A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND.* WHILE wars and rumours
of war turned the thought of all to the turmoil of life, our gardens slept in the peaceful winter night which their lovers welcome as the prelude to the " joys of spring." In January the gardens show their first sign of
wakening in the aconite's golden ball, and with the aconite begins again that glorious "procession of the flowers," which most of us, alas ! cannot hope often to see repeated, but which the poets ever like to fancy will still be one of the joys of heaven. The fair Matilda comes to Dante across the flower-strewn pastures of Paradise:-
" A lady all alone, who singing went And culling flower from flower wherewith her way Was all o'er painted."
And no symbols are more expressive of that joy and peace which Adam and Eve so recklessly and so remorsefully cast away. From that day to this a garden has ever been the type of man's life on earth. We dig and water, and sow seeds, we watch and tend, we eat the fruit, and then begins the slow decay of all we gathered and all we enjoyed. Happy those who look forward to another springtide.
In the handsome volume called The History of Gardening
in England we can trace man's character and the growing appreciation of what a garden should be to the race. Miss Amhurst has spared no pains to complete what Mr. Percy Newberry began in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1889. In her bands the subject grew, and much new material was added to the original notes of Mr. Newberry. Although Miss Amhurst does not pretend that her history is that of the gardens of England, many of the most famous ones are mentioned in it as examples which serve to illustrate the varying fashions of succeeding periods. The book covers the period from the beginning of the twelfth century onwards, and fruit and flower gardening divide the honours. Such is the amount of material that the author has got together that more than one of her chapters would make a small volume of itself, and in those on landscape gardening, and on the still more recent develop- ment of Alpine and herbaceous borders, there are many facts and suggestions worthy of remembrance. Perhaps one of the most charming points in the history of gardening is that so many of our present favourites were as dear to our ancestors as they are to us. Periwinkles, pinks, marigolds, and violets gladdened the eyes of those who listened to their praises in the verses of Chaucer and the Roman de la Rose. Not contented with the satisfaction of eyes and ears, flowers were made to play a prominent part in food, and the decoration of dishes. Violets seem to have been specially favoured in this way, but " hawthorn, primroses, and roses shared the same fate," and "hippes" were a favourite ingredient in "dainty dishes."
Our ancestors were more ingenious than ourselves in devising
strange methods of adorning their gardens. " Knottes," apparently a sort of geometrical arrangement of beds, shared the honours with " mounts," arbours, and galleries in Tudor days, while Holland went beyond England in a certain realistic appreciation of the powers of Nature assisted by art, and introduced canals and fish-ponds on a diminutive scale. Probably this formal style of garden decoration encouraged imitation on a smaller scale in gardens of all siz.2s, but the fashion of real cottage-gardens did not become usual till the softening of manners, produced by long periods of peace, developed a desire for beauty among the poorer members of the community. Much as Bacon has done fur the glorification of gardens his ideal garden is not one which would appeal to an artist in the present. day. " The Garden," he says, " is best to be square, encompassed on all four sides with a stately arched hedge. The arches to be upon pillars of carpenter's work of some ten foot high and six foot broad, and the spaces between of the same dimension with the breadth of the arch." Little turrets, with spaces to receive " a cage of birds," were to be raised on a bank, " and over every space between the arches, some other little figure with broad plates of round coloured glass gilt, for the sun to play upon." Perhaps "Merrie England" of those days had more sunshine than we have now. But at least we may be grateful to these square inclosures for preparing the way for the stately yew-hedges that played so distinctive a part in English gardening. How beautiful a background a yew- hedge makes is not always understood, while all that such • A Ilietorg of Gardening in England. By the Hon. Alic:a Amhnrst. 1..nden: Beruard Qn triteh. hedges imply can only be fully appreciated by those who realise that a garden was man's first home, and that God's acre is his last resting-place. An old yew-hedge links us in unbroken chains to those who planted for others and not for themselves,—to those to whom their successors were as real to their apprehension as the people they saw around them. Their fathers had planted for them, and to their children they left the heritage bequeathed to themselves. Everything that suggests the nouveau riche is an anachronism in a beautiful garden.
A garden may be quaint, or it may be formal, or it may be wild and luxuriant as Nature herself, but the most beautiful note of a garden is its continuity. In it should be gathered up the memories of the past and the hopes of the future. Though we die our garden lives on. A house is the embodiment of man's own personality, it was built for him, for his needs and for his capabilities, and others will alter or add for their own necessities. It is an earthly paradise at best appealing to man's material needs. A garden should be the embodiment of the spirit of man handed on from genera- tion to generation. Oar fortunes written in stone crumble at last to dust. Our aspirations buried in the bosom of our mother-earth write themselves so that they who come after may understand and love. The value of old ancestral grounds for those who possess them cannot be reckoned too highly. Fire and water can destroy what man himself spares of an ancient house, but the gardens and all their unspoken associations remain. Memories of these have kept many a man straight, and made many more "worthy scions of a kingly race." So much in modern democracy is neces- sarily new and self-assertive ; we pull down much merely for the sake of asserting our own especial taste ; we build in brick to-day, in stucco to-morrow, and, after all, a wall is only a wall,—a creation of men, and buried with them. Nature survives, for trees and flowers are God's work, and have a touch of the divine gift of "the real."
But to return to the history of gardens. Perhaps the Elizabethan idea of a garden was in some respects the most perfect of all, for a garden should be an " inclosure," an out- of-doors room, the decorations of which should be trees and flowers, and the furniture perhaps seats and arbours. A gallery in this fair room was represented by a terrace, from which the distant country might be viewed. This terrace was no doubt a peaceful survival of the rampart or mount from which archers could shoot and warders keep guard. The history of a nation is written on its face for those who can read such writing. When wars were rife, inclosures, not in themselves formidable, were suggestive of peace and safety. Now that we all court notice and defy criticism we have little objection to the whole world looking over our paling, and sometimes deliberately place our domains so that all who run may read.
To add to the attraction of the book Miss Amhurst has given many delightful illustrations of well known gardens, and to complete this learned treatise there is a bibliography of works on English gardening given at the end of the volume. Its index, too, is most carefully worked out, and to those who desire knowledge and have a guinea to spare and a fair-sized hole in their library-shelf the book will be valuable.
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