INTRODUCTION 
gay, the noble, and the witty discussed or read the last 
poem, acted quaint masques, or sang to lute or viol pas¬ 
sionate canzone destined for immortality. Beyond the 
marble balustrades flashed the bright sea or dreamed 
the purple mountains, and up and down the steps and 
past the fountains and the statues half hidden in green 
shade swept lords and ladies not less brilliant in color 
than the most splendid of the flowers about them. 
It was in a garden outside the walls of Florence that 
the Boccaccio novelli were related day by day. No 
room, howsoever sumptuous, could be conceived of as 
holding that bright assemblage, could have set free the 
wit and romance of the story-tellers, as did the shady 
slopes and statue-haunted precincts of the great garden 
where they met. In the town were plague, horror, 
hateful death. In the garden a breathing fragrance, 
sweet health, and even merry hearts, or at least careless 
ones. 
As for England, it is difficult to imagine her without 
terraced gardens where the grass is thicker than moss 
and greener than anywhere else on earth, where the 
great trees have flung their deep shadows in a mighty 
circle these many centuries, and where even in winter 
a pale rose will still find courage to bloom. Great 
gardens she has whose very names are history, and 
where the landscape artist has reached his apogee. 
And small gardens hushed within high walls, where 
the wall-flowers spill their musky odor and standard 
