WATER GARDENS 119 



channels which conveyed it from one small garden to 

 another, it was not for ornament that water was 

 employed. There were other purposes for which these 

 small stone-faced conduits were utilized, since we read 

 how lovers sent little folded paper messages of love to 

 the lady's bower by entrusting them to the stream that 

 passed that way. We can imagine how dexterously alert 

 the lady must have been to distinguish her special love- 

 letter, and quickly snatch it as the narrow crystal stream 

 swept by. 



The real joy of splashing, dashing, life-giving fountains 

 was not known with us even in Queen Elizabeth's time. 

 Paul Hentzner, in his travels through England during 

 her reign, describes the following in Whitehall : " In a 

 garden belonging to this Palace there is 2, jet d'eau, with 

 a sundial, which, while strangers are looking at a quantity 

 of water forced by a wheel which the gardener turns at 

 a distance through a number of different little pipes, 

 plentifully sprinkles those that are standing round." 

 Evidently, from the account this was considered an 

 astonishing feat of ingenuity, and it would not have 

 been possible for many gardens to afford the luxury 

 of devoting the time of a gardener to the occupation 

 of wheel-turning, where only one Jet cTeau was the 

 result. It is indeed surprising, when we compare this 

 account with the marvellous descriptions of the water 

 gardens of France, created only a short hundred years 

 later, to think that it really was chiefly through the observa- 

 tion, ingenuity, and inspiration of one man that they 

 reached the high art they attained at that time. The 

 subject was studied then as it never had been before and 

 never has been since. 



With all the motor power we now possess it is compara- 

 tively easy to obtain an ample supply of water in gardens 

 where money can be spent upon it. In spite of this, in 



