LILAC, 47 



have no means of ascertaining by whom and 

 in what year it was introduced into England. 

 However, as it reached Germany in the second 

 year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, it is probable 

 that plants were soon afterwards sent to her 

 gardener ; as we find by the survey of the 

 royal gardens of Nonsuch, in Surrey, which 

 were planted in the time of Henry the Eighth, 

 and were one of the favourite residences of 

 Elizabeth, that in the privy-gardens of that 

 palace there were fountains and basins of 

 marble, one of which was " set round with six 

 lilac trees, which bear no fruit, but only a 

 very pleasant smell." This survey was made 

 in the time of Charles the Second, who gave 

 the palace and gardens of Nonsuch to one of 

 his mistresses, who pulled it down and sold 

 the materials. 



Gerard considered the lilac to be a species 

 of privet: later writers took it for a kind of 

 jasmine ; and M. Jussieu, in his Natural 

 Classification of Plants, also makes it one of 

 the jasmine family. 



In the shrubbery the lilac is amongst thefirst 

 that announce the return of spring ; and no 

 flowering tree makes known the welcome tid- 

 ings in a more pleasing garb, for the beauty of 

 its foliage, and particularly that of the white 

 variety, is scarcely less agreeable than its 



