a prime necessity in setting off 

 their architecture. They always preserved a studied symmetry in laying 

 out their gardens, which were planned to meet the principal requirements 

 of shade, coolness, fragrance and repose. The idea of imitating nature does 

 not seem to have been seriously entertained, and though Homer, in describ- 

 ing the Garden of Calypso, speaks of the capricious winding of silver 

 streams and generally indicates an informal or natural garden, the descrip- 

 tion refers more to one of those sacred and mysterious retreats, every- 

 where to be found, dedicated to the gods of the waters and of the woods, 

 or else to some local divinity. The deities favourable to gardening were, 

 above all. Aphrodite, venerated at Athens, where her statue was set up in 

 a grove of oleanders, and Dionysus, to whom Xenophon dedicated a 

 temple near Olympia. Secondary to these were the Graces or Charites. 



In Athens, amongst other famous public gardens, was one known as 

 the Lyceum, This was also the resort of a great school of philosophy and 

 was famous for the plantations laid out by the orator, Lycurgus. Theo- 

 phrastus and Demetrius built a museum in its groves, and here it was that 

 Aristotle used to walk with his disciples. The most ancient allusion to a 

 Greek garden is in Homer's account of the palace of Alcinous, where the 

 Gods were pleased to dwell and upon which Ulysses had gazed with admira- 

 tion. The description, which appears to have been written from nature, 

 is worth transcribing here. 



" And without the courtyard hard by the door is a great garden, of 

 four plough gates, and a hedge runs round on either side. And there grow 

 tall trees blossoming, pear-trees and pomegranates, and apple-trees with 

 bright fruit, and sweet figs, and olives in their bloom. The fruit of these 

 trees never perisheth, neither faileth winter nor summer, enduring through 

 all the year. Evermore the West Wind blowing brings some fruits to birth 

 and ripens others. Pear upon pear waxes old, and apple on apple, yea 

 and cluster ripens upon cluster of the grape, and fig upon fig. There too 

 hath he a fruitful vineyard planted, whereof the one part is being dried 



