Spring in a Shropshire AbbeyGaskell, Catherine Henrietta Milnes, Lady
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Spring in a Shropshire Abbey
Gaskell, Catherine Henrietta Milnes, Lady
Shropshire (England) -- Description and travel; Wenlock Abby (England)
Bacon wrote, because the breath of flowers is "farr sweeter in the
air, where it comes, and goes, like the warbling of music, then in
the hand, so there is nothing more fit for delight than to know what
be the flowers and plants that doe best perfume the aire." He
recommended amongst other sweet scents, two specially, that of
violets, and the perfume of dying strawberry leaves, "an excellent
cordial in autumn." He also mentioned the perfume of sweet-briar, and
recommended that wallflowers should be planted under a parlour or
lower chamber window.
Andrew Borde, writing in the same century, declared that it was
deemed necessary for the country house of his time to be surrounded
by orchards well-filled with sundry fruits and commodious, and to
have a fair garden "repleat with herbs aromatic and redolent of
savours."
Markham also talked of the nosegay garden, which was to be planted
with violets, and gilly-flowers, marigolds, lilies, daffodils,
hyacinths, "tulipas," narcissus, and the like. There were to be
knots, or _parterres_ of delightful interlacing patterns, and amongst
the ribbon borders such sweet plants and flowers as thyme, pinks,
gilly-flowers, and thrift, all neatly bordered and edged, with
turrets and arbours to repose in.
Thomas Hill, writing in 1568, also suggested that there should be
_parterres_ filled with hyssop, thyme, and lavender, for the pleasure
of the perfume. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries folks
sought their flowers in their gardens, which it can well be imagined
was a much healthier form of enjoyment than the modern one of masses
of flowers in stuffy rooms and of having tables laden with
strong-smelling blossoms, during hot and crowded banquets.
The delight in the garden was essentially a sixteenth and seventeenth
century pride. Lawson exclaimed, "What can your eye desire to see,
your ear to hear, your mouth to taste, or your nose to smell, that is
not to be had in a garden, with abundance of beauty?"
Lawson also loved the birds, as did the Scotch poet king, and
Chaucer, and, in the early nineteenth century, Shelley and Keats. He
wrote lovingly of a brood of nightingales that turned his orchard
into a paradise. "The voice of the cock bird," he declared, "did bear
him company, both day and night."
Then I should have liked to have visited Gerard in his physic garden
in Holborn, overlooking the Fleet, and how delightful it would have
been to have had a chat with the old man, or to have brought him some
new plant or flower.
Or perhaps, if fortune had smiled upon me, I might another day have
popped in and got a talk with John Tradescant, whose father and
grandfather were both gardeners to Queen Bess, and who himself was
gardener in his time, to ill-fated Charles I. These Tradescants
travelled all over the world in search of plants for the royal
gardens, and one of them even went to Virginia in order to bring back
new specimens.
[Sidenote: WHERE ARE THE GARDENS OF THE PAST?]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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