bounds can die or grow old, and several ancient sages are believed to have retired to dwell among their 
bowers ; but for centuries mankind have lost the way, and nq traveller has ever succeeded in finding it, 
though the Chinese poets celebrate many who made the attempt; but few of them returned to their homes, 
and those who did so, could rest no more. There is a wild tradition among the Arabs concerning the gar- 
dens of the desert, which are believed to have been formed by an ancient tyrannical king at enormous ex- 
pense and labour. They say that he had conquered all the nations of the East, and boasted he would con- 
quer the sands also ; but having at length completed his design, of which the Arabic legend retains a dazz- 
ling description, the gardens suddenly became invisible in the pomp of their richest bloom, and neither the 
monarch nor any of his successors ever again beheld them ; but bewildered travellers have caught glimpses 
of them at times through the falling twilight, and given splendid though vague accounts of their gorgeous 
trees and flowers. The Hindoos believe that the widow who consumes herself with the corpse of her hus- 
band will expiate the sins committed by him and all her relations, and dwell with them in a magnificent gar- 
den for ten thousand lacs of years. In the legends of the north gardens have no place; the Scandinavian 
and Icelandic traditions speak only of halls and forests; and the old superstitions of Russia bear the same 
character. In those lands of pines and snow, gardens must have been unknown in earlier times, but civili- 
zation has brought them in its train. The Norwegian cottager now cultivates a garden of his own, fenced 
round with firs, furnished with peas and turnips ; and if the owner be tasteful, perhaps a bed of daffodils, or 
yellow crowsfoot, varied with the foxglove and a rose bush or two; for it is remarkable that some variety of 
the rose is to be found in almost every climate south of Greenland. The Royal Garden at Stockholm con- 
tains one of the best collections of plants now in Europe ; and it is well known that more pine-apples are 
produced in the neighbourhood of Petersburg, in spite of its nine months’ winter, than in that of any other 
capital in Christendom. 
About the close of the seventeenth century, a mode of gardening was invented by Le Notre inUFrance, 
which was soon adopted over all Europe, and of which the gardens of Versailles present the best specimen. 
The chief characteristic of Le Notre’s style was excessive regularity — trees were cut into fantastic shapes, 
beds were squared, walks and hedges were made straight by rule and line : if water was introduced, it was as 
a formal jet-d’eau, or a pond resembling a canal; where the ground sloped, it was laid out in a succession of 
terraces ; and at every available point there was stuck the figure of a heathen god or goddess. While this 
stiff style ran its course on the continent, it was ridiculed by Addison in England, and gave place to a modi- 
fied system of gardening, in which artificial wildernesses were interspersed with all sorts of oddities. A wri- 
ter on gardens of this new style of art thus describes their appearance: — ‘What in nature is dispersed over 
thousands of miles, was huddled together on a small spot of a few acres square ; urns, tombs ; Chinese, 
Turkish, and Hindoo temples; bridges which could not be passed without risk; damp grottos, moist walks, 
noisome pools which were meant to represent lakes; houses, huts, castles, convents, hermitages, ruins, de- 
caying trees, heaps of stones — a pattern-card of everything strange, from all nations under heaven, was ex- 
hibited in such a garden. Stables took the place of palaces, kennels of Gothic temples, and this was called 
natural.’ Pope, at Twickenham, had a garden of this character, which was adopted as a model. 
Perhaps the natural taste for gardening was never more strikingly exemplified than in the case ofSaabye, 
a Danish missionary, who, with his wife, resided many years on the coast of Greenland. The missionary’s 
house was surrounded by high rocks, which partially sheltered it from the fury of the northern storms and 
sea; but the mould on the stony soil in its vicinity was not deep enough for any root, and Saabye and his 
wife were obliged to transport the requisite additions from a considerable distance in a tub, having no other 
utensil suitable for the service. Thus the first garden in Greenland was formed ; and the missionary planted 
it after the manner of cottage gardens in Denmark, with seeds sent him by the ship that came annually 
at midsummer. The results of his gardening experience in the polar regions are curious. It was not till 
the beginning of July that the frost of the long winter was sufficiently thawed to commence operations; 
there was then a summer of two months’ duration and continual day, the vegetation being proportionally 
rapid; cabbages flourished remarkably well, turnips grew to the size of a teacup, lost their bitter taste, and 
acquired an agreeable sweetness; but Saabye’s carrots were never larger than the stalk of a tobacco pipe. 
Celery and broad beans would not grow at all ; peas ran into bloom but did not set : and the missionary 
seems to have regarded these as the only flowers of his garden. Yet in that dreary and remote solitude, sur- 
rounded by the natives of the north, whose language they were years in acquiring., the devoted exiles found 
pleasant occupation and familiar memories of their far old home in the spot so hardly redeemed from steri- 
lity, and yielding at the best such scanty returns for their labour. Nor can the subject be wound up without 
recalling the observations of Lord Bacon in his essay on gardening: — ‘God Almighty first planted a garden; 
and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without 
which buildings and palaces are but gross handiwork; and a man shall ever see that when ages grow to civi- 
lity and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater 
perfection.’ Yes, gardens are clearly significant of elegancy. He cannot be a bad man who loves either 
flowers or gardens. 
