To trace the formal garden to its origin would take us far afield. We should have to go back to the ancient Egyptians, whose symmetrical and magnificent gardens were luxurious in the extreme; to Babylon, whose superb "Hanging Gardens" were among the Seven Wonders of the World; and to the Romans, who are still our teachers in the matter of beautiful gardening. The Roman villas that made Albion beautiful, as the great estates of the nobility and gentry make her beautiful to-day, lacked nothing in the way of ornamental gardens. Doubtless Pliny's garden was repeated again and again in the outposts of the Roman Empire. From these splendid Roman gardens tradition has been handed down.

There never has been a time in the history of England where the cultivation of the garden held pause. There is every reason to believe that the Anglo-Saxons were devoted to flowers. A poem in the "Exeter Book" has the lines:

Of odors sweetest
Such as in summer's tide
Fragrance send forth in places,
Fast in their stations,
Joyously o'er the plains,
Blown plants,
Honey-flowing.

No one could write "blown-plants, honey-flowing" without a deep and sophisticated love of flowers.

Every Anglo-Saxon gentleman had a garth, or garden, for pleasure, and an ort-garth for vegetables. In the garth the best loved flower was the lily, which blossomed beside the rose, sunflower, marigold, gilliflower, violet, periwinkle, honeysuckle, daisy, peony, and bay-tree.

Under the Norman kings, particularly Henry II, when the French and English courts were virtually the same, the citizens of London had gardens, "large, beautiful, and planted with various kinds of trees." Possibly even older scribes wrote accounts of some of these, but the earliest description of an English garden is contained in "De Naturis Rerum" by Alexander Neckan, who lived in the second half of the Twelfth Century. "A garden," he says, "should be adorned on this side with roses, lilies, the marigold, molis and mandrakes; on that side with parsley, cort, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savory, hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, ortulano, and the peony. Let there also be beds enriched with onions, leeks, garlic, melons, and scallions. The garden is also enriched by the cucumber, which creeps on its belly, and by the soporiferous poppy, as well as by the daffodil and the acanthus. Nor let pot-herbs be wanting, if you can help it, such as beets, herb mercury, orache, and the mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to have anise, mustard, white pepper, and wormwood." And then Neckan goes on to the fruit-trees and medicinal plants. The gardener's tools at this time were merely a knife for grafting, an ax, a pruning-hook, and a spade. A hundred years later the gardens of France and England were still about the same. When John de Garlande (an appropriate name for an amateur horticulturist) was studying at the University of Paris (Thirteenth Century) he had a garden, which he described in his "Dictionarus," quaintly speaking of himself in the third person: "In Master John's garden are these plants: sage, parsley, dittany, hyssop, celandine, fennel, pellitory, the rose, the lily, the violet; and at the side (in the hedge), the nettle, the thistle and foxgloves. His garden also contains medicinal herbs, namely, mercury and the mallows, agrimony with nightshade and the marigold." Master John had also a special garden for pot-herbs and "other herbs good for men's bodies," i.e., medicinal herbs, and a fruit garden, or orchard, of cherries, pears, nuts, apples, quinces, figs, plums, and grapes. About the same time Guillaume de Lorris wrote his "Roman de la Rose"; and in this famous work of the Thirteenth Century there is a most beautiful description of the garden of the period. L'Amant (the Lover) while strolling on the banks of a river discovered this enchanting spot, "full long and broad behind high walls." It was the Garden of Delight, or Pleasure, whose wife was Liesse, or Joy; and here they dwelt with the sweetest of companions. L'Amant wandered about until he found a small wicket door in the wall, at which he knocked and gained admittance. When he entered he was charmed. Everything was so beautiful that it seemed to him a spiritual place, better even than Paradise could be. Now, walking down a little path, bordered with mint and fennel, he reached the spot where Delight and his companions were dancing a carol to the song of Joy. L'Amant was invited to join the dance; and after it was finished he made a tour of the garden to see it all. And through his eyes we see it, too.

FIFTEENTH CENTURY GARDEN WITHIN CASTLE WALLS, FRENCH

The Garden of Delight was even and square, "as long as it was large." It contained every known fruit-tree—peaches, plums, cherries, apples, and quinces, as well as figs, pomegranates, dates, almonds, chestnuts, and nutmegs. Tall pines, cypresses, and laurels formed screens and walls of greenery; and many a "pair" of elms, maples, ashes, oaks, aspens, yews, and poplars kept out the sun by their interwoven branches and protected the green grass. And here deer browsed fearlessly and squirrels "in great plenty" were seen leaping from bough to bough. Conduits of water ran through the garden and the moisture made the grass as thick and rich as velvet and "the earth was as soft as a feather bed." And, moreover, the "earth was of such a grace" that it produced plenty of flowers, both winter and summer:

There sprang the violet all new
And fresh periwinkle rich of hue
And flowers yellow, white and red,
Such plenty grew there, never in mead.
Full joy was all the ground and quaint
And powdered as men had it paint
With many a fresh and sundry flower
That casteth up full good savor.