AND CELEBRATED GARDENS 
The garden thus overlooked would be very gay indeed, and 
very sweet also. In the sixteenth century Spenser could write 
of one wherein 
“* Nature lavish, in her best attire 
Puts forth sweet odours and alluring sight 
And art with her contending doth aspire 
T’ excell the natural with made delight.” 
He further describes how all things “‘ fair and pleasant” in this 
garden abound ‘in riotous excess,’ which surely includes the 
English singing-birds. William Lawson, in his ‘‘ New Orchard,” 
published in 1618, remarks that ‘‘ Blackbirds on a May morning 
may gratify the senses,” but he had rather want their company 
than his fruit ; but ‘‘ nightingales,”’ he says, “‘ are another matter ; 
a brood of them is a chefe grace ; but they will clear you of cata- 
pillars and noysome wormes, and the gentle Robin Redbreast, 
and the silly wren will help in this.” 
The gardens that I have been chiefly describing were, of course, 
those of the noble, or the squire, or, at any rate, of the substantial 
yeoman and richer citizen. They were the pleasure places of 
palaces and manor houses, and, in an earlier age, of the feudal 
castle, when, unless they overflowed beyond the walls, they were 
necessarily circumscribed. They appear always to have taken up 
a considerable part of the demesne, and even in Plantagenet times 
were used for pleasure and refreshment as well as for utility. 
‘* Wherein,” asks Lawson, ‘‘ do kings and the great most delight ? 
And whither do they withdraw themselves from the troublous 
affairs of State, being tyred with the hearing and judging of 
litigious controversies ? choked (as it were) with the close Ayre« 
of their sumptuous buildings, their stomacks cloyed with a variety 
of Banquets, their ears filled and overburdened with tedious dis- 
coursings ? Whither but in their orchards ? made and prepared, 
dressed and destinated for that purpose, to renue and refresh 
their sences, and to call home their over-wearied spirits, it is 
(no doubt) a comfort to them to set open their casements into a 
most delicate Garden and Orchard, whereby they may not only 
see that wherein they are so much delighted, but also to give fresh 
and sweet and pleasant Ayre to Galleries and Chambers.” 
W. C. Hazlitt is of opinion that the cottage garden cannot be 
confidently referred to a date anterior to Worledge, whose 
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