Myriads of birds were singing, too--larks, nightingales, finches, thrushes, doves, and canaries. _L'Amant_ wandered on until he came to a marvelous fountain--the Fountain of Love--under a pine-tree. Presently he was attracted to a beautiful rosebush, full of buds and full-blown roses. One bud, sweeter and fresher than all the rest and set so proudly on its spray, fascinated him. As he approached this flower, _L'Amour_ discharged five arrows into his heart. The bud, of course, was the woman he was destined to love and which, after many adventures and trials, he was eventually to pluck and cherish. This fanciful old allegory made a strong appeal to the illustrators of the Thirteenth and later centuries; and many beautiful editions are prized by libraries and preserved in glass cases. The edition from which the illustration (Fifteenth Century) is taken is from the Harleian MS. owned by the British Museum. II _The Garden of Delight_ The old _trouvères_ did not hesitate to stop the flow of their stories to describe the delights and beauties of the gardens. 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 flowers push their way through the sweet grass! Like the birds, the poets broke out into rapturous song, as, for instance, in _Richard Cœur de Lion_: Merry is in the time of May, Whenne fowlis synge in her lay; Flowers on appyl trees and perye;[1] Small fowlis[2] synge merye; Ladyes strew their bowers With red roses and lily flowers; Great joy is in grove and lake. [1] Pear. [2] Birds. In Chaucer's "Franklyn's Tale" _Dorigen_ goes into her garden to try to divert herself in the absence of her husband: And this was on the sixte morne of May, Which May had painted with his softe shoures. This gardeyn full of leves and of flowers: And craft of mannes hand so curiously Arrayed had this gardeyn of such pris, As if it were the verray paradis.