WITH ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES BY HENRY A. BRIGHT AUTHOR OF “A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN.” London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1881. The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved. LONDON: R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor , BREAD STREET HILL....

It is just a year ago since this Essay on “The English Flower Garden” was published in the Quarterly Review . It was written with a twofold object: to give in the smallest compass an outline history of English gardens, and to show once again what makes the true charm and happiness of a garden. Many—perhaps too partial—friends have urged me to reprint this article. They have reminded me that, when the immediate circulation of any one number of a Review has ceased, its articles are virtually lost

So much has been written about the old English or Elizabethan garden, that I need hardly enter into great detail on the subject. Bacon has told us what his ideal garden was—the outside lawn, the enclosed garden, and the wilderness. Of course few gardens can ever have approached the perfection of which he dreams, but his general type was the type of the garden of his day. He does not approve of “the making of knots or figures with divers coloured earths” near the house; but in the garden proper,

“We were on a projecting spur of Mount Arfak. The virgin forest was very beautiful. Scarcely a ray of sunshine penetrated the branches. The ground was almost destitute of vegetation. A little trackway proved that the inhabitants were at no great distance. A limpid fountain had evidently been frequented. I found here a new Balanophora, like a small orange or a small fungus. I was distracted by the songs and the screams of new birds, and every turn in the path showed me something new and surprisin

“Noah’s Ark in Holly, the ribs a little damaged for want of water. “The Tower of Babel, not yet finished. “St. George in Box, his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a condition to stick the Dragon by next April. “A green Dragon of the same, with a tail of ground-ivy for the present. N.B. These two not to be sold separately. “Edward the Black Prince in Cypress. “A Laurustine Bear in blossom, with a Juniper Hunter in berrie. “A pair of Giants stunted; to be sold cheap.” And there are various o

But a rhymer such as I am Scarce can sing his dignity. “Eyes of gentianellas azure, Staring, winking at the skies; Nose of gillyflowers and box; Scented grasses, put for locks— Which a little breeze, at pleasure, Set a-waving round his eyes. “Brazen helm of daffodillies, With a glitter toward the light; Purple violets, for the mouth, Breathing perfumes west and south; And a sword of flashing lilies, Holden ready for the fight. “And a breastplate, made of daisies, Closely fitting, leaf by leaf; P

“Sir John Lubbock says that the evening primrose is probably fertilized by moths, and it would seem at first sight most likely that this should be the case. To-night—for the air, as I have said, is quite still and warm—is just the night that I should expect the moths to be at work; but after long waiting near a large yellow Œnothera (the one plant had forty blooms), I did not see one single moth. I returned to the bed of Œnothera taraxicifolia , and again I could see no moth of any kind. Meanwhi

“Each roseate feature fades to livid green.” He adds, in a note, that “The Helleborus niger , or Christmas Rose, has a large beautiful white flower, adorned with a circle of tubular two-lipp’d nectaries. After impregnation the flower undergoes a remarkable change, the nectaries drop off, but the white corol remains, and gradually becomes quite green. This curious metamorphose of the corol, when the nectaries fall off, seems to show that the white juice of the corol were before carried to the nec