The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached
alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of
mine.
_Much Ado About Nothing_, act i, sc. 2 (9).
(4) _Iago._
Our bodies are our Gardens, &c.
(_See_ HYSSOP.) _Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (323).
(5) _1st Servant._
Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
Keep law and form and due proportion,
Showing as in a model our firm estate,
When our sea-walled Garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,
Her fruit-trees all unpruned, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars?
_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 4 (40).
The flower-gardens of Shakespeare's time were very different to the
flower-gardens of our day; but we have so many good descriptions of them
in books and pictures that we have no difficulty in realizing them both
in their general form and arrangement. I am now speaking only of the
flower-gardens; the kitchen-gardens and orchards were very much like our
own, except in the one important difference, that they had necessarily
much less glass than our modern gardens can command. In the
flower-garden the grand leading principle was uniformity and formality
carried out into very minute details. "The garden is best to be square,"
was Lord Bacon's rule; "the form that men like in general is a square,
though roundness be _forma perfectissima_," was Lawson's rule; and this
form was chosen because the garden was considered to be a purtenance and
continuation of the house, designed so as strictly to harmonize with the
architecture of the building. And Parkinson's advice was to the same
effect: "The orbicular or round form is held in its own proper existence
to be the most absolute form, containing within it all other forms
whatsoever; but few, I think, will chuse such a proportion to be joyned
to their habitation. The triangular or three-square form is such a form
also as is seldom chosen by any that may make another choise. The
four-square form is the most usually accepted with all, and doth best
agree with any man's dwelling."
This was the shape of the ideal garden--
"And whan I had a while goon,
I saugh a gardyn right anoon,
Full long and broad; and every delle
Enclosed was, and walled welle
With high walles embatailled.
* * * * *
I felle fast in a waymenting
By which art, or by what engyne
I might come into that gardyne;
But way I couthe fynd noon
Into that gardyne for to goon.
* * * * *
Tho' gan I go a fulle grete pas,
Environyng evene in compas,
The closing of the square walle,
Tyl that I fonde a wiket smalle
So shett that I ne'er myght in gon,
And other entre was ther noon."
_Romaunt of the Rose._
This square enclosure was bounded either by a high wall--"circummured
with brick," "with high walles embatailled,"--or with a thick high
hedge--"encompassed on all the four sides with a stately arched hedge."
These hedges were made chiefly of Holly or Hornbeam, and we can judge of
their size by Evelyn's description of his "impregnable hedge of about
400ft. in length, 9ft. high, and 5ft. in diameter." Many of these hedges
still remain in our old gardens. Within this enclosure the garden was
accurately laid out in formal shapes,[343:1] with paths either quite
straight or in some strictly mathematical figures--
"And all without were walkes and alleyes dight
With divers trees enrang'd in even rankes;
And here and there were pleasant arbors pight,
And shadie seats, and sundry flowring bankes,
To sit and rest the walkers' wearie shankes."
_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