Garden-Craft Old and New Part 5

In the last chapter I observed that in dealing with our second point--the ornamental treatment that is fit for a garden--we should be brought into contact with the good and bad points of both the old and new systems of gardening. Hence the following discursus upon the historic English garden, which will, however, be as short as it can well be made, not only because the writer has no desire to wander on a far errand when his interest lies near home, but also because an essay, such as this, is ever bound to be an inconclusive affair; and 'twere a pity to lay a heavy burden upon a light horse!

At the outset of this section of our enquiry it is well to realise that there is little known about the garden of earlier date than the middle of the sixteenth century. Our knowledge of the mediaeval garden is only to be acquired piecemeal, out of casual references in old chronicles, and stray pictures in illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, and in each case allowance must be made for the fluent fancy of the artist. Moreover, early notices of gardens deal mostly with the orchard, or the vegetable or herb garden, where flowers grown for ornament occur in the borders of the ground.

It is natural to ascribe the first rudiments of horticultural science in this country to the Romans; and with the cla.s.sic pastorals, or Pliny the Younger's Letter to Apollinaris before us, in which an elaborate garden is minutely and enthusiastically described, we need no further a.s.surance of the fitness of the Roman to impart skilled knowledge in all branches of the science.

Loudon, in his n.o.ble "Arboretum et fruticetum Britannic.u.m," enters at large into the question of what trees and shrubs are indigenous to Britain, and gives the probable dates of the introduction of such as are not native to this country. According to Whitaker, whose authority Loudon adopts, it would appear that the Romans brought us the plane, the box, the elm, the poplar, and the chestnut. (The lime, he adds, was not generally planted here till after the time of Le Notre: it was used extensively in avenues planted here in the reign of Charles the Second.) Of fruit trees, the Roman gave us the pear, the fig, the damson, cherry, peach, apricot, and quince. The aboriginal trees known to our first ancestors are the birch, alder, oak, wild or Scotch pine, mountain-ash or rowan-tree, the juniper, elder, sweet-gale, dog-rose, heath, St John's wort, and the mistletoe.

Authorities agree in ascribing the introduction of many other plants, fruit trees, and trees of ornament or curiosity now common throughout England, to the monks. And the extent of our indebtedness to the monks in this matter may be gathered from the fact that monasteries abounded here in early times; and the religious orders have in all times been enthusiastic gardeners. Further be it remembered, many of the inmates of our monasteries were either foreigners or persons who had been educated in Italy or France, who would be well able to keep this country supplied with specimens and with reminiscences of the styles of foreign gardens up to date.

The most valuable authority on the subject of early English gardens is Alexander Necham, Abbot of Cirencester (1157-1217). His references are in the shape of notes from a commonplace-book ent.i.tled "Of the Nature of Things," and he writes thus: "Here the gardens should be adorned with roses and lilies, the turnsole (heliotrope), violets and mandrake; there you should have parsley, cost, fennel, southern-wood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuces, garden-cress, and peonies.... A n.o.ble garden will give thee also medlars, quinces, warden-trees, peaches, pears of St Riole, pomegranates, lemons, oranges, almonds, dates, which are the fruits of palms, figs, &c."[15] Here, in truth, is a delightful medley of the useful and the beautiful, just like life! Yet the very use of the term "n.o.ble," as applied to a garden, implies that even the thirteenth-century Englishman had a standard of excellence to stir ambition. Other garden flowers mentioned in Alexander's observations are the sunflower, the iris and narcissus.

[Footnote 15: See "The Praise of Gardens."]

The garden described by Necham bespeaks an amount of taste in the arrangement of the herbs, plants, and fruit-trees, but in the main it corresponds with our kitchen-garden. The next English writer upon gardens in point of date is Johannes de Garlandia, an English resident in France; but here is a description of the writer's garden at Paris.

The ground here described consists of shrubbery, wood, grove, and garden, and from the account given it is inferred that both in matters of taste and in the horticultural and floral products of the garden, France had advanced farther than England in garden-craft in the fourteenth century, which is the date of the book.

In Mr Hudson Turner's "Observations on the State of Horticulture in England"[16] in olden times he gives notices of the early dates in which the rose was under cultivation. In the thirteenth century King John sends a wreath of roses to his lady-love. Chronicles inform us that roses and lilies were among the plants bought for the Royal Garden at Westminster in 1276; and the annual rendering of a rose is one of the commonest species of quit-rent in ancient conveyances, like the "pepper-corn" of later times. The extent to which the culture of the rose was carried is inferred from the number of sorts mentioned in old books, which include the red, the sweet-musk, double and single, the damask, the velvet, the double-double Provence rose, and the double and single white rose. And the demand for roses seems to have been so great in old days that bushels of them frequently served as the payment of va.s.sals to their lords, both in France and England. England has good reason to remember the distinction between the red and the white rose.

[Footnote 16: "Archaeological Journal," vol. v. p. 295.]

Of all the flowers known to our ancestors, the gilly-flower was perhaps the most common.

"The fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations and streak'd gilly flower."

_Winter's Tale._

"Their use," says a quaint writer, "is much in ornament, and comforting the spirites by the sence of smelling." The variety of this flower, that was best known in early times, was the wall gilly-flower, or bee-flower.

Another flower of common growth in mediaeval gardens and orchards is the periwinkle.

"There sprang the violet all newe, And fresh periwinkle, rich of hewe, And flowers yellow, white and rede, Such plenty grew there nor in the mede."

It is not considered probable that much art was expended in the laying out of gardens before the fifteenth century; but I give a list of illuminated MSS. in the Library of the British Museum, where may be found ill.u.s.trations of gardens, and which I take from Messrs Birch and Jenner's valuable Dictionary of Princ.i.p.al Subjects in the British Museum[17] under the head of Garden.

[Footnote 17: "Early Drawings and Illuminations." Birch and Jenner.

(Bagster, 1879, p. 134.)

"Gardens.

19 D. i. ff. I. etc.

20 A. xvii. f. 7b.

20 B. ii. f. 57.

14 803 f. 63.

18 851 f. 182.

18 852 f. 3. b.

26667 f. i.

Harl. 4425. f. 12. b.

Kings 7. f. 57.

6 E. ix. f. 15. b.

14 E. vi. f. 146.

15 E. iii. f. 122.

15 E. vi. f. 146.

16 G. v. f. 5.

17 F. i. f. 149 _b_.

19 A. vi. f. 2. 109.

19 C. vii. f. i.

20 C. v. ff. 7. _etc._ Eg. 2022. f. 36. _b_.

Harl. 4425. f. 160 _b_.

19720.

19 A. vi. f. 109."]

There is also a typical example of a fourteenth-century garden in the Romaunt d'Alexandre (Bodleian Library). Here the flower garden or lawn is separated by a wooden paling from the orchard, where a man is busy pruning. An old painting at Hampton Court, of the early part of the sixteenth century, gives pretty much the same cla.s.s of treatment, but here the paling is decorated with a chevron of white and red colour.

To judge from old drawings, our forefathers seem to have been always partial to the greensward and trees, which is the landscape garden in the "egg"! A good extent of gra.s.s is always provided. Formal flower-beds do not often occur, and, where shown, they are sometimes surrounded by a low wattled fence--a protection against rabbits, probably. Seats and banks of chamomile are not unusual. A bank of earth seems to have been thrown up against the enclosing wall; the front of the bank is then faced with a low part.i.tion of brick or stone, and the mould, brought to an even surface, is planted in various ways. Numerous ill.u.s.trations of the fifteenth century give a bowling-green and b.u.t.ts for archery. About this date it is a.s.sumed the style of English gardening was affected by French and Flemish methods, which our connection with Burgundy at that time would bring about. To this period is also ascribed the introduction of the "mount" in England, although one would almost say that it is but a survival of the Celtic "barrow." It is a feature that came, however, into very common use, and is thus recommended by Bacon: "I wish also, in the very middle, a fair Mount, with three Ascents and Alleys, enough for four to walk abreast, which I would have to be perfect circles, without any Bulwarks or Imbossments, and the whole Mount to be thirty foot high, and some fine Banqueting House with some chimneys neatly cast, and without too much Gla.s.s."

The "mount" is said to have been originally contrived to allow persons in the orchard to look over the enclosing wall, and would serve not only as a place from which to enjoy a pretty view, but as a point of outlook in case of attack. Moreover, when situated in a park where the deer grazed, the unscrupulous sportsman might from thence shoot a buck. In early days the mounts were constructed of wood or of stone, and were curiously adorned within and without. Later on they resumed the old barrow shape, and were made of earth, and utilized for the culture of fruit trees. Lawson, an old writer of the sixteenth century, describes them as placed in divers corners of the orchard, their ascent being made by "stares of precious workmans.h.i.+p." When of wood, the mount was often elaborately painted.

An account of works done at Hampton Court in the time of Henry VIII., mentions certain expenses incurred for "anticke" works; and referring to Bailey's Dictionary, published early in the last century, the word "antick," as applied to curiously-shaped trees, still survives, and is explained as "odd figures or shapes of men, birds, beasts, &c., cut out." From the above references, and others of like nature, we know that the topiary art ("opus topiarum"), which dealt in quaintly-shaped trees and shrubs, was in full practice here throughout the latter half of the middle ages. Samuel Hartlib, in a book published in 1659, writes thus: "About fifty years ago Ingenuities first began to flourish in England."

Lawson, writing in a jocose vein, tells how the lesser wood might be framed by the gardener "to the shape of men armed in the field ready to give battell; or swift-running greyhounds, or of well-scented and true-running hounds to chase the deere or hunt the hare"; adding as a recommendation that "this kinde of hunting shall not waste your corne, nor much your coyne!"

I find that John Leland in his Itinerary, 1540, further confirms the use of highly-decorated mounts: as at Wressel Castle, Yorks.h.i.+re, he tells of the gardens with the mote, and the orchards as exceeding fair; "and yn the orchardes were mounts writhen about with degrees, like the turnings in c.o.kil sh.e.l.les, to come to the top without payne." There is still to be seen, or according to Murray's Guide, 1876, was then to be seen, at Wotton, in Surrey, an artificial mount cut into terraces, which is a relic of Evelyn's work.

The general shape of an old-fas.h.i.+oned garden is a perfect square, which we take to be reminiscent of the square patch of ground which, in early days, was part.i.tioned off for the use of the family, and walled to exclude cattle, or to define the property. It also repeats the quadrangular court of big Tudor houses. We may also a.s.sume that the shape would commend itself to the taste of the Renascence School of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, as being that of cla.s.sic times; for the antique garden was fas.h.i.+oned in a square with enclosures of trellis-work, espaliers, and clipt box hedges, regularly ornamented with vases, fountains, and statuary.

The square shape was common to the French and Italian gardens also. Old views of Du Cerceau, an architect of the time of Charles IX. and Henry III., show a square in one part of the grounds and a circular labyrinth in another: scarcely a plot but has this arrangement. The point to note, however, is, that while the English garden might take the same general outline as the foreign, it had its own peculiarities; and although each country develops the fantastic ornament common to the stiff garden of the period in its own way, things are not carried to the same pitch of extravagant fancy in England as in France, Holland, or Italy.

Upon a general review of the subject of ornamental gardens, English and foreign, we arrive at the conclusion that the type of garden produced by any country is a question of soil and physical features, and a question of race. The character of the scenery of a country, the section of the land generally, no less than the taste of the people who dwell in it, prescribes the style of the type of garden. The hand of Nature directs the hand of Art.

Thus, in a hilly country like Italy, Nature herself prompts the division of the garden-s.p.a.ces into wide terraces, while Art, on her side, provides that the terraces shall be well-proportioned as to width and height, and suitably defined by masonry walls having bal.u.s.traded fronts, flights of steps, arcades, temples, vases, statues, &c.

Lady Mary Montagu's description of the _Giardino Jiusti_ is a case in point: she depicts, as far as words can, how admirably it complies with the conditions of the scenery. The palace lies at the foot of a mountain "near three miles high, covered with a wood of orange, lemon, citron, and pomegranate trees, which is all cut up into walks, and divided into terraces that you may go into a separate garden from every floor of the house, diversified with fountains, cascades, and statues, and joined by easy marble staircases, which lead from one to another." It is a hundred years since this description was written, but the place is little altered to this day: "Who will now take the pains to climb its steep paths, will find the same charm in the aged cypresses, the oddly clipped ilexes and boxes, the stiff terraces and narrow, and now overgrown, beds."[18]

[Footnote 18: "The Garden."--WALTHER HOWE.]

In France, where estates are larger, and the surface of the country more even and regular, the ornamental grounds, while following the Italian in certain particulars, are of wider range on the flat, and they attain picturesqueness upon lines of their own. The taste of the people, conveniently answering to the conditions of the country, runs upon long avenues and s.p.a.cious grounds, divided by ma.s.sive trellises into a series of ornamental sections--_Bocages_, _Cabinets de Verdure_, &c., which by their form and name, flatter the Arcadian sentiment of a race much given to idealisation. "I am making winding alleys all round my park, which will be of great beauty," writes Madame de Sevigne, in 1671. "As to my labyrinth, it is neat, it has green plots, and the palisades are breast-high; it is a lovable spot."

The French have parks, says the travelled Heutzner, but nothing is more different, both in compa.s.s and direction, than those common to England.

In France they invented the parks as fit surroundings to the fine palaces built by Mansard and Le Notre, and the owners of these stately chateaux gratified their taste for Nature in an afternoon promenade on a broad stone terrace, gazing over a carved bal.u.s.trade at a world made truly artificial to suit the period. The style of Le Notre is, in fact, based upon the theory that Nature shall contribute a bare s.p.a.ce upon which man shall lay out a garden of symmetrical character, and trees, shrubs, and flowers are regarded as so much raw material, out of which Art shall carve her effects.

Indeed, the desire for symmetry is carried to such extravagant lengths that the largest parks become only a series of square or oblong enclosures, regularly planted walks, bounded by chestnuts or limes; while the gardens are equally cut up into lines of trellises and palisades. In describing the Paris gardens Horace Walpole says, "they form light corridors and transpicuous arbours, through which the sunbeams play and checker the shade, set off the statues, vases, and flowers, that marry with their gaudy hotels, and suit the gallant and idle society who paint the walks between their parterres, and realise the fantastic scenes of Watteau and Durfe!" In another place he says that "many French groves seem green chests set upon poles. In the garden of Marshall de Biron, at Paris, consisting of fourteen acres, every walk is b.u.t.ton-holed on each side by lines of flower-pots, which succeed in their seasons. When I saw it there were nine thousand pots of asters or la Reine Marguerite."

In Holland, which Butler sarcastically describes as

"A land that rides at anchor, and is moor'd, In which they do not live, but go aboard"--

the conditions are not favourable to gardening. Man is here indebted to Nature, in the first place, for next to nothing: Air, Earth, and Water are, as it were, under his control. The trees grow, the rivers run, as they are directed; and the very air is made to pay toll by means of the windmills.

To begin with, Holland has a meagre list of indigenous trees and shrubs, and scarcely an indigenous ligneous flora. There is little wood in the country, for the heavy winds are calculated to destroy high-growing trees, and the roots cannot penetrate into the ground to any depth, without coming to water. The land is flat, and although artificial mountains of granite brought from Norway and Sweden have been erected as barriers against the sea, there is scarcely a stone to be found except in the Island of Urk.