and 'recamera' [' retiring-chamber,' or 'back-chamber'] joining to it; this upon the second storey. Upon the ground storey, a fair gallery, open, upon pillars; and upon the third story likewise, an open gallery upon pillars, to take the prospect and freshness of the garden. At both corners of the farther side, by way of return, let there be two delicate or rich cabinets, daintily' paved, richly hanged,' glazed with crystalline glass, and a rich cupola in the midst, and all other elegancy that may be thought upon. In the upper gallery, too, I wish that there may be, if the place will yield it, some fountains running in divers3 places from the wall, with some fine avoidances.* And thus much for the model of the palace; save that you must have, before you come to the front, three courts—a green court plain, with a wall about it; a second court of the same, but more garnished with little turrets, or rather embellishments, upon the wall; and a third court, to make a square with the front, but not to be built, nor yet enclosed with a naked wall, but enclosed with terraces leaded aloft, and fairly garnished on the three sides, and cloistered on the inside with pillars, and not with arches below. As for offices, let them stand at distance, with some low galleries to pass from them to the palace itself. 1 Daintily. Elegantly. See page 1. 2 Hanged. Hung (with draperies). hanged.-Bacon. 3 Divers. Many. See page 185. 4 Avoidances. Water-courses. The two avoidances or passages of water.'Statute, 8th year of King Henry VII. GOD ESSAY XLVI. OF GARDENS. OD ALMIGHTY first planted a garden, and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which building and palaces are but gross handyworks: and a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility' and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection. I do hold it, in the royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season. For December and January, and the latter part of November, you must take such things as are green all winter; holly, ivy, bays, juniper, cypress-trees, yew, pines, fir-trees, rosemary, lavender; periwinkle, the white, the purple, and the blue; germander, flag, orange-trees, lemon-trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved; and sweet marjoram, warm set. There followeth, for the latter part of January and February, the mezereon tree, which then blossoms; crocus vernus, both the yellow and the grey; primroses, anemones, the early tulip, hyacinthus orientalis, chamaïris, fritellaria. For March, there come violets, especially the single blue, which are the earliest; the early daffodil, the daisy, the almond-tree in blossom, the peach-tree in blossom, the corneliantree in blossom, sweet-briar. In April, follow the double white violet, the wall-flower, the stock-gilliflower, the cowslip, flowerde-luces, and lilies of all natures; rosemary-flowers, the tulip, the double peony, the pale daffodil, the French honeysuckle, the cherry-tree in blossom, the damascene and plum-trees in blossom, the white thorn in leaf, the lilac-tree. In May and June come pinks of all sorts, especially the blush pink; roses of all kinds, 1 Civility. Civilization. 2 Elegancy. 'Wheresoe'er her conquering eagles fled, Arts, learning, and civility were spread.'-Denham. 3 Things of beauty. Beautiful things. 4 Flower-de-luces. 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever!' 2 except the musk, which comes later; honeysuckles, strawberries, bugloss, columbine, the French marigold, flos Africanus, cherrytree in fruit, ribes,' figs in fruit, rasps, vine flowers, lavender in flowers, the sweet satyrian, with the white flower: herba muscaria, lilium convallium, the apple-tree in blossom. In July come gilliflowers of all varieties, musk roses, the lime-tree in blossom, early pears, and plums in fruit, gennitings,3 quodlins.* In August come plums of all sorts in fruit, pears, apricocks, barberries, filberds,' musk melons, monks-hoods, of all colours. In September come grapes, apples, poppies of all colours, peaches, melocotones, nectarines, cornelians,' wardens, quinces. In October and the beginning of November come services," medlars, bullaces, roses cut or removed to come late, hollyoaks," and such like. These particulars are for the climate of London: but my meaning is perceived, that you may have ver perpetuum," as the place affords. And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to 1 Ribes. Currants. Rasps. Raspberries. 'Now will the corinths, now the rasps, supply Delicious draughts.'-Phillips. 3 Gennitings. Jennethings (June-eating; but supposed by some to be a corruption from Janeton, being so called after a Scotch lady of that name). + Quodlins. Codlins. 5 Apricocks. Apricots. 'Go bind thou up yon dangling apricocks, Which, like unruly children, make their sire Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.'-Shakespere. 'Now must all shoots of pears alike be set, Crustinian, Syrian pears, and wardens great.'—May's Virgil. 11 Services. A plant and fruit (Sorbus). 'October is drawn in a garment of yellow and carnation; in his left hand, a basket of services, medlars, and other fruits that ripen late.'-Peacham. 12 Hollyoaks. Hollyhocks. Hollyoaks far exceed poppies for their durableness, and are far more ornamental.'-Mortimer. 13 A perpetual spring. 2 know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and red, are fast' flowers of their smells; so that you may walk by a whole row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness, yea, though it be in a morning's dew. Bays, likewise, yield no smell as they grow, rosemary little, nor sweet marjoram; that which, above all others, yields the sweetest smell in the air, is the violet; especially the white double violet, which comes twice a-year-about the middle of April, and about Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the musk rose; then the strawberry leaves dying, with a most excellent cordial smell; then the flower of the vines-it is a little dust like the dust of a bent, which grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth-then sweetbriar, then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set under a parlour or lower chamber window; then pinks and gilliflowers, especially the matted pink and clove-gilliflowers; then the flowers of the lime-tree; then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Of beanflowers I speak not, because they are field flowers: but those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three, that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-mints; therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread. 4 3 For gardens (speaking of those which are, indeed, princelike, as we have done of buildings), the contents ought not well to be under thirty acres of ground, and to be divided into three parts; a green in the entrance, a heath or desert in the going forth, and the main garden in the midst, besides alleys on both 'Yet all this while in a most fast sleep.'-Shakespere. 2 Yea. Nay: not only this, but more than this. For behold, this self-same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, what clearing of yourselves, yea what indignation, yea what fear, yea what vehement desire, yea what zeal, yea what revenge.'-2 Cor. vii. 11. 3 Bent. 'I am weary; yea my memory is tired.'-Shakespere. Bent-grass. 'His spear a bent both stiff and strong, And well near of two inches long.'-Drayton. June is drawn in a mantle of dark grass green upon a garland of bents, king-cups, and maiden-hair.'-Peacham. 4 Prince-like. Princely. 'The wrongs he did me have nothing prince-like.'Shakespere. sides; and I like well that four acres of ground be assigned to the green, six to the heath, four and four to either' side, and twelve to the main garden. The green hath two pleasures: the one, because nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn; the other, because it will give you a fair alley in the midst, by which you may go in front upon a stately hedge, which is to enclose the garden: but because the alley will be long, and, in great heat of the year, or day, you ought not to buy the shade in the garden by going in the sun through the green, therefore you are, of either side the green, to plant a covert alley, upon carpenters' work, about twelve feet in height, by which you may go in shade into the garden. As for the making of knots, or figures, with divers-coloured earths, that they may lie under the windows of the house on that side on which the garden stands, they be but toys: you may see as good sights many times in tarts. The garden is best to be square, encompassed on all the four sides with a stately arched hedge; the arches to be upon pillars of carpenters' work, of some ten feet high, and six feet broad, and the spaces between of the same dimensions with the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let there be an entire hedge of some four feet high, framed also upon carpenters' work; and upon the upper hedge, over every arch, a little turret, with a belly enough to receive a cage of birds: 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 but this hedge I intend to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but gently slope, of some six feet, set all with flowers. Also, I understand that this square of the garden should not be the whole breadth of the ground, but to leave on either side ground enough for diversity of side alleys, unto which the two cover t Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake, That to the fringed banks, with myrtle crown'd, Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.'-Milton. |