CHAPTER IX 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
“ . . . . Retired leisure 
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.” 
Milton. 
“ That is the walk, and this the arbour ; 
That is the garden, this the grove.” 
George Herbert. 
T HE period now to be surveyed falls naturally into three 
divisions. The first, the reign of Charles I. ; the second, 
the Commonwealth ; the third, the Restoration. The develop¬ 
ment of gardening in each of these has its own distinctive 
character. The current of slow progress in horticulture runs 
on smoothly, but garden design does not alter much' until the 
third portion of the time. During the Commonwealth, there 
was a movement towards the improvement of orchards and 
market gardens, and the reign of Charles II. witnessed a great 
revival in gardening in all its branches. The early part is 
merely a continuation of the gardening in the time of James I. ; 
the men whose works have already been quoted were still alive 
—Parkinson, Johnson, and the Tradescants—and they form 
a link with the Elizabethan age. Sir William Temple and 
John Evelyn, whose names are so intimately connected with 
the garden history of the Restoration, in like manner connect 
that period with the brilliant days of gardening at the close 
of the seventeenth century. 
Each succeeding generation of gardeners had a very poor 
opinion of the capabilities of their predecessors, while they 
thought the excellence of their own gardens could hardly be 
surpassed. Holinshed maintained that there never were such 
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