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and ventiducts; gazon-theatres, artificial echos, automate and bydraulic music. No wonder he should think that it would still require the revolution of many ages, with deep and long experience, for any man to emerge a perfect and accomplished artist gardener!? It is probably to himself that he alludes in saying a person of his acquaintance spent almost forty years, 'in gathering and amassing materials for an hortulan design to so enormous an heap as to fill some thousand pages, and yet be comprehended within two or three acres of ground; nay, within the square of less than one, (skilfully planned and cultivated,) sufficient to entertain his time and thoughts all his life long, with a most innocent, agreeable and useful employment.'

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Örnamental gardening had never flourished in England. While the castles of the great were strong-holds, there was no room for it; and much of what had been done during fourscore years of prosperity, was either destroyed during the civil wars, or in consequence of them had fallen to decay. The gardens of Theobalds seem to have been the finest in this country at that time, before this princely seat was pulled to pieces by the Levellers. Evelyn remembered to have seen cypresses there cultivated with the greatest care, and probably the first which were reared in Great Britain. Exotic animals as well as trees were introduced there, a camel stable, sixty-three feet in length, is mentioned in the description of the buildings;-in that age attempts were made to naturalize the camel in Europe,-there were no less than eighty at Aranjuez, but even in that climate the experiment failed. There still exists, though in decay, the moss walk which formerly made part of the gardens of Theobalds, a singular and beautiful scene, where Elizabeth held counsel with Burleigh, where James revolved his plans for preserving the peace of Europe, and Charles played with his children, or lent too easy an ear to the counsels of his queen. About thirty years ago, and before the storm had made a breach through the old elms by which it was overshaded, we remember this singular walk, in its beauty;—the only remains of all which rendered Theobalds the favourite palace of two succeeding sovereigns. It is surprizing that the elms escaped when the palace was destroyed by parliament in spite even of the commissioners' report, that it was an excellent building, in very good repair, by no means fit to be demolished.' But these commissioners were unfortunately bound to add that its materials were worth $2754. 11s.; and therefore demolished it was, that the money might be divided among the army. All the royal palaces were marked for the same fate, and many of the woods were cut down; the few trees at Greenwich were felled, those in St. James's Park narrowly escaped, and in Hyde Park, Evelyn notices in his diary, that every coach was made

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to pay a shilling, and every horse sixpence, by the sordid fellow who had purchased it of the state. So much did the people gain by its transfer from the crown into the hands of an individual!

Poor as our art of gardening was before the troubles began, it was necessarily neglected during their continuance, and when Evelyn began his horticultural pursuits there were no models for imitation in his own country, and other countries afforded him none but what were bad in themselves, or inappropriate to the English climate. He speaks with great delight of a large walk in some gardens of the Grand Duke of Florence, at the sides whereof several slender streams of water gush out of pipes concealed underneath, that interchangeably fall into each other's channels, making a lofty and perfect arch, so that a man on horseback may ride under it and not receive one drop of wet.' This he thought one of the most surprising magnificences he had ever seen. Sir Henry Wotton has also noticed this continual bower and hemisphere of water as an invention for refreshment, surely far excelling all the Alexandrian delicacies, and pneumatics of Hiero.' Nothing could be more delightful under an Italian sun,—there it is a splendid. luxury, suitable to a glorious climate,-but for the English garden it might be convenient as a dry walk when it rained, far more frequently than any gratification could be derived from its coolness. and its shade. In thirsty countries, therefore, the fountain is the inost appropriate of all embellishments, and its sound, whether gurgling from a spout, or falling in showers from a jet, the most grateful of all symphonies. Rapin allots one book of the four of which his poem consists, to fountains and water-works.

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Imprimis medio fons constituendus in horto,

Qui salientis aquæ, tubulo prorumpat ab arcto,
Plurimus, et vacuas jactu se libret in auras,

Quasque accepit aquas, cœlo, ventisque remittat.'

Even the wretched taste with which fountains are commonly designed is forgiven for the sake of the refreshment which they impart. But dolphins with icicles pendant from their open mouths, Tritons with frozen conchs, and naked naiads in the midst of an icy basin, are too obviously incongruous, and have nothing to compensate for their absurdity. Our climate is as little suitable for statues and sculptured vases, the beauty of their surface is soon corroded and defaced with weather stains: but how poor is the French style of gardening if it be deprived of its water-works and its' marbles!

In that age however the French genius was lord of the ascendant. De rerum nostrarum elegantia, says the French Jesuit Rapin, longe potiori jure prædicare possumus quàm poeta Venu- › sinus,

Venimus ad summum fortunæ ;

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in iis præsertim qua spectant hortorum elegantiam, rurisque amanitatem. And he writes a chapter to prove not only that France was of all countries the fittest for gardening, but that the French fashion of gardening was of all others the most perfect. Sir William Temple had heard of the Chinese taste, and thought favourably of it, but,' he says, I should hardly advise any of these attempts in the figure of gardens among us; they are adventures of too hard achievement for any common heads; and though there may be more honour if they succeed well, yet there is more dishonour if they fail, and 'tis twenty to one they will; whereas in regular figures 'tis hard to make any great and remarkable faults.' Accordingly he decided that among us the beauty of planting consisted in certain proportions, symmetries, or uniformities, our walks and our trees ranged so as to answer one another, and at exact distances.' It seems that the first use to which the principle of the kaleidoscope was applied was that of assisting invention, by producing new combinations of symmetrical forms for parterres and gravel walks. But however fantastic may be the arrangement of the parterres, and into whatever shapes the hedges and unhappy evergreens may be clipt, the flower-garden has still its fragrance and its gaiety, and affords a pleasure of its own which is certainly not diminished by a consciousness of the presence of art.

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But if Evelyn was misled in ornamental gardening by the taste of his age, there was nothing to mislead him in that useful branch of the art which supplies the table with its purest luxuries, and which in his time received considerable improvement. Some curious facts in the history of horticulture are found in his Acetaria. It was scarcely an hundred years, he tells us, since cabbages were introduced from Holland into this country, one of the Sir Anthony Ashleys, of Wiburg St. Giles, in Dorsetshire, being the first person who planted them in England,--the family then has deserved well of its country, notwithstanding it produced so great a

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Shaftsbury. It had not been very long since artichokes were cultivated in Italy, after which they were for some time so rare in England as to be sold for crowns a-piece. We have not learnt from the French to eat this noble thistle, as Evelyn calls it, as a sallad ; nor from the Italians to stew it till its tough leaves become edible. The cucumber within his memory had been accounted' little better than poison; the melon was hardly known till Sir George Gardiner, coming from Spain, brought it into estimation; when its ordinary price was five or six shillings. Much has been added to the catalogue of esculents since Evelyn's time, but some things on the other hand have fallen into disuse. The bud of the sunflower before it expands was then drest like an artichoke and eaten as a dainty; the root of the minor pimpinella, or small Burnet saxifrage,

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dried and pulverized, was preferred by some persons to any kind of pepper, and the pounded seeds of the nasturtium were thought preferable to mustard. Evelyn praises the milky or dappled thistle, either as a sallad, or boiled, or baked in pies like the artichoke; it was then sold in our herb-markets, but probably for a supposed virtue in consequence of its name Carduus Maria, or our Lady's milky thistle, which made it be esteemed a proper diet for nurses. The bur also he calls delicate and wholesome, when young. The young leaves of the ash were a favourite pickle,-but of all his dainties that which a reader of the present age would be least willing to partake would be the small young acorns which we find in the stock-dove's craws,' and which are a delicious fare, as well as those incomparable sallads of young herbs taken out of the maws of partridges at a certain season of the year, which gives them a preparation far exceeding all the art of cookery.' They were certainly valiant eaters in those days, and one who admired such sallads might have sat down with Hearne to a Northern Indian's feast. He had a wicked taste in wines also: who almost would believe,' he says, 'that the austere Rhenish, abounding on the fertile banks of the Rhine, should produce so soft and charming a liquor as does the same vine, planted among the rocks and pumices of the remote and mountainous Canaries?' and in another place he observes that the grape of the Rhine has produced in the Canaries a far more delicious juice than in its own country. We have no reason to believe that the Rhenish wines have improved or the Canarian ones degenerated during the last century, and the inhabitants of the Rhingau might then as now boast with truth in the words of their favourite song, over the glass,

In ganz Europa, ihr herren zecher

Ist solch ein wein nicht mehr.'

But if Evelyn's taste in wine was bad, the use he made of it was worse; witness the receipt in his Sylva for making a cheap ink,galls four ounces, copperas two ounces, gum-arabic one ounce: beat the galls grosly and put them into a quart of claret. The reader will remember Major-General Lord Blayney's advice always

to boil hams in hock.

O fortunatos nimium bona si sua nôrint
Horticolas !'

Evelyn exclaims in the joy of his enthusiasm for horticulture; and quoting from Milton the lines which describe‘the first empress of the world regaling her celestial guest,' he observes exultingly, 'thus the hortulan provision of the golden age fitted all places, times, and persons; and when man is restored to that state again, it will be as it was in the beginning.' Yet, he adds, 'let none imagine that whilst we justify our subject through all the topics of

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panegyric, we would in favour of the sallet, dressed with all its pomp and advantage, turn mankind to grass again, which were ungratefully to neglect the bounty of heaven, as well as his health and comfort.' It is, he says, a transporting consideration to think that "the infinitely wise and glorious Author of nature has given to plants such astonishing properties; such fiery heat in some to warm and cherish, such coolness in others to temper and refresh, such pinguid juice in others to nourish and feed the body, such quickening acids to compel the appetite, and grateful vehicles to court the obedience of the palate, such vigour to renew and support our natural strength, such ravishing flavour and perfumes to recreate and delight us; in short such spirituous and active force to animate and revive every faculty and part, to all the kinds of human, and I had almost said, heavenly capacity too. What shall we add more? Our gardens present us with them all; and whilst the shambles are covered with gore and stench, our sallets escape the insults of the summer fly, and purify and warm the blood against winter.' If Evelyn's mind had not been well regulated, and his feelings always under the controul of a cool and steady judgement, his predilections would have led him to a vegetable diet, and he would have been the Mæcenas of his contemporary Thomas Tryon. The great modern example of this diet is the well-known Sir Pythagoras Phillips, knight, ex-sheriff, and mayor in posse, editor of the Monthly Magazine, author of a Confutation of the Newtonian Theory, and of a Walk to Kew. The physical effects have been largely exemplified in this worthy personage. The moral effects upon the temper, however, have not been so favourable; for though the humane knight is the founder of a society for abolishing the punishment of death, he has declared in his magazine, that brewers who put unlawful ingredients in their beer, ought to be boiled in their own coppers. In justice, however, to the vegetable diet, which might otherwise be brought into discredit by this unfortu nate case, it ought not to be concealed, that though Sir Pythagoras abstains, like a Brahmin, from meat, we have been credibly informed that he eats gravy with his potatoes.

Fanaticism was triumphant in this poor country when Evelyn took possession of his delightful retreat insanity and roguery are natural allies, and in the game which was then played in political life, knaves were the best cards in the pack. Fortunately for the family at Sayes Court they were not troubled by a fanatical minister. The present incumbent,' says Evelyn, was somewhat of the Independent, yet he ordinarily preached sound doctrine, and was a peaceable man, which was an extraordinary felicity in this age. Now and then too an orthodox man got into the pulpit. Upon occasions on which the minister durst not officiate according

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