But to return to Brompton: ’Tis not to be imagin’d what a surprizing scene, such a spacious salone, tapistried with the natural verdure of the glittering foliage, present the spectator, and recompenses the toil of the ingenious planter; when after a little patience, he finds the slender plants, set but at five or six foot distance, (nor much more in height, well prun’d and dress’d) ascend to an altitude sufficient to shade and defend his paradisian treasure without excluding the milder gleams of the glorious and radiant planet, with his cherishing influence, and kindly warmth, to all within the inclosure, refreshed with the cooling and early dew, pregnant with the sweet exhalations which the indulgent mother and teeming earth sends up, to nourish and maintain her numerous and tender off-spring.
But after all, let us not dwell here too long, whilst the inferences to be derived from those tempting and temporary objects, prompt us to raise our contemplations a little on objects yet more worthy our noblest speculations, and all our pains and curiosity, representing that happy state above, namely, the cœlestial paradise: Let us, I say, suspend our admiration a while, of these terrestrial gayeties, which are of so short continuance, and raise our thoughts from being too deeply immers’d and rooted in them, aspiring after those supernal, more lasting and glorious abodes, namely, a paradise; not like this of ours (with so much pains and curiosity) made with hands, but eternal in the heavens; where all the trees are Trees of Life; the flowers all amaranths; all the plants perennial, ever verdant, ever pregnant; and where those who desire knowledge, may fully satiate themselves; taste freely of the fruit of that tree, which cost the first gardiner and posterity so dear; and where the most voluptuous inclinations to the allurements of the senses, may take, and eat, and still be innocent; no forbidden fruit; no serpent to deceive; none to be deceived.
Hail, O hail then, and welcome, you bless’d elyziums, where a new state of things expects us; where all the pompous and charming delights that detain us here a while, shall be changed into real and substantial fruitions, eternal springs, and pleasure intellectual, becoming the dignity of our nature!
I beg no pardon for the application, but deplore my no better use of it, and that whilst I am thus upon the wing, I must now descend so soon again.
Of all the foresters, this preserves it self best from the bruttings of deer, and therefore to be kindly entertain’d in parks: But the reason why with us, we rarely find them ample and spreading, is, that our husbandman suffers too large and grown a lop, before he cuts them off, which leaves such ghastly wounds, as often proves exitial to the tree, or causes it to grow deform’d and hollow, and of little worth but for the fire; whereas, were they oftener taken off, when the lops were younger, though they did not furnish so great wood, yet the continuance and flourishing of the tree, would more than recompence it. For this cause,
3. They very frequently plant a clump of these trees before the entries of most of the great towns in Germany, to which they apply timber-frames for convenience, and the people to sit and solace in. Scamozzi the architect, says, that in his time he found one whose branches extended seventy foot in breadth; this was at Vuimfen near the Necker, belonging to the Duke of Wirtemberg: But that which I find planted before the gates of Strasburgh, is a platanus, and a lime-tree growing hard by one another, in which is erected a Pergolo eight foot from the ground, of fifty foot wide, having ten arches of twelve foot height, all shaded with their foliage; and there is besides this, an over-grown oak, which has an arbour in it of sixty foot diameter: Hear we Rapinus describe the use of the horn-beam for these and other elegancies.
In walks the horn-beam stands, or in a maze
Through thousand self-entangling labyrinths strays:
So clasp the branches lopp’d on either side,
As though an alley did two walls divide:
This beauty found, order did next adorn
The boughs into a thousand figures shorn,
Which pleasing objects weariness betray’d,
Your feet into a wilderness convey’d.
Nor better leaf on twining arbor spread,
Against the scorching sun to shield your head.[86:1]
Evelyn, Rapin.
In tractus longos facilis tibi carpinus ibit,
Mille per errores, indeprehensosque recessus,
Et molles tendens secto ceu pariete ramos,
Præbebit viridem diverso è margine scenam.
Primus honos illi quondam, post additus ordo est,
Attonsæque comæ, & formis quæsita voluptas
Innumeris, furtoque viæ, obliquoque recessu:
In tractus acta est longos & opaca vireta.
Quinetiam egregiæ tendens umbracula frondis
Temperat ardentes ramis ingentibus æstus.