country houses for them to belong to, and many of these A Walled 
are of superlative excellence. The particular walled garden Garden 
which lies at the present moment before my mind’s eye is, 
however, an exceptionally beautiful and attractive one even 
for Galway.’ It is large, to begin with, and, what would 
perhaps at first sight strike a stranger as a superfluity, it 
contains, not only several breadths of mown grass, but more 
than one large tree within its boundaries, Forest trees and 
lawns within walled gardens are not, I imagine, elsewhere 
common objects. Here in Galway, where land is compara- 
tively at a discount, they may be said to be the rule rather than 
the exception. Sometimes—to be candid—this super-abundance 
of greenery tends towards rankness. The grass is not mown 
quite as often as it ought to be; the summer—odd to relate— 
has turned out an exceptionally wet one; the flowers have 
grown tall and “leggy”; their leaves over-prominent; a wealth 
of lush greenery has, in fact, overflowed everything, and the 
result is a certain forlornness of aspect, as of a flower-garden 
that bas been, rather than a flower-garden that is. The 
particular garden that I am at present introducing to you lies 
under no such peril. Love has walked to and fro amongst 
its plants and beside its borders, and that not for a single 
generation only. There are shrubs and creepers here—nay, 
I believe not a few herbaceous plants—which have stood as 
we see them, stately and gracious, for more than the life-time 
of a single owner. ‘Ah, yes, those larkspurs” (or peonies, 
or daphnes, as the case. may be), “they certainly are very 
fine. My mother laid out that piece of the border in the 
year °42. This walk beside the wall has been changed? 
1 Issercleran. 
5 
