132 Gleanings from the 



flowers, efpecially fuch flowers as were ufeful for 

 garlands. Both Romans and Greeks too, it mould 

 be remembered, porTefled but a limited flora. Our 

 own garden-treafures have been lovingly brought 

 together, carefully cultivated and improved from 

 every clime. What our natural poverty herein 

 would be, may be imagined by mentally excluding 

 all fave native fpecies from our parterres. Lines 

 of trees in a Roman garden bordered ftraight 

 walks laid out for exercife ; while fhrubs were cut 

 and trimmed to improve upon nature. Rofes and 

 violets, narcifTus, poppy, and a few others furnimed 

 the borders with flowers. The fecondary pleafures 

 of beauty and natural adaptivenefs of form and 

 growth, which we dwell upon fo largely in our 

 eftimation of a garden, were nearly unknown to 

 the ancients. So Rufkin fuggeftively writes: "I 

 do not know that of the expreflions of affection 

 towards external Nature to be found among heathen 

 writers, there are any of which the leading thought 

 leans not towards the fenfual parts of her. Her 

 beneficence they fought, and her power they 

 fhunned ; her teaching through both they under- 

 ftood never. The pleafant influences of foft winds 

 and ringing ftreamlets, and fhady coverts of the 

 violet-couch and plane-tree made, they received, 

 perhaps, in a more noble way than we ; but they 

 found not anything except fear upon the bare 

 mountain. The Hybla heather they loved more 

 for its fweet hives than its purple hues." 1 Virgil 

 often dwells upon gardens: " Plant now thy pears, 



1 " Modern Painters," vol. ii., p. 17. 



