10 



ladies' flower gardener. 



spring- succeeds the dreary winter with renewed beauty and two- 

 fold increase. Health accompanies simple and natural pleasures. 

 The culture of the ground affords a vast and interminable field of 

 observation, in which the mind ranges with singular pleasure, 

 though the body travels not. It surrounds home with an un- 

 ceasing interest ; domestic scenes become endeared to the eye 

 and mind ; worldly cares recede ; and we may truly say — 



" For us kind Nature wakes her genial power, 

 Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower! 

 Annual for us, the grape, the rose, renew 

 The juice nectarious. and the balmy dew : 

 For us, the mine a thousand treasures brings ; 

 For us, health gushes from a thousand springs." 



Eth. ep. i. ver. 129. 



The taste for gardening in England began to display itself in 

 the reign of Edward III., in whose time the first work on the 

 subject was composed by Walter de Henly. Flower-gardening 

 followed slowly in its train. The learned Linacre, who died in 

 1524, introduced the damask rose from Italy into England. King 

 James I. of Scotland, when a prisoner in Windsor Castle, thus 

 describes its " most faire " garden : — 



" Now was there maide fast by the towris wall, 

 ' A garden faire, and in the corneris set 



An herbere green, with wandis long and small 

 Railit about, and so with treeis set 

 Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet, 

 That lyfe was now, walking, there forbye, 

 That might within scarce any wight espie, 



So thick the bowis and the leves grene 



Bercandit all, the alleyes all that there were; 



And myddis every herbere might be sene 

 The scharpe grene swete junipere 

 Growing so fair, with branches here and there, 

 That, as it seymt to a lyfe without, 

 The bowis spred the herbere all about." 



The Quair. 



Henry VIII. ordered the formation of his garden at Nonsuch 

 about the year 1509, and Leland says it was a "Nonpareil." 



