There Was Once a Man Who Dreamed, II.- By Ida M. H. Starr, 



[The first part of this article was published in last month's number, page 10.] 



Mary- 

 land 



THE second book on the corner shelf is 

 bound in green. Who would ever 

 expect to find this favorite volume of Eng- 

 lish Houses and Gardens in any but the tints 

 of early spring, in the color scheme of those 

 days when the north wind is pacified and 

 there is a feeling of expectancy in the world 

 without of wonderful things coming, more 

 wonderful than ever before? There are 

 chubby-faced cupids on the cover design, 

 upholding emblems of the gardener's art, 

 which seem more reminiscent of the past, 

 than even the peacock strutting under the 

 clipped yews or the greyhounds among 

 the cypresses. 



The turning of a page brings one into an. 

 atmosphere of delicious fragrance, and 

 whatever may be one's surroundings, at 

 once plain walls and treeless streets, or 

 newly formed, unfinished gardens, are 

 effaced by thoughts of courtyards and 

 terraces, bowling greens and parterres, 

 arbors, groves and avenues. What a leap 

 from matter-of-fact to-day, to a "Parterre 

 de Broderie" of the long silent century 

 of romance! 



You and I, garden lovers, turn to these 

 old prints with much the same feeling of 

 reverence as does the artist to the traditions 

 of ancient Greece. Whatever their limita- 

 tions, all gardens are more or less uncon- 

 sciously patterned after the Italian Renais- 

 sance models of the seventeenth century, 

 from the tiny plot of ground with its one 

 round flower bed set in restful simplicity, to 

 the splendid garden of great decorative 

 scheme and stately proportion. For gener- 

 ations the garden lover has longed almost 

 hopelessly to repro- 

 duce the knots, 

 groves, bosquets and 

 avenues of old Eng- 

 lish gardens. His de- 

 spair of success has 

 not been without 

 reason. Glance 

 through any collec- 

 tion of garden books 

 in any library and 

 then make an honest 

 confession of the 

 mental attitude into 

 which you are 

 plunged after having 

 gone through a series 

 of pictures illustra- 

 ting English gardens. 

 They are wonder 

 gardens, overwhelm- 

 ing in bloom; per- 

 petually verdant; 

 cunning in device ; 

 geometrical enclos- 

 ures adorned in 

 consummate art by 

 hedgerows of rose- 

 mary and box; long 



Shaded vistas Of Trees do, fortunately, happen to grow in many fitting places, 



89 



green alleys; labyrinths of endless fol- 

 iage in century-old dignity; so finished, 

 so perfect, so complete are these master 

 gardens that they cease to be a pattern or 

 an inspiration. You look hopelessly at 

 picture after picture, and then close the 

 book. The owners of these gardens, you 

 feel, must always have had their own way, 

 with unlimited means wherewith to procure 

 unlimited effects: the garden could never 

 have begun — it had always been; it had 

 had no tragedies, trees never died nor was 

 there ever any blight; the garden was never 

 new nor crude. As you close the book you 

 seem to hear the clang of a gate which shuts 

 you on the other side of a high wall. 



Here is a book which speaks at once to 

 the individual. Why — you think — here 

 are things I can do. I am not to be shut 

 out after all, for here is a garden in the 

 beginning; a dear, funny, bare garden just 

 in its swaddling clothes, as is mine. So you 

 lose yourself in these old prints of gardens, 

 thought out centuries ago by men who 

 dreamed. 



Even the towering walls of a Castle, or a 

 Manor House, here and there in their midst 

 do not overwhelm you or lead you to feel 

 that the plans of these early gardens are 

 beyond your possibilities, for a homely truth 

 is facing you as you turn page after page: 

 that there was once a time when the now 

 famous gardens of the world were not beauti- 

 ful or luxuriant or overwhelmed with flowers 

 or shaded by lofty trees, or perfect or im- 

 posing or anything else but just seed-beds 

 and tree nurseries. Then out from this 

 quaint crudity of plantations there blossoms 



a splendid hope and a gate swings open, and 

 you enter your dream garden, and in fancy 

 picture your perennials after they have 

 become a fixed possession of this earth; or 

 it maybe your avenues radiating in every 

 direction — whatever the dream, you have 

 touched the hand of those early artists and 

 you two have been made of one spirit. 



If there should be any question in your 

 mind as to the way in which English gar- 

 dens were made in the beginning, examine 

 the prints of that period. They tell the 

 story. There you see parterres in their 

 infancy, hedgerows in tiny slips and every- 

 where trees, thousands of trees set out with 

 infinite pains and long-seeing purpose. 



Examine the picture of "Chatsworth 

 House, being ye Seat of his Grace, William 

 Duke and Earl of Devonshire, Marquis of 

 Hartington, Baron of Hardwick, Ld. Stew- 

 ard of her Maj'sts Household, Chief 

 Justice in Eyre of all her Maj'sts Forrests, 

 Chaces, Parks, and Kt. of the Most Noble 

 Order of the Garter." It shows a sumptuous 

 mansion surrounded by a scheme of garden- 

 ing which bewilders the fancy even in its 

 uncompromising black and white. In front 

 of the house is the "Parterre de Broderie" 

 surrounded by small trees; to the left are 

 knots and bowling greens, surrounded by 

 small trees; to the right a geometrical garden 

 of solid clipped hedges, surrounded by small 

 trees; farther out the kitchen garden and 

 the water garden with fountains, surrounded 

 by small trees; still further the fields, sur- 

 rounded by small trees; and to the North, 

 South, East and West, highways leading 

 into the vanishing line dotted by small trees. 

 If you look clearly 

 you will see riders 

 toiling upon the 

 mirey road. It is all 

 new, young, muddy, 

 awkward, angular 

 and unfinished. The 

 plantings of the little 

 sapling trees look 

 actually silly about 

 the magnificent 

 Manor House. 



Look at Plate No. 

 1 1 . Here is the fam- 

 ous Knole, near 

 Sevenoaks, Kent. 

 When Queen Eliza- 

 beth presented this 

 gorgeous property to 

 the Earl of Leicester, 

 have you any idea 

 that those trees were 

 other than saplings, 

 shivering, and dying, 

 their places being 

 refilled by stronger 

 little trees of the 

 same age? 



Have you any idea 



because they must that the long drive, 



