The Shakespeare Garden

by Esther Singleton

"The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess of Bedford, esteemed among the perfectest wits of her time and celebrated by Dr. Donne; and with very great care, excellent contrivance and much cost.

"Because I take the garden I have named to have been in all kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a model to those that meet with such a situation and are above the regards of common expense.

"It lies on the side of a hill, upon which the house stands, but not very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden; the great parlor opens into the middle of a terrace gravel walk that lies even with it, and which may lie, as I remember, about three hundred paces long and broad in proportion; the border set with standard laurels and at large distances, which have the beauty of orange-trees out of flower and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many stone steps, in the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre. This is divided into quarters by gravel walks and adorned with two fountains and eight statues in the several quarters. At the end of a terrace walk are two summer-houses, and the sides of the parterre are ranged with two large cloisters open to the garden, upon arches of stone, and ending with two other summer-houses even with the cloisters, which are paved with stone, and designed for walks of shade, there being none other in the whole parterre. Over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and fenced with balustrades; and the passage into these airy walks is out of the two summer-houses at the end of the first terrace walk. The cloister facing the south is covered with vines and would have been proper for an orange-house, and the other for myrtles or other more common greens, and had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if this piece of gardening had been then in as much vogue as it is now.

"From the middle of this parterre is a descent by many steps flying on each side of a grotto that lies between them, covered with lead and flat, into the lower garden, which is all fruit-trees ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness which is very shady; the walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with figures of shell rock-work, fountains and water-works. If the hill had not ended with the lower garden, and the wall were not bounded by a common way that goes through the park, they might have added a third quarter of all greens; but this want is supplied by a garden on the other side of the house, which is all of that sort, very wild, shady, and adorned with rough rock work and fountains."

To write of Elizabethan gardens without giving Bacon's beautifully worked out theories would be like performing "Hamlet" without the character of Hamlet. Bacon's Essay is too long to quote in its entirety, but the specific instructions are as follows:

"For gardens (speaking of those which are indeed prince-like), 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 sides. And I like well that four acres of ground be assigned to the green, six to the heath, four and a half 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 this 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 carpenter's work, about twelve foot in height, by which you may go in shade into the garden.

"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 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; over the arches let there be an entire hedge of some four foot high, framed also upon carpenter's 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 colored glass, gilt, for the sun to play upon. But this hedge I intend to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but gentle slope, of some six foot, 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, into which the two covert alleys of the green may deliver you. But there must be no alleys with hedges at either end of this great enclosure.

"For the main garden I do not deny there should be some fair alleys, ranged on both sides with fruit-trees, and arbors with seats set in some decent order; but these to be by no means set too thick, but to leave the main garden so as it be not close, but the air open and free. For, as for shade, I would have you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there to walk, if you be disposed, in the heat of the year, or day, but to make account that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the year and in the heat of the summer for the morning and the evening, or overcast days.

"For the side grounds you are to fill them with variety of alleys, private, to give a full shade, some of them wheresoever the sun be. You are to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that when the wind blows sharp you may walk as in a gallery. And these alleys must be, likewise, hedged at both ends to keep out the wind, and these closer alleys must be ever finely graveled and no grass, because of going wet. In many of these alleys, likewise, you are to set fruit-trees of all sorts, as well upon the walls as in ranges. And this would be generally observed that the borders wherein you plant your fruit-trees be fair and large and low (and not steep) and set with fine flowers, but thin and sparingly lest they deceive the trees. At the end of both the side grounds I would have a mount of some pretty height, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast high, to look abroad into the fields.

"For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to be framed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness. Trees, I would have none in it; but some thickets made only of sweetbrier and honeysuckle and some wild vine amongst; and the ground set with violets, strawberries and primroses; for these are sweet and prosper in the shade; and these to be in the heath, here and there, not in any order. I also like little heaps in the nature of molehills (such as are in wild heaths) to be set, some with wild thyme, some with pinks, some with germander that gives a good flower to the eye; some with periwinkle, some with violets, some with strawberries, some with cowslips, some with daisies, some with red roses, some with lilium convallium,[10] some with sweet williams, red, some with bear's foot[11] and the like low flowers, being withal sweet and sightly. Part of which heaps to be with standards of little bushes pricked upon their top and put without. The standards to be roses, juniper, holly, barberries (but here and there, because of the smell of their blossom), red currants, gooseberries, rosemary, bays, sweetbrier and the like. But these standards to be kept with cutting that they grow not out of course.