Esther Singleton

“ It is a commendable and seemly thing to behold out at a window many acres of ground well-tilled and husbanded; but yet it is much more to behold fair and comely proportions, handsome and pleasant arbors, and, as it were, closets, delightful borders of lavender, rosemary, box and other such-like; to hear the ravishing music of an infinite number of pretty, small birds, which continually, day and night, do chatter and chant their proper and natural branch-songs upon the hedges and trees of the garden ”

“ Few of our wild flowers give intenser pleasure than the cowslip, yet perhaps there is scarcely any whose peculiar beauty depends so much upon locality and surroundings. There is a homely simplicity about the cowslip, much like that of the daisy, though more pensive,—the quiet, sober look of an unpretending country girl, not strikingly beautiful in feature or attire, but clean and fresh as if new bathed in milk and carrying us away to thoughts of daisies, flocks and pasturage and the manners of a simple, primitive time, some golden age of shepherd-life long since gone by. ”

“ Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made.
For twenty-seven centuries—and more—the rose has been considered queen of flowers. Her perfume, her color, her elegance, and her mystic fascination have won all hearts. Shakespeare says: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." In one sense that is true; but we would not be willing to try another title, for the very word rose is a beautiful one and conjures up a particular and very special vision of sweetness and beauty. ”

“ The kitchen-garden lies through that gate in the wall of mellowed brick—an old-fashioned kitchen-garden, with mingled fruit and vegetables and flowers. There are pear and plum-trees against the wall and strawberry beds next the feathery asparagus and gooseberry bushes hidden by hedges of sweet peas. Another turn will bring you into a labyrinth of yew hedges and so back to the bowling-green, across which the long shadows lie, and the sun-dial which marks the approach of evening. The light is golden on the house and on the tangled borders; the air is fragrant with many scents. ”

“ Having been for many years an ardent and a devoted student of Shakespeare, I discovered long ago that there was no adequate book on the Elizabethan garden and the condition of horticulture in Shakespeare's time. Every Shakespeare student knows how frequently and with what subtle appreciation Shakespeare speaks of flowers. Shakespeare loved all the simple blossoms that "paint the meadows with delight": he loved the mossy banks in the forest carpeted with wild thyme and "nodding violets" and o'er-canopied with eglantine and honeysuckle ”

“ Graceful in form and charming in color, put together with extreme delicacy on slender, flexible, fragile stems and adorned with a leaf approaching that of the fern in delicacy and lace-like beauty, the columbine is one of the most delightful of flowers. Always associated with folly, we love it none the less for that, for there are times [Pg 143] when we enjoy Harlequin and Columbine among our flowers,—and these fantastic and frivolous columbines dancing so gaily in the breeze always fill us with delight. ”

“ Lord Bacon also associated the scent of delicate flowers with music. He writes: "And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (whence it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask, and red, are fast flowers of their smells, so that you may walk by a whole row of them and find nothing of their sweetness, yea though it be in a morning's dew. Bays, likewise, yield no smell as they grow, rosemary little, nor sweet marjoram. ”

“ Vines can be trained gracefully along the balustrade, hand-rails, and posts of the steps. A rich border of flowers should be grown all along the side of the terrace: in the spring hosts of daffodils and in the summer larkspur, marigolds, lilies, iris, and climbing roses and honeysuckle. The terrace gains in style and beauty when the proper floral decorations are tastefully selected and well combined.
From the terrace one can enjoy a fine view of the garden as a whole; and it is a pleasant place to stroll upon and to sit. Sometimes the terrace is of two levels with several stairways. ”

“ Shakespeare accordingly knew that the pressure of the Fairy Queen's little body upon the thyme would cause it to yield a delicious perfume.
The Elizabethans, much more sensitive to perfume than we are to-day, appreciated the scent of what we consider lowly flowers. They did not hesitate to place a sprig of rosemary in a nosegay of choice flowers. They loved thyme, lavender, marjoram, mints, balm, and camomile, thinking that these herbs refreshed the head, stimulated the memory, and were antidotes against the plague. ”

“ The plant was not only allowed a corner in the kitchen-garden; but it was trained over arbors and allowed to run over the mounds and banks pretty much at its own sweet will. "As for Rosemarie," said Sir Thomas More, "I let it run all over my garden walls, not only because my bees love it, but because it is the herb sacred to remembrance, and, therefore, to friendship; whence a spray of it hath a dumb language that maketh it the chosen emblem at our funeral-wakes and in our burial-grounds." ”

“ A bower covered with the intense, yet subtle, perfume of the honeysuckle, doubly sweet in the hot sun that had ripened the blossoms and drawn out their inmost sweetness, was just the place to send "saucy Beatrice" for the purpose of lighting the flame of love for Benedick, and just the place to send, a little later, the cynical Benedick for the pur [Pg 179] pose of awakening his interest in the "Lady Disdain." Shakespeare evidently knew that the honeysuckle is the flower of ardent lovers, and so he framed his pleachèd bower with these sweet-scented blossoms. ”

“ Every one knows how important a feature the box-bush is in English gardens and in the old American gardens that were planted after English models.
So fine in color, so deep and luxuriant in foliage, so dignified and aristocratic in its atmosphere the name box is almost synonymous with old gardens. Its acrid yet aromatic scent—most delicious after rain—is one of its characteristics.
Greek myth consecrated the box to Pluto, and the plant was said to be symbolical of the life in the Underworld which continues all the year. ”

“ However, one ardent Shakespeare lover has made a discovery:
"Gather a lady-smock as you tread the rising grass in fragrant May, and although in individuals the petals are sometimes cream color, as a rule the flower viewed in the hand is lilac—pale, but purely and indisputably lilac. Where then is the silver-whiteness? It is the meadows, remember, that are painted, when, as often happens, the flower is so plentiful as to hide the turf, and most particularly if the ground be a slope and the sun be shining from behind us, all is changed; the flowers are lilac no longer ”

“ In the small formal garden a fountain looks well at the intersection of the paths in the center of the quarters. It is not necessary to have an ornate fountain, for the real charm of a fountain consists in the upward plume of spray that glistens in the sunshine, that turns to pearls in the moonlight, and that always charms the eye of man and delights the neighboring flowers with its spray blown by the breeze. ”

“ But although in this story Boccaccio employs the word giardino instead of orto, I think we must imagine that magic flower garden rather as a corner of orchard connected with fields of wheat and olive below by the long tunnels of vine-trellis and dying away into them with the great tufts of lavender and rosemary and fennel on the grassy bank under the cherry trees. ”

“ The paleness is uniform, steady, and rather impresses us as whiteness; and the yellow of the cup is as rich as gold. The odor is not faint, but saccharine and luscious. It does not shrink into the sheltered covert, but courts the free air and sunshine of the open fields; and instead of its flowers peeping timidly from behind surrounding leaves, it raises them boldly on a stout, sufficient stalk, the most conspicuous object in the meadow. Its poetry is the poetry of common life, but of the most delicious common life that can exist. The plant is in some respects careless to the verge of disorder ”

“ Such is the love of it knowen to be toward that royal Star, being in the night time for desire of him as pensive and sad, they be shut or closed together; but at the noontime of the day fully spread abroad as if they with spread arms longed, or diligently attended, to embrace their Bridegroom. This Marigold is a singular kind of herb, sown in gardens as well for the pot as for the decking of garlands, beautifying of Nosegays and to be worn in the bosom. ”

“ Its burning beauty appeals to every one who loves color, for the scarlet of the pomegranate has a depth and a quality that is all its own. The crinkled silken petals, rising from a thick, red calix and set off by bright green leaves of wondrous glossy luster and prickly thorns, delight those who love beauty. ”

“ The flower is of a most unusual color, a pale, delicate yellow, slightly tinged with green. And the better flowers impress us by a peculiar paleness, not dependent upon any feebleness of hue, which we always find unpleasing, but rather upon the exquisite [Pg 96] softness of their tone. And we must not overlook the little round stigma, that green and translucent gem, which forms the pupil of the eye, and is surrounded by a deeper circle of orange which helps it to shine forth more clearly. Many flowers have a somewhat pensive look ”

“ The flower of the columbine is a unique and interesting form. The sepals look like petals and the petals are veritable horns of plenty filled with nectar at the closed ends for the swarms of bees which gather about. The sweets are produced by the blossoms on a generous scale, and to a columbine bed in full bloom the bees come, big and little, noisy and silent—all giddy with the feast. There is no use trying to drive them away for they will not go. ”

“ In the daffodil the leaves and stems are of a full glaucous green, a color not only cool and refreshing in itself, but strongly suggestive of water, the most apparent source of freshness and constituting a most delicious groundwork for the bright, lively yellow of the blossoms. ”

“ LAVENDER is a precious, fragrant, hardy bush. Its sweet-smelling leaves and blue flowers are ever welcome, whether in the border, or as a low hedge, or standing alone. A very light soil and sunshine are essential. Propagate by cuttings in early autumn out of doors in a sheltered, but not shady, place and plant out when rooted, or divide in March, planting out the rooted slips one foot apart in light soil. [Pg 313] Lavender may be used to beautify walks. Bushes in some sunny corner of the garden are pretty for picturesque growth and color. ”

“ Francis de Sales, a contemporary of Shakespeare, gave a lovely description of the flower when he said:
"A true widow is in the Church as a March Violet, shedding around an exquisite perfume by the fragrance of her devotion and always hidden under the ample leaves of her lowliness and by her subdued [Pg 127] coloring, showing the spirit of her mortification. She seeks untrodden and solitary places."
The violet's qualities of lowliness, humility, and sweetness have always appealed to poets. The violet is also beloved because it is one of the earliest spring flowers. ”

“ ITALIAN RENAISSANCE GARDEN, VILLA GIUSTI, VERONA
VII
Garden Pleasures
There were many such splendid gardens. Shakespeare was familiar, of course, with those of Warwickshire, including the superb examples at Kenilworth, and with those in the vicinity of London.
The Elizabethans used their gardens in many ways. They took recreation in them in winter and summer, and enjoyed the perfume and colors of their flowers with an intensity of delight and appreciation rarely found to-day. ”

“ The Purple Crocus, partly from the full materials for color-contrast afforded by its interior, partly from the exceeding delicacy of tint, the lilac stripes and markings, the transparent veins and the pale watery lake which lies at the bottom of the cup, seem to bear us away to some enchanted spot, a fairy-land of color where no shadow ever falls—a land of dim eternal twilight and never fading flowers. ”

“ It is a plant which affords a most beautiful contrast, a cool, watery sheet of leaves with bright, warm flowers, yellow and orange, dancing over the leaves like meteors over a marsh. The leaves look full of watery sap, which is the life blood of plants and prime source of all their freshness, just as the tissues of a healthy child look plump and rosy from the warm blood circulating within. ”

“ In the great garden are nine large complete squares, or knots, lying upon a level in the middle of the said garden, whereof one is set forth with box-borders in the likeness of the King's Arms, one other plot is planted with choice flowers; the other seven knots are all grass-knots, handsomely turfed in the intervals, or little walks. A quickset hedge of white thorn, or privet, cut into a handsome fashion at every angle, a fair cherry tree and a cypress in the middle of the knots—also a marble fountain. ”

“ The center of a larkspur is often grotesque; the hairy petals suggest a bee at the heart of a flower, and the flower itself looks like a little creature poised for flight. In structure the garden race has changed very little from the primitive type, though that type has wandered far from the simplicity of the buttercup, which names the Ranunculacæ. Whatever path of evolution the larkspur has trod, it is very clear that the goal at which it has arrived is cross-fertilization by means of the bee. ”

“ Thrift is seen as an edging in many old English gardens. To preserve its beauty the plants must be lifted, divided and replanted once in at least four years: a rich even growth is then the reward. The tufted habit, fresh green growth and rose-purple flowers in Summer are enjoyable to look at. ”

“ Many romantic scenes are staged in the "Pleasance," to which lovers stole quietly through the tiny postern gate in the walls. When we remember what the feudal castle was, with its high, dark walls, its gloomy towers and loop-holes for windows, its cold floors, its secret hiding-places, and its general gloom, it is not surprising that the lords and ladies liked to escape into the garden. After the long, dreary winter what joy to see the trees burst into bloom and the tender [Pg 12] flowers push their way through the sweet grass! ”