CHAPTER IX 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 



" . . . . Retired leisure 

 That in trim gardens takes his pleasure." 



Milton. 



" That is the walk, and this the arbour ; 

 That is the garden, this the grove." 



George Herbert. 



THE period now to be surveyed falls naturally into three 

 divisions. The first, the reign of Charles I. ; the second, 

 the Commonwealth ; the third, the Restoration. The develop- 

 ment of gardening in each of these has its own distinctive 

 character. The current of slow progress in horticulture runs 

 on smoothly, but garden design does not alter much until the 

 third portion of the time. During the Commonwealth, there 

 was a movement towards the improvement of orchards and 

 market gardens, and the reign of Charles II. witnessed a great 

 revival in gardening in all its branches. The early part is 

 merely a continuation of the gardening in the time of James I. ; 

 the men whose works have already been quoted were still alive 

 — Parkinson, Johnson, and the Tradescants — and they form 

 a link with the Elizabethan age. Sir William Temple and 

 John Evelyn, whose names are so intimately connected with 

 the garden history of the Restoration, in like manner connect 

 that period with the brilliant days of gardening at the close 

 of the seventeenth century. 



Each succeeding generation of gardeners had a very poor 

 opinion of the capabilities of their predecessors, while they 

 thought the excellence of their own gardens could hardly be 

 surpassed. Holinshed maintained that there never were such 



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