AND CELEBRATED GARDENS 
largely to the monks. They were able and industrious gardeners, 
and often skilled in the application of the herbs and simples they 
so assiduously cultivated ; and in remote neighbourhoods, in the 
absence of the leech or apothecary, must frequently have been 
called upon to undertake, not only the cure of souls, but the cure 
of bodies also. We owe a good deal to the ‘* monks of old”; their 
place knows them no more, though such names as “‘ Grey Friars ”’ 
and ‘“‘ Covent ”—or Convent—‘‘ Garden ” are suggestive of the old 
Romish times. 
It would seem from the illuminated manuscripts in the British 
Museum and elsewhere, that the English medieval gardens were, 
for the most part, square in shape, and had grass plots, sanded 
walks, and little alleys and borders. Box played a great part in 
the outlining of these borders, and there was generally in each 
domain a “‘ Privy Garden,” or playing place. A little later there 
was invariably a bowling-green. Among the characteristic features 
of the Tudor garden may also be cited the ‘‘ Mount,” by means 
of which in a flat country a view of the landscape could be 
obtained. 
It was ascended by a winding path, described by an old writer as 
being ‘‘ like a cockle-shell, to come to the top without paign.” 
Mounts did not go out of fashion until the boundary wall was 
superseded in the eighteenth century by the sunk fence, or “‘ Ha ha.”’ 
In large Tudor establishments there was often a gallery leading 
from the great house to the pleasure-grounds, by which they 
could be reached under cover; and even in the time of Erasmus 
these and other garden buildings were sometimes frescoed inside, 
a fashion which came from Italy. Erasmus speaks of a garden 
with such galleries, the doors painted in imitation of grass and 
flowers, and the walls representing woods. At a later period 
Evelyn describes one which he had seen at Rucil, (that he 
has the bad taste to commend) in which “‘ the arch of Constantine 
was painted on a wall in oyle as large as the real one at Rome, 
so well done that even a man skilled in painting may mistake it 
for stone and sculpture ;”’ and so cleverly was the sky painted in 
the opening of the arch, that birds dashed themselves against it, 
thinking to fly through. 
The old game of bowls is comparatively little played nowadays, 
except by rustics in remote country villages; but at the time of 
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