A GARDEN IN VENICE 



The pockets of the waistcoat that held it first were 

 found to gape very widely, and the man the waist- 

 coat adorned, though he gave one lettuces such 

 as I thought only grew in Covent Garden, knew 

 nothing of flowers. So we took an Italian from 

 the garden of a Scotch friend who had been 

 settled in Venice for fifty years. The man was 

 clever, but he died in little more than a year. 

 We then had others brought from Como, and 

 from Florence, and Lago Maggiore, but could 

 not keep them. Probably an Italian settled in 

 England would find some English gardeners 

 ready to and thinking they could fairly draw 

 profit from their master's foreign origin. 



Then we imported a Scotchman, and were 

 unlucky. The man consigned to us could not fill 

 the place, and after five years of patience we had 

 to send him and his wife back to Scotland with 

 the family that had come to him. 



There was then a short reign, when the throne 

 was occupied by a lady gardener from terra-Jirma. 

 Her master, for whom they said she had done 

 everything, had lately died; and as both his 

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