THE CHARM OF GARDENS 



glimmmering amidst their greenery in the sun ; the 

 songs of birds in the thickets of Myrtle and Rosemary, 

 there made up the fine moments of his life. 



Such little houses were copied from the Eastern idea, 

 such as is pointed to several times in the Bible. The 

 Shunamite gives such a house to Elisha : 



" Let us make him a little chamber, I pray thee, with walls j 

 and let us set him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and 

 a candlestick, that he may turn in thither when he cometh 

 to us." 



Whether a Roman living in England ever built himself 

 such a house it is difficult to prove, since, so far as I can 

 find, no remains of such a place are to be seen. But, 

 •when one considers the actual evidence of the Roman 

 Occupation, the yields given by the neighbourhoods of 

 Roman cities, the statues, vases, toys, the amphi- 

 theatres for cock-fighting, wrestling, and gladiatoral 

 combat, then surely there were gardens of great wonder 

 near to these cities where men like Pliny went to sit in 

 their garden houses and enjoyed the cool of the evening 

 after a day's work. 



I have always made it a fancy of mine to suppose such 



an apartment to have stood on the spot where a garden 



house I know now stands. I have sat in this little house, 



a tiny place compared to Pliny's, and pictured to myself 



the surrounding country as it might have looked under 



the eyes of our Roman conquerors. Not far distant is a 



Roman town, outside which is a huge amphitheatre ; 



the Roman road, via Iceniana, cutting through the 



western downs and forests. Over this very countryside 



were villas scattered here and there, bridges, walls, 



moats and camps. Even to-day, not far away from my 



summer-house, are two small Roman bridges, over 



which, in my day-dreams, the previous occupier of the 



site has often passed. 



89, 



