422 
March 5, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
SOME OLD GARDENS. 
By J. A. Sparvel-Bayly, B.A. 
Gardening was, as we all know, one of the first arts 
acquired by man. Culinary and afterwards medi¬ 
cinal herbs were matters of importance to the head 
of every family, and it soon dawned upon primeval 
man that it would be more convenient to have them 
within reach without the trouble of seeking them at 
random in woods, in meadows, and on mountains as 
they were wanted. When the earth ceased to 
furnish spontaneously all those primitive luxuries, 
and culture became requisite, separate enclosures for 
rearing herbs and fruits grew expedient. Those 
most in use, and those demanding the greatest care 
and the closest attention, probably entered first and 
gradually extended the domestic enclosure. That 
good man, Noah, we are told, planted a vineyard, 
and drank the wine of his own making. Thus were 
acquired kitchen gardens, orchards, and vineyards. 
No doubt the prototype of all these was the garden 
of Eden, but as that Paradise was a good deal 
larger than any we read of afterwards, being en¬ 
closed by the four rivers, Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, 
and Euphrates, and as every tree that was pleasant 
to the sight and good for food grew in it, and as two 
other trees were also found there of which not a 
slip or sucker now remains, it does not enter within 
the scope of the present article. 
After the Fall no living man was permitted to 
enter that garden, and the urgent necessities of our 
first ancestors hardly allowed them time to make 
improvements on their new estate in imitation of it. 
A cavern and a slip of ground such as we now see 
by the side of a common were in all probability the 
earliest mansions and gardens. A well and a crock 
succeeded the Pison and the Euphrates. As settle¬ 
ments increased the orchard and vineyard followed, 
and the earliest princes of tribes possessed just the 
necessaries of a small farmer. The garden of 
Alcinous, in the Odyssey, is the most celebrated in 
the heroic times. Is there an admirer of Homer 
who can read his description without rapture, cr 
who does not form to his imagination a scene of 
delight more picturesque than the landscapes of 
Titian ? Yet what was that boasted paradise 
which— 
. . . . the gods ordain’d 
To grace Alcinous and his happy land. 
Why, divested of harmonious Greek and bewitch¬ 
ing poetry, it was a small orchard and vineyard, 
with some beds of herbs and two springs that 
watered them, enclosed with a quickset hedge. 
The whole compass of this much-vaunted. garden 
comprised just four acres :— 
Four acres was th’ allotted space of ground, 
Fenc’d with a green enclosure all around. 
Its trees were Apples, Figs, Pomegranates, Pears, 
Olives, and Vines. And 
Beds of all various herbs for ever green, 
In beauteous order terminate the scene. 
This garden of Alcinous planted by the poet, was 
enriched by him with the fairy gift of eternal 
summer, and no doubt was an effort of imagination 
surpassing anything Homer had ever seen. As he 
has bestowed on the same happy prince a palace 
with brazen walls and columns of silver, he certainly 
intended that the garden should be proportionately 
magnificent. We are sure, therefore, that as late as 
Homer's time, an enclosure of four acres, compre¬ 
hending orchard, vineyard, and kitchen garden, was 
a stretch of luxury the world of the poet had never 
beheld. Previous to this, however, we have in the 
sacred writings hints of a garden still more 
luxuriously furnished ; we allude to the Song of 
Solomon, part of the scene of which is undoubtedly 
laid in a garden. Flowers and fruits are particularly 
spoken of as the ornament and the produce of it, 
and besides these aromatic plants formed a con¬ 
siderable portion of the pleasure it afforded. The 
Camphor and the Cinnamon tree with frankincense 
and all the chief spices flourished there. Solomon 
tells us in another place that he made him great 
works—gardens and orchards—and planted in them 
trees of every kind. Indeed, we must suppose his 
gardens to have been both amply and curiously 
furnished, seeing the kinds, nature, and properties 
of the vegetable tribes appear to have been a 
favourite study with the royal philosopher, for we 
are told that he wrote of plants from the great Cedar 
of Lebanon down to the Hyssop of the wall. 
Fountains and streams of water so requisite in a 
warm climate appear to have had a share in Solomon’s 
gardening arrangements, and were probably designed 
for ornament as well as use. The hanging gardens 
of Babylon were a still greater wonder, but as they 
are supposed to have been formed on terraces and 
the walls of the palaces of that marvellous city, 
whither soil was conveyed for the purpose—labour 
and life being but lightly esteemed—we may dismiss 
them by presuming that they were what 
sumptuous and expensive gardens have been in all 
ages until this present day, enriched by artistic 
works, statues, balustrades, arbours and the like. 
Altogether unnatural and far from rural, though 
formed with judgment, and well adapted to the 
situation and circumstances. Thus, we find King 
Ahasuerus goes immediately from his banquet of 
wine to walk in the garden of the palace. The 
garden of Cyrus at Sardis, mentioned by Xenophon 
was probably like the hanging gardens at Babylon, 
not merely adjacent to the palace but actually a 
part of the edifice, since several of the royal apart¬ 
ments were absolutely under the garden. It is 
not quite clear what the taste for gardening was 
among the Greeks. The Academus was we know a 
wooded shady place, and the trees appear to have 
been of the Olive species. It was situated beyond 
the limits of the walls and adjacent to the tombs of 
the heroes,, and though we are nowhere told the 
particular manner in which this grove or garden was 
laid out, it may be gathered from Pausanias that it 
was a pretty place highly adapted by art as well as 
by Nature to philosophic reflection and con¬ 
templation. 
We are told by Plutarch that before the time of 
Ivimon the Academus was a rude and uncultivated 
spot, but that it was planted by that general, and had 
water conveyed to it. Whether this water was 
brought merely for use to refresh the trees, or for 
ornament, does not appear. The trees are said to have 
flourished well, until destroyed by Sylla when he be¬ 
sieged Athens. Among the Romans a taste for gar¬ 
dening any otherwise than as a matter of utility 
seems not to have prevailed until a very late period. 
Cato, Varro, and Palladius make no mention of a 
garden as an object of pleasure, but solely with 
respect to its production of herbs and fruits. The 
Lucullan gardens are the first we find mentioned of 
remarkable magnificence, though probably as these 
were so remarkable, they were by no means the first 
beautiful pleasure gardens. Plutarch speaks of them 
as being incredibly expensive and equal to the 
magnificence of kings. They contained artificial 
elevations of ground to a most surprising extent ; 
buildings projected into the sea, and large sheets of 
water were made inland. It is not improbable from 
the description and from the fact of Lucullus having 
spent much time in Asia, where he had an opportunity 
of studying the most splendid constructions of this 
nature, that his gardens were laid out in the Asiatic 
style. We know that he acquired the appellation of 
the Roman Xerxes. Perhaps his gardens bore some 
resemblance in their arrangements and style to the 
Babylonian gardens, and then the name would be 
applicable to the taste as well as to the size and cost 
of his works. 
The Tusculan Villa of Cicero, though often men¬ 
tioned, is not anywhere so described in his works as 
to afford an adequate idea of the style in which his 
grounds or gardens were laid out. There is little to be 
traced in Virgil. Pines were probably a favourite 
ornament, and flowers, especially Roses, were highly 
esteemed. The Paestan Roses were chiefly valued 
for their excellent odour, perfumes having been 
always highly valued in warm climates. There 
appears also to have prevailed among the Romans a 
piece of luxury which is equally prevalent among 
ourselves, namely, the forcing of flowers at seasons 
of the year not suited for their natural bloom ; and 
Roses were then the principal flowers upon which, 
we gather from Martial, these experiments were 
made. Pliny tells us that the place of exercise which 
surrounded his Laurentine villa, used by him as a 
winter retreat, was bounded by a hedge of Box, re¬ 
paired when necessary with Rosemary, that there 
was a Vine walk, and that most of the trees were Fig 
and Mulberry. Of his Tuscan villa the garden forms 
a very considerable part of the description, and in 
that description w'hat beauty is most lauded ? Why, 
exactly that which was the admiration of this 
England of ours about two centuries ago. Box trees 
cut into various shapes, monsters, animals, birds, 
letters, and even the names of owner and artificer. 
Thus we see that in an age when architecture dis¬ 
played all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste, 
when arose Vespasian’s amphitheatre, the Temple 
of Peace, Trajan’s forum, Domitian’s baths, and 
Adrian's villa, the ruins and vestiges of which still 
excite our astonishment and admiration, a Reman 
consul, a Polish emperor’s friend, and a man of taste 
delighted in what the English parvenu of to-day 
would scarcely deign to give a second glance. 
All the circumstances of Pliny’s summer garden 
correspond exactly with those formerly laid out in 
England, on Dutch principles. He tells us of slopes, 
terraces, a wilderness, shrubs methodically trimmed, 
a marDle basin, pipes spouting water, a cascade 
falling into the basin, Bay trees planted alternately 
with Planes, and a straight walk from whence issued 
others parted off by hedges of Box and Apple trees, 
with busts and obelisks placed between every two. 
There wants nothing but the fringe of a pasture to 
make a garden of the time of Trajan, serve as a 
description of one in the reign of our third William. 
In the paintings found at Herculaneum and Pompeii 
are a few traces of gardens. They exhibit small 
square enclosures formed by trellis work and 
espaliers, and decorated with vases, flowers and 
figures, altogether reminding us of the gardens of 
the suburban London of to-day. When the custom 
of making square or oblong gardens enclosed with 
walls was established, to the exclusion of nature and 
prospect, pomp and solitude combined to call for 
something that might enrich and enliven the 
insipid and unanimated’enclosure. 
Fountains, first invented for use, which grandeur 
loves to disguise, received embellishment from costly 
marbles, and at last, to contradict utility, tossed 
their waste of waters into the air in spouting 
columns. Art, in the hands of uncultured man, 
assisted nature, but in the hands of ostentatious 
wealth it became the means of opposing nature, and 
the more it succeeded the more the wealthy of that 
period thought its power was demonstrated. Canals 
measured by the line were introduced into gardens 
in lieu of meandering streams, and terraces were 
raised aloft in opposition to the facile slopes that in 
nature imperceptibly unite the valley to the plain. 
Balustrades defended these precipitate and dangerous 
elevations, and flights of steps rejoined them to the 
flat from which the terrace had been dug. Vases and 
sculptures were added to these unnecessary balconies, 
and statues furnished the lifeless spot with mimic 
representations of the excluded sons of man. Thus 
difficulty and expense were the constituent parts of 
the sumptuous and selfish solitudes termed gardens 
two centuries ago. Every improvement that was then 
made was but a step further from nature. The tricks 
of waterworks to wet the unwary, and parterres 
embroidered in patterns like a lady’s petticoat of the 
period, were but the childish endeavours of fashion 
and novelty to reconcile greatness to what it had 
surfeited on. To crown these displays of falsetaste, 
the shears were freely applied to the lovely wildness 
of form, with which nature has distinguished each 
variety of tree and shrub. The venerable Oak, the 
romantic Beech, the useful Elm, even the aspiring 
circuit of the Lime, the regular round of the Chestnut, 
and the almost moulded Orange tree, were corrected 
and improved by such fantastic admirers of symmetry. 
The compass and square became of far more use in 
plantations than the spade and rake. The measured 
and trim walks imposed an unsatisfactory sameness 
on every royal and noble garden in England. 
Marble seats, arbours and summerhouses terminated 
every vista ; and symetry even where the space was 
too large to permit its being remarked at one view, 
was deemed so essential that the poet Pope 
observed— 
Each alley has a brother, 
And half the garden just reflects the other. 
There was a little of affected modest)' in Pope's 
remark, when he said, that of all his works he was 
most proud of his garden. Still his was a remark¬ 
able effort of art and taste, to impress so much 
variety and scenery on that little spot of five acres, 
at Twickenham. The passing through the gloom, 
from the grotto to the opening day, the retiring and 
again assembling shades, so beautifully described, 
the dusky groves, the larger lawn, and the solemnity 
of the termination at the Cypresses that led to his 
mother's monument were managed, we must believe 
with great judgment: ; and though Lord Peterborough 
assisted him 
To form his quincunx and to rank his vines, 
those could not have been the most pleasing features 
of his little estate. The old garden of the Palace of 
the Luxembourg, built for that graceless deme, Marie 
de Medici, must have possessed a certain charm of 
its own, the festooning of vines from point to poir.t 
forming a distinctive feature. In all other respects, 
its straight paths, grottoes, and avenues dotted with 
figures of nymphs and ogres conformed to what was 
fashionable in other old gardens. 
