Old Country Life

by S. Baring-Gould

And half the garden just reflects the other."

When Pamela endured her persecution she was allowed to walk in the garden, but this was so walled round that escape from it was impossible. There were seats in it on which she might repose in the sun. There was a fish-pond in which she might angle, but there was only one garden-door by which egress could be obtained, and that was locked. It was the same with Clarissa Harlowe. The garden of her father's house was walled round.

The pleached alleys were constructed of lime or beech trees platted and trimmed so as to form walls of green. They were over-arched, and those walking in them were as in a green bower. I know an old château on the Moselle with such a berceau, it has in it windows commanding beautiful reaches of the river; otherwise it is completely enclosed by leaves, and fresh and sweet it is as a walk on a hot day. In England we required shade less than shelter, and the green funnels were not in such request as the long lines of lofty yew or box hedge.

In King's Views of the Seats of our Nobility and Gentry, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, we see the utmost formality. Every house is approached by two or three gardens, consisting perhaps of a gravel-walk and two grass-plats, or borders of flowers. Each rises above the other by two or three steps, and as many walls and terraces, and so many iron gates.

Flaxley, from a print of 1714.

Sir William Temple gives us his view of what constituted a perfect garden in his day. "The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park, in Hertfordshire. I will describe it for a model to those that meet with such a situation, and are above the regards of common expense. It lies on the side of a hill, upon which the house stands, but not very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden; the great parlour opens into the midst of a terrace gravel-walk that lies even with it, and which may lie about three hundred paces long, and broad in proportion; the border set with standard laurels and at large distances, which have the beauty of orange-trees out of flower and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many stone steps, in the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre. This is divided into quarters by gravel-walks, and adorned with two fountains and eight statues, at the several quarters. At the end of the terrace-walk are two summer-houses, and the sides of the parterre are ranged with two large cloisters open to the garden; over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and fenced with balusters; and the passage into these airy walks is out of the two summer-houses at the end of the first terrace-walk. The cloister facing the south is covered with vines. From the middle of the parterre is a descent by many steps into the lower garden, which is all fruit-trees, ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness, which is very shady; the walks here are all green, and there is a grotto embellished with figures of shell rock-work, fountains, and water-works."

Nothing could be more formal, and nothing, I think, could be more charming. Why should we imitate wild nature? The garden is a product of civilization. Why any more make of our gardens imitation wild nature, than paint our children with woad, and make them run about naked in an effort to imitate nature unadorned? The very charm of a garden is that it is taken out of savagery, trimmed, clothed, and disciplined. The wall and hedge are almost necessaries with us, to cut off the wind. See how flowers of all kinds luxuriate, if given the screen from the biting blast! If they like it, why should not we?

I allow that the hacking of trees into fantastical shapes deserved the scourge administered in the one hundred and seventy-third number of The Guardian, Sept. 29th, 1713. The writer there says—"How contrary to simplicity is the modern practice of gardening; we seem to make it our study to recede from nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most regular and formal shapes, but even in monstrous attempts beyond the reach of the art itself; we run into sculpture, and are yet better pleased to have our trees in the most awkward figures of men and animals, than in the most regular of their own. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. I know an eminent cook, who beautified his country-seat with a coronation dinner in greens, where you see the champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual youth at the other.

"For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of this curious taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of greens to be disposed of by an eminent town gardener, who has lately applied to me upon this head. My correspondent is arrived at such perfection, that he cuts family pieces of men, women, or children. Any ladies that please may have their own effigies in myrtle, or their husbands in horn-beam. I shall proceed to his catalogue, as he sent it for my recommendation.