Such also was the garden at Belmont, Portia's stately home, in which Lorenzo and Jessica, while waiting for their mistress on that moonlight night "when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they did make no noise," voiced their ravishing duet, "On Such a Night."
Such also was the garden into which Romeo leaped over the high wall to sing before Juliet's window a song that in her opinion was far sweeter than that of the nightingale that nightly sang in the pomegranate-tree by her balcony.
If, on the other hand, we wish to visualize Perdita's garden—that of a simple shepherdess—we must imagine a tiny cottage enclosure gay and bright with blooms of many hues, arranged in simple beds neatly bordered with box or thrift, but where there are no terraces, forthrights, or ornamental vases, urns or fountains. This little cottage garden is the kind that brightened the approach to Anne Hathaway's house at Shottery and Shakespeare's own dwelling at Stratford.
This is a descendant, as we have seen, of the little Garden of Delight, the Pleasance of the Medieval castle. The simple cottage garden is the easier of the two to reproduce to-day. Although it only occupies a small corner in the garden proper, yet all the flowers mentioned by Shakespeare can be grown in it.
In rural England it is not rare to come across old gardens that owed their existence to disciples of Didymus Mountain, Markham, Lawson, and Parkinson—gardens that have been tended for three hundred years and more with loving care, where the blossoms are descendants of "outlandish" importations of Nicholas Leate and Lord Burleigh, and of simple English flowers. These gladden the eyes of their owners to-day as the original flowers gladdened the eyes of those who planted them. Generations of people in the house and generations of flowers in the garden thus flourished and faded side by side while the old stock put forth new blossoms in both house and garden to continue the family traditions of both the human and the floral world.
HERBACEOUS BORDER, NEW PLACE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
A typical garden dating from Shakespearean times was thus described a few years ago in "The Gentleman's Magazine":
"In all England one could, perhaps, find no lovelier garden than that of T——, an old manor-house, sheltered by hill and bounded by the moat, which is the only relic of the former feudal castle. The tiled roof, the gables inlaid with oaken beams, are almost hidden by fragrant roses and jasmine flowers that shine like stars against their darker foliage. A sun-dial stands in the square of lawn before the porch, and the windows to your right open upon a yew-hedged bowling-green. Beyond, the smooth lawn slopes down to a little stream, thick with water-loving reeds and yellow flags; and lime-trees, whose fragrance the breeze wafts to us, sweep the greensward in magnificent curves. If you turn to the left, along yonder grassy path you will find yourself between borders gorgeous with poppies and sweet william and hollyhocks and lilies that frame distances of blue hills and clear sky.
"The kitchen-garden lies through that gate in the wall of mellowed brick—an old-fashioned kitchen-garden, with mingled fruit and vegetables and flowers. There are pear and plum-trees against the wall and strawberry beds next the feathery asparagus and gooseberry bushes hidden by hedges of sweet peas. Another turn will bring you into a labyrinth of yew hedges and so back to the bowling-green, across which the long shadows lie, and the sun-dial which marks the approach of evening. The light is golden on the house and on the tangled borders; the air is fragrant with many scents."