GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
ideas in horticulture, and the difficulties to be met with in 
carrying them out, Bacon left the sciences of horticulture and 
floriculture very much where he found them, and he himself 
being under a cloud, his various schemes would be dis- 
credited. 
I do not propose to dwell upon his theories, which are well 
known to all readers of his essays. ‘‘ God Almighty,” he says, 
‘* first Planted a Garden, and indeed it is the purest of Humaine 
pleasures. It is the Greatest Refreshment to the Spirits of Man.” 
He does “ not like Images Cut out in Juniper, or other Garden 
Stuffe. They be for Children.” He recommends Fountains as 
‘““a great Beauty and Refreshment, but Pooles marre all and 
make the Garden unwholesome, and full of Flies and Frogs.” 
He gives a long list of flowers and plants that flourished in his day, 
among them, all those that are mentioned by Spenser and 
Shakespeare. 
‘“IT do hold,” he prettily says, ‘“‘in the Royall ordering of 
Gardens, there ought to be a garden for all the moneths of the 
yeare ; in which severally, things of Beauty may be there in Season ;” 
and then he proceeds to unfold the wonderful pageant of the 
procession of Flora, and under the heading of each month gives 
a catalogue surprisingly long of her offspring, beginning with 
things that are ‘“‘ Greene all Winter,” and winding up with “ These 
Particulars are for the Climate of London.” ‘‘ Roses Damask and 
Red,” he says, *‘ are fast flowers of their Smels ”; three hundred 
years ago ‘‘ damask ”—so often used by the poets in describing a 
maiden’s cheek—meant pink, not dark crimson, as with us. When 
I was a child I wondered why the delicately-fringed, sweetly-scented 
little flower which I was taught to call a “ pink”’ was so named, 
since, unlike Burns’ daisy, the common example was not even 
‘* crimson-tipped,”” but pure white. Bacon teaches us that the 
modern name is etymologically incorrect. Pink would appear to 
be a corruption of Pinct—or pinked—stabbed, pierced, decorated by 
scallops—as the petals of this flower certainly are. ‘‘ Prime-Roses” 
is a better word than primrose. ‘‘ Dammasin”’ js prettier than 
damson ; but one does not at once recognize in Bacon’s “‘ Lelacke 
Tree,” the lilac, the favourite of our April gardens, with its heavy 
clusters of pale purple flowers—to my mind the fairest and most 
fragrant of all the flowering trees of our English spring. 
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