The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespear by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

F. Q., iv, x, 25.

The main walks were not, as with us, bounded with the turf, but they were bounded with trees, which were wrought into hedges, more or less open at the sides, and arched over at the top. These formed the "close alleys," "coven alleys," or "thick-pleached alleys," of which we read in Shakespeare and others writers of that time. Many kinds of trees and shrubs were used for this purpose; "every one taketh what liketh him best, as either Privit alone, or Sweet Bryer and White Thorn interlaced together, and Roses of one, two, or more sorts placed here and there amongst them. Some also take Lavender, Rosemary, Sage, Southernwood, Lavender Cotton, or some such other thing. Some again plant Cornel trees, and plash them or keep them low to form them into a hedge; and some again take a low prickly shrub that abideth always green, called in Latin Pyracantha" (Parkinson). It was on these hedges and their adjuncts that the chief labour of the garden was spent. They were cut and tortured into every imaginable shape, for nothing came amiss to the fancy of the topiarist. When this topiary art first came into fashion in England I do not know, but it was probably more or less the fashion in all gardens of any pretence from very early times, and it reached its highest point in the sixteenth century, and held its ground as the perfection of gardening till it was driven out of the field in the last century by the "picturesque style," though many specimens still remain in England, as at Levens[344:1] and Hardwicke on a large scale, and in the gardens of many ancient English mansions and old farmhouses on a smaller scale. It was doomed as soon as landscape gardeners aimed at the natural, for even when it was still at its height Addison described it thus: "Our British gardeners, instead of humouring Nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in cones, globes, and pyramids; we see the mark of the scissors upon every plant and bush."

But this is a digression: I must return to the Elizabethan garden, which I have hitherto only described as a great square, surrounded by wide, covered, shady walks, and with other similar walks dividing the central square into four or more compartments. But all this was introductory to the great feature of the Elizabethan garden, the formation of the "curious-knotted garden." Each of the large compartments was divided into a complication of "knots," by which was meant beds arranged in quaint patterns, formed by rule and compass with mathematical precision, and so numerous that it was a necessary part of the system that the whole square should be fully occupied by them. Lawn there was none; the whole area was nothing but the beds and the paths that divided them. There was Grass in other parts of the pleasure grounds, and apparently well kept, for Lord Bacon has given his opinion that "nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green Grass kept finely shorn," but it was apparently to be found only in the orchard, the bowling-green, or the "wilderness;" in the flower-garden proper it had no place. The "knots" were generally raised above the surface of the paths, the earth being kept in its place by borders of lead, or tiles, or wood, or even bones; but sometimes the beds and paths were on the same level, and then there were the same edgings that we now use, as Thrift, Box, Ivy, flints, &c. The paths were made of gravel, sand, spar, &c., and sometimes with coloured earths: but against this Lord Bacon made a vigorous protest: "As to the making of knots or figures with divers coloured earths, that they may lie under the windows of the house on that side on which the garden stands they be but toys; you may see as good sights many times in tarts."

The old gardening books are full of designs for these knots; indeed, no gardening book of the date seems to have been considered complete if it did not give the "latest designs," and they seem to have much tried the wit and ingenuity of the gardeners, as they must have also sorely tried their patience to keep them in order; and I doubt not that the efficiency of an Elizabethan gardener was as much tested by his skill and experience in "knot-work," as the efficiency of a modern gardener is tested by his skill in "bedding-out," which is the lineal descendant of "knot-work." In one most essential point, however, the two systems very much differed. In "bedding-out" the whole force of the system is spent in producing masses of colours, the individual flowers being of no importance, except so far as each flower contributes its little share of colour to the general mass; and it is for this reason that so many of us dislike the system, not only because of its monotony, but more especially because it has a tendency "to teach us to think too little about the plants individually, and to look at them chiefly as an assemblage of beautiful colours. It is difficult in those blooming masses to separate one from another; all produce so much the same sort of impression. The consequence is people see the flowers on the beds without caring to know anything about them or even to ask their names. It was different in the older gardens, because there was just variety there; the plants strongly contrasted with each other, and we were ever passing from the beautiful to the curious. Now we get little of quaintness or mystery, or of the strange delicious thought of being lost or embosomed in a tall rich wood of flowers. All is clear, definite, and classical, the work of a too narrow and exclusive taste."—Forbes Watson. The old "knot-work" was not open to this censure, though no doubt it led the way which ended in "bedding-out." The beginning of the system crept in very shortly after Shakespeare's time. Parkinson spoke of an arrangement of spring flowers which, when "all planted in some proportion as near one unto another as is fit for them will give such a grace to the garden that the place will seem like a piece of tapestry of many glorious colours, to encrease every one's delight." And again—"The Tulipas may be so matched, one colour answering and setting off another, that the place where they stand may resemble a piece of curious needlework or piece of painting." But these plants were all perennial, and remained where they were once planted, and with this one exception named by Parkinson, the planting of knot-work was as different as possible from the modern planting of carpet-beds. The beds were planted inside their thick margins with a great variety of plants, and apparently set as thick as possible, like Harrison's garden quoted above, with its 300 separate plants in as many square feet. These were nearly all hardy perennials,[347:1] with the addition of a few hardy annuals, and the great object seems to have been to have had something of interest or beauty in these gardens at all times of the year. The principle of the old gardeners was that "Nature abhors a vacuum," and, as far as their gardens went, they did their best to prevent a vacuum occurring at any time. In this way I think they surpassed us in their practical gardening, for, even if they did not always succeed, it was surely something for them to aim (in Lord Bacon's happy words), "to have ver perpetuum as the place affords."

Where the space would allow of it, the garden was further decorated with statues, fountains, "fair mounts," labyrinths, mazes,[347:2] arbours and alcoves, rocks, "great Turkey jars," and "in some corner (or more) a true Dial or Clock, and some Antick works" (Lawson). These things were fitting ornaments in such formal gardens, but the best judges saw that they were not necessaries, and that the garden was complete without them. "They be pretty things to look on, but nothing for health or sweetness." "Such things are for state and magnificence, but nothing to the true pleasure of a garden."

Such was the Elizabethan garden in its general outlines; the sort of garden which Shakespeare must have often seen both in Warwickshire and in London. According to our present ideas such a garden would be far too formal and artificial, and we may consider that the present fashion of our gardens is more according to Milton's idea of Eden, in which there grew—