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History of Garden Art

or at any rate one never hears any more about it. A great porch looks out on this garden,
with portraits of all the kings of England; and another porch is made like a grotto. Here
"there is water streaming out of a rock into a basin supported by the figures of two slaves;
on the ceiling is painted the Zodiac with sun and moon in their courses, and on each side
six trees, with bark, leaves and birds'-nests, all complete and natural." The parterre
is laid out in nine beds with hedges round them, and by the side are the trees of a lovely
avenue: the leading feature is a fountain of white marble, with pillars and pyramid in
wood. There is a labyrinth with a slight mound in the middle, called the Hill of Venus,
"one of the fairest places in the world." At the end of the garden is a summer-house, in
front semicircular, and inside it are marble figures of the twelve emperors of Rome; on the

FIG. 346. A HEDGED GARDEN

other side is a basin that partly serves as a fish-pond, and is also used as a cold bath in
the hot season of the year. A little bridge leads from this small summer-house to another.

Hentzner was not able to see the house itself, because he arrived on 8 September, 1598,
the very day of the funeral of its owner. Many a splendid fete had this garden seen,
many a time had the queen been received here with the utmost magnificence, even on
that occasion when she came to condole with her sorely-stricken host in his domestic
grief. With a view to this visit George Peele, a contemporary of Shakespeare's, and
himself a poet, wrote a sort of masque, and in the "Gardener's Speech" the queen is
thus addressed: "The hillocks removed and the plot levelled, I cast it into four quarters..
In the first I framed a maze, not of hyssop and thyme, but that which maketh time
itself wither with wondering; all the Virtues, all the Graces, all the Muses winding and
wreathing about Your Majesty."

In the introduction to this work Peele has given the customary description of a
formal garden of the period, if possible perfectly level, a square, and this square further
divided into four parts by cross-paths. Garden books of the time often describe places