GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
and its twisted branches, which in summer are closely covered 
with foliage, have embraced one another, laced and interlaced, 
until it has become a‘tangle of greenery and timber, reminding one 
of the fairy hedge that grew round the Palace of the Sleeping 
Beauty. And as the kiss of the Prince awakened the Princess— 
so will the kiss of the sun in due season recall to life and unfold 
the sleeping buds of the wisteria, hanging them like violet tassels 
among its branches. 
The piece of ground it encloses is almost triangular in shape, 
for the wisteria hedge sweeps round till it almost meets the old 
wall and the vinery, on our right. It is cut up into scores of small 
‘“‘ knots” or flower-beds, each with its own particular low fence 
of immemorial box, intersected by little winding cinder-walks, 
so narrow that only one person at a time can walk there. This 
is the true old-English flower-garden, the equivalent to the French 
parterre. 
Opposite to us, and the proper entrance to this lovely old corner, 
is a fine Tudor gateway. It is of brick, coeval with the Fitzjames 
-quadrangle, and bears the Fitzjames arms above it. It is as 
picturesque a bit of old English building, on a small scale, as one 
might hope to see, near London, and out of Hampton Court. 
The little garden is primarily a rose-garden, although a few late 
irises of a shade approaching mauve—a more refined variety of 
the earlier and common purple flag—are prominently introduced. 
It was strange to see irises and roses in juxtaposition, and 
flowering in the same month—but in this garden, and probably 
in others, that year, the seasons met each other, and April and 
May clasped hands with June. The bishop’s head-gardener himself 
remarked to me that: ‘‘ This year everything has come up to- 
gether!” So lovely it was in consequence—Nature with immense 
prodigality pouring out all her wealth and beauty at one and the 
same time, that by slightly altering the words of the old madrigal, 
one might apply them to this garden, and say : 
‘* When first I saw its face I resolved 
To honour and renown it.” 
And to this end I had meant to spend most loving labour on it. 
Alas! April, May, and June, were lovely months, then “ followed 
the deluge,” and very literally so; the rose beds were swept by 
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