Of the overwhelming number he singles out the red and gray Hulo,
the old carnation, the Grand Père; the Cambersive, the Savadge, the
Chrystal, the Prince, the white carnation or delicate, the ground
carnation, the French carnation, the Dover, the Oxford, the Bristow,
the Westminster, the Daintie, the Granado, and the orange tawny
gilliflower and its derivatives, the Infanta, the striped tawny, the
speckled tawny, the flaked tawny, the Grifeld tawny, and many others.
Many sweet pinks are included, "all very sweet coming near the
Gilliflowers, Sweet Williams and Sweet Johns," both single and double,
red and spotted, "and a kind of wild pinks, which for their beauty and
grace help to furnish a garden." Then, too, we have peonies, double and
single; hollyhocks, single and double; and roses.
The Elizabethan gardens, therefore, presented a magnificent array
of flowers; and it was not only in the grand gardens of castles and
manor-houses, but in the estates of London merchants along the Strand
and of the florists in Holborn, Westminster, and elsewhere that fine
flower shows were to be enjoyed during every month of the year. In the
country before the simple dwellings and the half-timbered and thatched
cottages bright flowers blossomed in the same beauty and profusion as
to-day.
The charming cottage garden has changed little.
Finally, in summing up, if we imagine as a background a group of
Tudor buildings in the Perpendicular style of architecture of red
brick broken with bay-windows and groups of quaint chimneys variously
ornamented with zigzag and other curious lines, gables here and
there--the whole façade rising above a terrace with broad flights of
steps--one at the middle and one at each end--and from the terrace
"forthrights" and paths intersecting and in the squares formed by them
bright beds of flowers so arranged that the colors intermingle and
blend so as to produce the effect of a rich mosaic and redolent with
the sweetest perfumes all mingled with particular and peculiar care
and art, we shall have a mental picture of the kind of garden that lay
before _Olivia's_ house in "Twelfth Night," where _Malvolio_ parades
up and down the "forthrights," as Shakespeare distinctly tells us, in
his yellow cross-garters, to pick up the letter dropped on the path
by _Maria_ while the rollicking _Sir Toby Belch_, witless _Sir Andrew
Aguecheek_, and merry _Maria_ watch his antics from their hiding-place
in the box-tree, or hedge.
Such also was the garden at Belmont, _Portia's_ stately home, in which
_Lorenzo_ and _Jessica_, while waiting for their mistress on that
moonlight night "when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they
did make no noise," voiced their ravishing duet, "On Such a Night."
Such also was the garden into which _Romeo_ leaped over the high
wall to sing before _Juliet's_ window a song that in her opinion was
far sweeter than that of the nightingale that nightly sang in the
pomegranate-tree by her balcony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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