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ROYAL GARDENS 



task of planning how it may still further be improved, and 

 how far loving labour may go towards making it an ideal 

 setting for the home. 



And if so plain and simple a word as garden can call forth 

 cheerful images of the quiet and happy domestic life of 

 ordinary folk, what may be said of the immeasurably greater 

 significance of the phrase. Royal gardens ? The brain can 

 scarcely grasp a tithe of the crowding memories and fancies 

 called into being by the words. Royal gardens. Think of 

 the long line of kings and queens, courtiers and statesmen, 

 knights and ladies, priests, prelates, poets, musicians, warriors, 

 philosophers, and famous men and women of history who 

 have used and enjoyed these gardens through many hundred 

 years. The stately etiquette of courts, the ever-changing 

 fashions in costume, the formal beauty and graceful dignity 

 of garden backgrounds, bring before the mind numberless pic- 

 tures, wonderful alike in colour, life and movement. 



Countless poets have drawn some of their most exquisite 

 figures and similes from gardens. But none has left a more 

 charming and complete picture, nor one more proper to a 

 royal garden, than Spenser — who, very possibly, had one of 

 the Queen's pleasure grounds in mind — when he says — 



" No tree, that is of count, in greenewood growes, 

 From lowest Juniper to Ceder tall ; 

 No flowre in field, that daintie odour throwes, 

 And deckes his branch with blossomes over all, 

 But there was planted, or grew naturall : 

 Nor sense of man so coy and curious nice. 

 But there mote find to please it selfe withall ; 

 Nor heart could wish for any quaint device. 

 But there it present was, and did frail sense entice. 



• •••••• 



Fresh shadowes, fit to shroud from sunny ray ; 

 Faire lawns, to take the sun in season due ; 

 Sweet springs, in which a thousand Nymphs did play ; 

 Soft rambling brookes, that gentle slumber drew ; 

 High reared mounts, the lands about to view ; 

 Low looking dales, disloignd from common gaze ; 

 Delightful bowers, to solace lovers true ; 

 False Labyrinthes, fond runners eyes to daze ; 

 All which by nature made did nature's self amaze. 



