THE LONG BORDERS
"The first step was to lay out the long, narrow strip of ground by the side of the wall parallel with Chapel Lane as a border for summer and autumn flowers—hollyhocks, canterbury-bells, lupins, larkspurs, crown imperials, lilies, and so on. As a background for these—and also to hide the ugly, cast-iron railings that disfigure the top of the wall—there was planted a row of yew trees. This border of some 300 feet long has been treated in the formal fashion of the olden time ... being divided into compartments, separated by 'buttresses' supporting 'pillars' or 'columns' surmounted by 'balls.'
"On the path side the beds are edged with box—'dwarfe boxe, of excellent use to border up a knott or long beds in a garden.'
"The beds ranging with these, on the other side of the gravel walk, are at present entirely occupied with spring flowers—largely gifts, like the others, from contributors all over the kingdom. In the summer they will be furnished with the low-growing flowers known to the gardeners of the early years of James the First's reign—carnations, 'our streaked gillyvors,' pansies, stocks, fox-gloves, sweet-williams, snapdragons, and so on....
THE WILD BANK OF HEATH
"At the eastern or lower end of the garden the aim has been to carry out, so far as the space available admits, Bacon's idea, expressed in his famous essay 'Of Gardens,' of a 'heath or desert, in the going forth, framed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness.' With this object, there has been thrown up an irregular bank, whereon have already been planted most of the flowers and herbs mentioned by Shakespeare in his writings; and where, it is hoped, every species known in his time will eventually find a place.
"In doing this the great natural philosopher's precepts have been faithfully followed, modified by hints derived from the greater poet. 'Some thickets,' says Bacon, 'I would have made only in sweetbriar (eglantine) and honeysuckle (woodbine); and the ground set with violets and primroses (oxlips); for these be sweet and prosper in the shade.' This has been done: and with wild thyme—many square yards of it—added, and also musk-roses—a few procured with great difficulty, so unaccountably neglected are they in our too-pretentious modern gardens—they will form here, in effect, Titania's Bower—
"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers, with dances and delight.
"Bacon, of course, often witnessed the performances of Shakespeare's plays at Court, as well as in the public theaters; and reminiscent echoes of that beautiful passage were probably ringing in his ears when he penned the sentences quoted above.
"With passages in plays other than 'The Dream,' Bacon has also parallels. His essay happens to have been published exactly twelve months after the production of 'A Winter's Tale' at Court, and in his somewhat arid enumeration therein of the seasonal succession of flowering plants, we seem to hear echoes of those exquisite verses in Perdita's speeches—the most beautiful expression of the intimate love of flowers in all literature—