GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 205 



on ; cut out curiously into embroidery of flowers, and shapes 

 of arabesques, animals, or birds, or feuillages, and the small 

 alleys or intervals filled with several coloured sands and dust 

 with much art, with but few flowers in such knots, and those 

 only such as grow very low lest they spoil the beauty of the 

 embroidery." Parterre is thus explained in Miller's Diction- 

 ary, 1724 : " A level division of ground, which for the most 

 part faces the South, and is best in front of a House, and is gener- 

 ally furnished with greens and flowers. There are several sorts 

 of parterres, as bowling-green, or plain parterres, and parterres 

 of embroidery. . . . Plain parterres most beautiful in England 

 by reason of their turf, and that decency and unaffected 

 simplicity it affords the eye ; others are cut into shell and scroll 

 work, with sand alleys between them, which are the finest 

 paterre works esteemed in England." 



In The Retired Gardener, translated from the French of 

 Louis Liger, by London and Wise, no less than eleven sorts 

 of parterres are described, but all are merely variations of 

 design in grass, beds or cut-work, and patterns of scrolls and 

 foliage or " embroidery, like we have on our cloaths." The 

 two following are examples of his descriptions : No. VI. " The 

 Form of a Parterre partly cut-work and partly green Turf 

 with Borders. These Parterres are esteem'd according to 

 their Design and their Symmetry. They look very well in great 

 gardens as well as small, the verdure of the grass, and the 

 Enamel of the Flowers with which the Compartments ought 

 to be fill'd according to the different seasons of the year, present 

 a charming object to the sight. These parterres may likewise 

 be set off with such Pots as I mentioned before {i.e., Dutch 

 jars) or surrounded with Boxes fill'd with Orange Trees or 

 with other shrubs of like Nature." VII. " The Form of a 

 Parterre with cut-work of Grass and Imbroidery in the middle 

 and with Borders of Grass on the outsides. This sort of Design 

 is very agreeable and serves for a great ornament to a garden, 

 especially where the grass-work is well kept up, the Box 

 well order' d, and the grass-work well cut ; and to give it yet 

 a farther Beauty, you may fill the Flourishings and Branch- 

 work with a black earth, provided the Paths or Alleys be 

 cover' d with a yellow or white sand, different colours serving 

 to set off the Parterre the better." In some cases the plot was 



