SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
5 
but introduced new methods from France, Italy, 
and Holland. The design was essentially architec¬ 
tural ; he who designed the house designed the 
garden. The terraced walk has been mentioned; 
flights of steps led from it to sanded walks called 
forthrights, while these broader paths were inter¬ 
sected by others, parallel to the terrace, and the 
interstices filled up with grass plots, mazes, or 
knotted beds. The design carried out in these latter 
corresponded to the pierced pattern in the house 
parapet, and was edged with box, thrift, or tile. 
The general arrangement of a house of the size of 
Shakespeare’s would be similar to that so care¬ 
fully described in the “Maison Rustique, or Countrie 
Farme, of Charles Stevens and John Leebault, 
Doctors of Physicke, London, 1600.” So exactly does 
this volume describe the manner of forming such a 
garden as Shakespeare’s father may have had in 
Henley Street, or the poet himself at New Place, 
that we may be forgiven for reproducing it in its 
entirety. After describing the garden for vegetables 
he proceeds : 
“The Garden of Pleasure 
shall be set about and compassed in with arbours made 
of jesamin, rosemarie, boxe, juniper, cypress-trees, 
savin, cedars, rose-trees, and other dainties first 
planted and pruned according as the nature of every 
one doth require, but after brought into some forme 
and order with willow or juniper poles, such as may 
serve for the making of arbours. The waies and 
alleyes must be covered and sowen with fine sand 
well bet or with the powder of the sawing of marble 
or else paved handsomely with good pit stone. 
“This garden by means of a large path of the 
breadth of sixe feet, shall be divided into two equal 
parts ; the one shall containe the herbes and flowers 
