128 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
Stow, in his “ Survey of London,” says that “ against 
the feast of Christmas, every man’s house, as also 
their parish churches, were decked with holme, ivy, 
bayers, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded 
to be green.” 
And so, too, in Herbert’s “ Country Parson,” 1675, 
p. 56, the author tells us: “ Our parson takes 
order that the church be swept and kept clean, 
without dust or cobwebs, and at great festivals 
strawed and stuck with boughs, and perfumed with 
incense.” 
It must be remembered in this connection that the 
decoration of our parish churches in medieval and 
later times was not carried on with the reckless 
extravagance of the modern decorator, whose one 
ambition seems to be to destroy as much of the 
fabric of the church as possible, or to cramp Nature’s 
grace and beauty into inartistic, graceless flower- 
stands. The earlier and better way was that of 
strewing cut sprays of evergreen as a warm and 
living carpet, and placing bushes of holly in available 
corners. These early customs gradually drifted down 
into the little holly sprays our great-grandfathers 
decked the corners of their “ pews ” with, sticking 
them upright, as the cook still does the spray in the 
Christmas pudding. 
Shakespeare mentions the holly but once, and 
then in an outburst of rollicking, jubilant song, sung 
in the holly glades of the beloved Arden, where to 
this day it freely grows. This breezy song of Amiens 
seems to bid defiance to all the bitterness of man¬ 
kind, the hollowness of society, its shams and 
mockeries, and prefers the unfettered life “ under 
the greenwood tree,” with a “ Heigho!” to the 
never downcast holly (As You Like It, II. vii. 180). 
Gerard does not seem to consider the holly much 
of an ornament, though English folk-song had sung 
