"The tower of Babel not yet finished.
"St George in Box; his arm scarce strong enough, but will be in a condition to stick the dragon by next April.
"A green dragon of the same; with a tail of ground-ivy for the present.
"N.B.—Those two are not to be sold separately.
"Edward the Black Prince in Cyprus....
"A Queen Elizabeth in Phyllirea, a little inclining to the green sickness, but of full growth.
"An old maid of honour in wormwood.
"A topping Ben Jonson in Laurel.
"Divers eminent modern poets in bays."
As a matter of fact, what we understand as old-fashioned gardening has never been a fashion at all. When Addison wrote in The Spectator that he would "rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and diffusion of boughs and branches, than when it is cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure," and that he fancied that "an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the most finished parterre," he was declaiming against—not with—the fashion of his day. In truth there is no escape from the fact that in old times, as they are at present, real lovers of plants and of flowers for their own sakes were few indeed. In the time of Elizabeth and thenabouts, however, the gardening spirit seems to have been purer and more wholesome than during the succeeding centuries. John Lyly, for instance, was, in sentiment at least, a genuine "old-fashioned" gardener:—"Heere be faire Roses, sweete Violets, fragrant Primroses, heere wil be Jilly-floures, Carnations, sops in wine, sweet Johns, and what may either please you for sight, or delight you with savour." At that time also was written what is perhaps the greatest or at any rate one of the most important pronouncements on gardening ever written—the essay "Of Gardens," by Lord Bacon. Here, indeed, is the real touch, the genuine gardening spirit: "I do hold it in the Royal Ordering of Gardens, there ought to be Gardens for all the Months in the year, in which, severally, things of Beauty may be then in season;" and again, "because the Breath of Flowers is far Sweeter in the Air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of Musick), than in the Hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that Delight, than to know what be the Flowers and Plants that do best perfume the Air. Roses, Damask and Red, are fast Flowers of their Smells, so that you may walk by a whole Row of them and find nothing of their sweetness; yea, though it be in a morning Dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as they grow, Rosemary little, nor Sweet-Marjoram. That, which above all others, yields the sweetest smell in the air, is the violet, especially the white double Violet, which comes twice a year, about the middle of April, and about Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the Musk Rose, then the Strawberry Leaves dying with a most excellent Cordial Smell. Then the Flower of the Vines; it is a little Dust, like the Dust of a Bent, which grows upon the cluster at the first coming forth. Then Sweet-Briar, then Wall-Flowers, which are very delightful to be set under a Parlour, or lower Chamber Window. Then Pinks, especially the Matted Pink, and Clove Gilly-Flower. Then the Flowers of the Lime-Tree. Then the Honey-Suckles, so they be somewhat afar off.... But those which perfume the Air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being Trodden upon and Crushed, are three: that is Burnet, Wild-Time, and Water-Mints. Therefore you are to set whole Alleys of them, to have the Pleasure when you walk or tread." The essence of "old-fashioned" gardening is here expressed.