INTRODUCTION

THE five writers, whose Garden Essays are here presented in whole or abstract-Sir William Temple, Abraham Cowley, Sir Thomas Browne, Andrew Marvell and John Evelyn-may be said in their lives to cover the whole of the Seventeenth Century (the eldest being born in 1605, the last dying in 1706); and in their writings to represent not only some of the best of Garden, but of English, Literature. It would not be easily possible to select five better names to represent either the literature or the lives of great Englishmen. Four out of the five were pre-eminently men and citizens of the world, in the noblest and richest sense; one, Abraham Cowley, may be chosen as the type of man to whom Retirement and Repose are more congenial than Action. Temple, by his withdrawal from public life at his meridian, stands in this respect midway between Cowley on the one hand, and Browne, Marvell and Evelyn on the other-all three of whom strove to the end of their lives with the

"Stream of the World," which, according to Goethe, forms Characters, as distinguished from the Talent, which is shaped "in der Stille."

In the present volume they have their place chiefly as Garden lovers, or, to use Evelyn's words, as " Paradisi Cultores-Paradisean and Hortulan Saints,” and only incidentally will they be referred to in any other capacity.

This group of writers not only represents in Literature a distinct school of thought and action, with views of life very closely akin, but also a definite variation of the Garden-Art, from the spacious age of Elizabeth and Bacon, which revelled in the terraced and statued Architectural gardens of Italy, (derived from the great Roman builders of Gardens,) and adapted to English needs and taste. Passing through the grand style of Le Nôtre-or the Horizontal garden so characteristic of the ceremonial display of France and its Grand Monarch,-the Revolution brings us to the Dutch Régime, represented at its culminating point in England by Hampton Court under London and Wise; and in Holland, whence the idée mère was derived, by the princely gardens of Loo, Ryswick and Hanslerdyck. This last phase might, I think, be called the Canal type of Garden-since Water in

straight channels and basins determines its main features and the straight and clipped (toped or tonsured) hedges and trees are really subordinate to the lines of water.1

In Gardening, which is eclectic and cosmopolitan, more perhaps than in any other art, it is difficult to draw hard and fast lines in discriminating styles and schools. They overlap, merge and intersect-for every man feels anch' io son pittore in his own Garden, and every one with a garden loves to plan and alter, and is not withheld from modifying and changing the features of the ground and its design by any sense of incapacity, such as he might feel were he to essay to alter the elevation of a house, re-paint an old master, or try his hand at chipping off bits of a marble statue. This freedom in dealing with "the art of landscape," when the materials are Nature's own, has its advantages and disadvantages. It allows scope for individual originality and enterprise, but it also leads to the destruction of types and styles, which another generation tries in vain to revive. What would we not now give to see intact Pope's five acres

1 The present Editor has tried to sketch the literary and engraved history of the early Dutch Garden in Holland, in three Essays in "Country Life" (1905).

at Twickenham, as left by himself at his death and described by John Serle so minutely, that I marvel no Pope-lover has tried to restore it. Possibly the next tenant, if an American of taste, may do so. It is not that Pope's garden ideas would exactly chime with ours, but his Garden would be an historical document of priceless value, although the Grotto might strike us now better suited to Rosherville-if that also were not a delight of the Past.

We are accustomed to think of Dutch Gardening as if it were introduced into England all at once by William III.; but a little historical enquiry will show us that we had taken practical gardening lessons from Holland as early as the reign of Elizabeth.

Thomas Fuller notes in his "Worthies (1662) that Gardening (in those early days it was of course the Kitchen or utilitarian garden)

"was first brought into England for profit about seventy years ago, before which we fetched most of our Cherries from Flanders, apples from France, and had hardly a mess of rathe-ripe pease but from Holland, which were dainties for ladies, they came so far and cost so dear. Since Gardening had crept out of Holland to Sandwich, Kent, and thence into this County (Surrey), where though they have given six pounds an aker and upwards they have made their rent, lived comfortably, and set many people on work."

In this statement it looks as if Fuller's language