and they must have been also "pretty retiring places for conference" for friends in council. The whole fashion of the Elizabethan garden has passed away, and will probably never be revived; but before we condemn it as a ridiculous fashion, unworthy of the science of gardening, we may remember that it held its ground in England for nearly two hundred years, and that during that time the gardens of England and the flowers they bore won not the cold admiration, but the warm affection of the greatest names in English history, the affection of such a queen as Elizabeth,[349:1] of such a grave and wise philosopher as Bacon, of such a grand hero as Raleigh, of such poets as Spenser and Shakespeare.
FOOTNOTES:
[343:1] These beds (as we should now call them) were called "tables" or "plots"—
"Mark out the tables, ichon by hem selve
Sixe foote in brede, and xii in length is beste
To clense and make on evey side honest."
Palladius on Husbandrie, i. 116.
"Note this generally that all plots are square."—Lawson's New Orchard, p. 60.
[344:1] For an account of Levens, with a plate of the Topiarian garden, see "Archæological Journal," vol. xxvi.
[347:1] Including shrubs—
"'Tis another's lot
To light upon some gard'ner's curious knot,
Where she upon her breast (love's sweet repose),
Doth bring the Queen of flowers, the English Rose."