GARDEN DESIGN— COMPARATIVE, HISTORICAL, AND ETHICAL. 369 



yards ; I made me gardens and parks, and I planted trees in them of 

 every kind of fruit " ; (this is more on Eden's lines than anything else we 

 read in history) ; " I made me ponds of water, to water wherewith the 

 wood where the trees are reared." Here is a brief account of Solomon's 

 garden designing whose name and position, for the time being at least 

 (however he failed afterwards) expresses the outgoings of man's heart 

 and affections to the great God Jehovah. 



It is recorded of the late Sir Robert Ball, when he wanted a figure to 

 attempt to render to the finite grasp of the human mind the vastness of 

 the heat and radiance of the sun, that he could neither seize upon or 

 invent a better simile to build the proportions upon than Nebuchadnezzar's 

 furnace heated seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated. In 

 my subject I seek to follow Sir Robert's precedent, assured that if we 

 could even get a conception by comparison with Babylon's famed garden 

 of what was comprehended, and the order, the beauty and the unity of the 

 first garden, we would have not only at once a framework and a basis, 

 but a standard by which to try all ancient and modern attempts at 

 design within the garden. All that has been pictured and discovered 

 of ancient or medieval historical gardenage, Babylonian or Egyptian, 

 Grecian or Roman, the imaginative dressed up in the guise of fable and 

 song, as set forth in the gardens of the Hesperides, peopled with the 

 white-robed maidens, which Milton does not hesitate to use in his attempt 

 to heighten his imaginative picture of Paradise — all would fall short of 

 that which is comprehended in one paragraph of the Scriptures which 

 relates to Eden. 



" Jehovah Elohim planted a garden in Eden eastward, and there put 

 man whom he had formed, and out of the ground Jehovah Elohim made 

 every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." Later 

 we read that Jehovah Elohim took man and put him into the garden of 

 Eden to till it and to guard it. 



It is well, when taking a survey of any stream, to get back to the 

 unsullied source and spring in its purity, and give it due consideration 

 before accepting notions, sentiment and hearsay. The present is a day 

 when we can get tons of sentiment, but very very little that a thoughtful 

 man can store ; in fact, the rubbish that is being heaped up round all 

 professions is interminable, and still it comes. I believe one of the best 

 attempts to idealize the compositions and delights of the garden of Eden 

 was from the pen of Milton, and although I do not wish to pose as a 

 critic of that grand, stupendous work I must confess that his description 

 of Eden never fired me with enthusiasm. It does fill me with a feeling 

 of majestic awe and wonder, as did the sight of the great Italian gardens. 

 I quote a few of the best-known lines : — 



" Eden, where delicious Paradise, 

 Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, 

 As with a rural mound the chanipain head 

 Of a steep wilderness, whose hairie sides 

 With thicket overgrown, grottesque and wilde. 

 Access deni'd ; and over head up grew 

 Insuperable highth of loftiest shade, 

 Cedar, and Pine, and Firr, and branching Palm 

 A Silvan Scene, and as the ranks ascend 

 VOL. XXXIV. 13 13 



