ON THE THEORY OF A GARDEN. 13

The garden is, first and last, made "for delectation's
sake."

So we arrive at these conclusions. A garden is
made to express man's delight in beauty and to
gratify his instincts for idealisation. But, lest the
explanation savour too much of self-interest in the
gardener, it may be well to say that the interest of
man's investment of money and toil is not all for
himself. What he captures of Nature's revenues he
repays with usury, in coin that bears the mint-mark
of inspired invention. This artistic handling of
natural things has for result " the world's fresh orna-
ment,"* and for plant, shrub, or tree subject to it, it
is the crowning and completion of those hidden pos-



* " If you look into our gardens annexed to our houses " (says
William Harrison in Holinshed's "Chronicles") "how wonderful is
their beauty increased, not only with flowers, which Columella calleth
Terrena Sydera, saying ' Pingit et in varias terrestria, sydera flores,'
and variety of curious and costly workmanship, but also with rare and
medicinable herbs. . . . How Art also helpeth Nature in the daily
colouring*, doubling and enlarging the proportions of our flowers it is
incredible to report, for so curious and cunning are our gardeners now
in these days that they presume to do, in a manner, what they list
with Nature, and moderate her course in things as if they were her
superiors. It is a world also to see how many strange herbs, plants,
and annual fruits are daily brought unto us from the Indies, Ameri-
cans, Tapyobane, Canary Isles, and all parts of the world, the which,
albeit that his respect of the constitutions of our bodies, they do not
grow for us (because God hath bestowed sufficient commodities upon
every country for her own necessity) yet for delectation's sake unto the-
eye, and their odoriferous savours unto the nose, they are to be
cherished, and God also glorified in them, because they are His good
gifts, and created to do man help and service. There is not almost
one nobleman, gentleman, or merchant that hath not great store of
these flowers, which now also begin to wax so well acquainted with
our evils that we may almost account of them as parcel of our own
commodities."— (From " Elizabethan England," pp. 26-7.)



14 GARDEN-CRAFT.
