274 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
6 junipers, 4 hollies, and 2 perimic box trees.” These 
“ perimetric ” trees had already gone through the neces¬ 
sary clipping and training, to enable them to take their 
place in the trim Dutch garden. Another year flowering 
shrubs are got for the Benchers’ Garden: “ 2 messerius 
at 2s., and 2 lorrestines at 2s.” The Daphne mezereum 
had been a favourite in English gardens from the earliest 
times, and the laurestinus (Viburnum tinus) came from 
South Europe in the sixteenth century. Parkinson, the 
most attractive of all the old gardening authors, has a 
delightfully true description of the “ Laurus Tinus,” with 
its “ many small white sweete-smelling flowers thrusting 
together, . . . the edges whereof have a shew of a wash 
purple or light blush in them ; which for the most part 
fall away without bearing any perfect ripe fruit in our 
countrey: yet sometimes it hath small black berries, as if 
they were good, but are not ” ! Fruit-trees were also to 
be found—peaches, “ nectrons,” cherries, and plums, 
besides figs and mulberries. That the walls were 
covered with climbing roses and jessamine is certain, 
from the oft-recurring cost of nailing them up. “ Nails 
and list for the jessamy wall,” and the needful bits of 
old felt required to fasten them up, was another time 
supplied by “ hatt parings for the jessamines.” 
Thus it is easy, bit by bit, out of the old accounts, 
to piece together the Garden, until the mind’s eye can see 
back into the days of Queen Anne, and take an imaginary 
walk through it on a fine spring evening. The Bencher 
walks out of the large window of the “ green-house ” on 
to the terrace, where the sun-dial points the hour: the 
orange trees, glossy and fresh from their winter quarters, 
stand in stiff array, in the large artistic pots. Down the 
steps, a few stiff beds are bright with Dutch bulbs in 
