PART II
GARDENS AND HISTORY
I
THE ROMAN GARDEN IN ENGLAND
It would appear, judging from the specimens one sees, that the building of garden apartments, or summer-houses, is a lost art. But then leisure, as an art, has also been lost; and no man unless he understand leisure can possibly build an apartment to be entirely devoted to it.
Imagine the man of the day who could write of his summer-house as the younger Pliny wrote: “At the end of the terrace, adjoining to the gallery, is a little garden-apartment, which I own is my delight. In truth it is my mistress: I built it.” The younger Pliny, of to-day, is scouring the countryside in a motorcar, his eyes half-blinded by dust, his nose offended by the stink of petrol; his thoughts, like his toys, purely mechanical.
There are still a few quiet people, and some scholars, whom the Socialist in his eager desire to benefit mankind at reckless speed, and at ruthless expense of humanity, would like to blot out, who can enjoy their gardens with that curious remoteness which is the privilege of the person of leisure.
The art of leisure lies, to me, in the power of absorbing without effort the spirit of one’s surroundings; to look, without speculation, at the sky and the sea; to become part of a green plain; to rejoice, with a tranquil mind, in the feast of colour in a bed of flowers. To this end is the good gardener born. The man, who, from a sudden love, stops in his walk to look at a field of Buttercups has no idea of the spiritual advancement he has made.
All this ambles away from the main topic, but so closely does the peace of gardens cling, that thoughts fly over the hedges like bees on the wing and bring back honey from wider pastures and dreams from larger tracts than those the garden itself covers. A man might write a romance of Spain from looking at an Orange.
The Romans, who left an indelible mark on England in their roadways and by their laws, built in this country many villas whose pavements and foundations remain to show us what manner of habitations they were. Besides this we have ample records of the shapes and purposes of these villas, with long accounts of baths, furniture and the like, such as enable us to picture very completely the life of a Roman gentleman exiled to these shores.
Houses, parks, and fields now cover all traces of any gardens there were attached to these Roman villas. Many a man lives over the spot where the hedges and alleys, the flower beds and walks, once delighted those gentlemen who sat drinking Falernian wine poured from old amphoræ dated by the year of the consul. Where sheep now browse gentlemen have sat after a feast of delicacies—Syrian Plums stewed with Pomegranate seeds; roasted field-fares, fresh Asparagus; Dates sent from Thebes—and, having eaten, have enjoyed the work of their topiarius, whose skill has cut hedges of Laurel, Box, and Yew into the forms of ships, bears, beasts and birds.
Differing from the Greeks, who were not good gardeners, the Romans, with a skill learnt partly from Oriental countries, made much of their gardens, and laid them out with infinite care and arrangement. They raised their flower-beds in terraces, and edged them with neat box borders; they made walks for shade, and walks for sun; planted thickets, alleys of fruit trees, orchards, and Vine pergolas. They had, as a rule, in larger gardens, a gestatio, a broad pathway in which they were carried about in litters. They had the hippodromus, a circus for exercise, which had several entrances with paths leading to different parts of the garden.
It is not too much to presume that the Romans, who spent their lives in our country, and build magnificent villas for themselves, and brought over all the arts of their country, brought, also, their methods of gardening, and planted here as they planted in their villas outside Rome, all the flowers, fruits and vegetables that the country would produce.
Tacitus was of the opinion that “the soil and climate of England was very fit for all kinds of fruit trees, except Vine and Olive; and for all kinds of edible vegetables.” In this he was right but for the Vine, which was planted here in the Third Century, and we know of vineyards and wine made from them in the Eighth Century.
Of gardeners there was the topiarius, a fancy gardener, whose main business it was to be expert on growing, cutting and clipping trees. The villicus, or viridarius, who was the real villa gardener, with much the same duties as our gardener of to-day. The hortulanus is a later term. And there was the aquarius, a slave whose duty it was to see that all the garden was provided with proper aqueducts, and who managed the fountains which, without doubt, formed a great part in garden ornament. I imagine, also, that the aquarius would have control over the supply of hot water which must flow through the green-houses where early fruits and flowers were forced; such fruits as Winter Grapes, Melons, and Gherkins; and of flowers, the Rose in particular, for use in garlands and crowns.
Violets and Roses were the principal flowers, being often grown as borders to the beds of vegetables, so that one might find Violets, Onions, Turnips, and Kidney Beans flourishing together.
Besides these flowers there were also the Crocus, Narcissus, Lily, Iris, Hyacinth (the Greek emblem of the dead in memory of the youth killed by Apollo by mistake with a quoit), Poppy, and the bright red Damask Rose and Lupias.
In the orchards of Rome were Cherries, Plums, Quinces, Pomegranates, Peaches, Almonds, Medlars, and Mulberries; and in the vineyards were thirty varieties of Grapes. Those kinds of fruits which were hardy enough to stand our climate were grown here, and to judge from all account only the Olive failed to meet the test.
Not only were flowers and fruit grown in profusion but Herbs, Asparagus, and Radishes had their place.
Honey, which took a great place in Roman cookery, and in making possets, and in thickening wine, was provided by bees kept especially in apiaries built in sheltered places, with beds of Cytisus, and Thyme and Apiastrum by them. The hives were built of brick or baked dung, and were placed in tiers, the lowest on stone parapets about three feet above the ground; these parapets being covered with smooth stucco to prevent lizards and insects from entering the hives.
The descriptions by the younger Pliny of his villas and gardens are so delightful in themselves, besides being of great value, that I am going to quote largely from them.
The village of Laurentium where Pliny built his villa was on the shores of the Tuscan Sea, and not far from the mouth of the Tiber. The villa was built as a refuge after a hard day’s work in Rome, which was only seventeen miles away. “A distance,” he says, “which allows us, after we have finished the business of the day, to return thither from town, with the setting sun.”
There were two roads from Rome to this villa, the one the Laurentine road—“if you go the Laurentine you must quit the high road at the fourteenth stone”—and the Ostian road, where the branch took place at the eleventh.
After a description of the house and the baths he writes of the garden:
“At no great distance is the tennis-court, so situated, as never to be annoyed by the heat, and to be visited only by the setting sun. At the end of the tennis-court rises a tower, containing two rooms at the top of it, and two again under them; besides a banqueting room, from whence there is a view of very wide ocean, a very extensive continent, and numberless beautiful villas interspersed upon the shore. Answerable to this is another turret containing, on the top, one single room where we enjoy both the rising and the setting sun. Underneath is a very large store-room for fruit, and a granary, and under these again a dining-room from whence, even when the sea is most tempestuous, we only hear the roaring of it, and that but languidly and at a distance. It looks upon the garden, and the place for exercise which encludes my garden. The whole is encompassed with Box; and where that is wanting with Rosemary; for Box, when sheltered by buildings, will flourish very well, but wither immediately if exposed to wind and weather, or ever so distantly affected by the moist dews from the sea. The place for exercise surrounds a delicate shady vineyard, the paths of which are easy and soft even to the naked feet.
“The garden is filled with Mulberry and Fig trees; the soil being propitious to both those kinds of trees, but scarce to any other.
“A dining-room, too remote to view the ocean, commands an object no less agreeable, the prospect of the garden: and at the back of the dining-room are two apartments, whose windows look upon the vestibule of the house; and upon a fruitery and a kitchen garden. From hence you enter into a covered gallery, large enough to appear a public work. The gallery has a double row of windows on both sides; in the lower row are several which look towards the sea; and one on each side towards the garden; in the upper row there are fewer; in calm days when there is not a breath of air stirring we open all the windows, but in windy weather we take the advantage of opening that side only which is entirely free from the hurricane. Before the gallery lies a terrace perfumed with Violets. The building not only retains the heat of the sun, and increases it by reflexion, but defends and protects us from the northern blasts.”
After a further description of this gallery written with some care, Pliny begins his praise of his garden apartment. No man but a man of true leisure could have dwelt so lovingly on a description of a summer-house. Herrick loved his simple things as much, and sang them tenderly. The small things that come close to us, to keep us warm from all life’s disappointments, these are the things our hearts sing out to, these are the things we think of when we are from home. “At the end of the terrace, adjoining to the gallery, is a little garden-apartment, which I own is my delight. In truth it is my mistress: I built it; and in it is a particular kind of sun-trap which looks on one side towards the terrace, on the other towards the sea, but on both sides has the advantage of the sun. A double door opens into another room, and one of the windows has a full view of the gallery. On the side next the sea, over against the middle wall, is an elegant little closet; separated only by transparent windows, and a curtain which can be opened or shut at pleasure, from the room just mentioned. It holds a bed and two chairs; the feet of the bed stand towards the sea, the back towards the house, and one side of it towards some distant woods. So many different views, seen from so many different windows diversify and yet blend the prospect.
“Adjoining to this cabinet is my own constant bedchamber, where I am never disturbed by the discourse of my servants, the murmurs of the sea, nor the violence of a storm. Neither lightning nor daylight can break in upon me till my own windows are opened. The reason of so perfect and undisturbed a calm here arises from a large void space which is left between the walls of the bedchamber and of the garden; so that all sound is drowned in the intervening space.
“Close to the bedchamber is a little stove, placed so near a small window of communication that it lets out, or retains, the heat just as we think fit.
“From hence we pass through a lobby into another room, which stands in such a position as to receive the sun, though obliquely, from daybreak till past noon.”
There is one thing in this description that is very noteworthy, the absolute content with everything, the lack of any note of grumbling. After all, the pleasures of that garden apartment were very simple; he took his joy of the sun, the wind, and the distant sound of the sea. Heat, light, and the pleasant music of nature; the bank of Violets near by, the prospect of the villas on the shore glimmering amidst their greenery in the sun; the songs of birds in the thickets of Myrtle and Rosemary, there made up the fine moments of his life.
Such little houses were copied from the Eastern idea, such as is pointed to several times in the Bible. The Shunamite gives such a house to Elisha:
“Let us make him a little chamber, I pray thee, with walls; and let us set him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick, that he may turn in thither when he cometh to us.”
Whether a Roman living in England ever built himself such a house it is difficult to prove, since, so far as I can find, no remains of such a place are to be seen. But, when one considers the actual evidence of the Roman Occupation, the yields given by the neighbourhoods of Roman cities, the statues, vases, toys, the amphitheatres for cock-fighting, wrestling, and gladiatoral combat, then surely there were gardens of great wonder near to these cities where men like Pliny went to sit in their garden houses and enjoyed the cool of the evening after a day’s work.
I have always made it a fancy of mine to suppose such an apartment to have stood on the spot where a garden house I know now stands. I have sat in this little house, a tiny place compared to Pliny’s, and pictured to myself the surrounding country as it might have looked under the eyes of our Roman conquerors. Not far distant is a Roman town, outside which is a huge amphitheatre; the Roman road, via Iceniana, cutting through the western downs and forests. Over this very countryside were villas scattered here and there, bridges, walls, moats and camps. Even to-day, not far away from my summer-house, are two small Roman bridges, over which, in my day-dreams, the previous occupier of the site has often passed.
Here, from this summer-house, I look upon an apiary, a bed of Violets, a little wood that gives shelter to the birds, a running stream where trout leap in the pools. My Roman friend, had he built his house here, would have looked, as I look, at green meadows, and across them to a wild heath on which rise the very mounds he must have known, British earthworks, and the heap-up burial places of great British chiefs. Round about the house grow many flowers that would seem homely to my ghostly friend, Roses, Lilies, Narcissi, Violets, Poppies. Here he might have sat and contemplated, as Pliny did, and taken his pleasure of the sun, the wind, the birds. The sea he could not have heard, since it is eight miles away, but he could well have seen storms come up over the western downs, known that the Roman galleys were seeking shelter in the coves and harbours, and noticed how the gulls flew screaming inland, and the Egyptian swallows flew low before the coming tempest.
This house that I know is a simple affair, compared to the elaborate design of Pliny’s; it is a small thatched single apartment built in the elbow of the garden wall. It is not tuned to trap the sun, or dull the sounds of the violence of the winds, but its solitary window opens wide to let in the sound of the bees at work, the thrush singing in the Lilac tree, or tapping his snails on a big stone by the side of the garden path. It has a shelf for books, two chairs, a writing table, and an infinity of those odds and ends a person collects who deals with bees. Withal it is pervaded by a very sweet smell of honey.
Then there are ghosts for company if the books, the birds, and the bees fail. There is my Roman to speak for his villa, for the glories of the town near by. There is the British chieftain whose mound is not two miles away, a mound where his charred ashes lie, but the urn that held them is on a shelf overhead. There are Saxons who have trod this very ground, and Danes and Normans, men also from Anjou, Gascony, and Maine, and a host of others. Then there are the flowers themselves with romances every one.
If I have a mind to following fancy and turn this into a veritable Roman garden, I can link my fancy with Pliny’s facts and see how it would have been ordered and arranged. I can see the villa portico with its terrace in front of it adorned with statues and edged with Box. Below here is a gravel walk on each side of which are figures of animals cut in Box. Then there is the circus at the end of a broad path, where my Roman friend could exercise himself on horseback. Round about the circus are sheared dwarf trees, and clipped Box hedges. On the outside of this is a lawn, smooth and green. Then comes my summer-house shaded with Plane trees, with a marble fountain that plays on the roots of the trees and the grass round them. There would be a walk near by covered with Vines, and ended by an Ivy-covered wall. Several alleys (my imagination has traced their courses) wind in and out to meet in the end of a series of straight walks divided by grass plots, or Box trees cut into a thousand shapes; some of letters forming my Roman’s name; others the name of his gardener. In these are mixed small pyramid Apple trees; “and now and then (to follow Pliny’s plan) you met, on a sudden, with a spot of ground, wild and uncultivated, as if transplanted hither on purpose.” Everywhere are marble or stone seats, little fountains, arbours covered with Vines, and facing beds of Roses, or Violets, or Herbs, and always is to be heard the pleasant murmur of water “conveyed through pipes by the hand of the artificer.”
The more I think of it the more I see how exactly the garden I know fulfils this purpose. Except for a greater, a far greater display of flowers, Pliny would be quite at home here. There is an abundance of water; the very site for the horse course; winding alleys, straight paths, and several pergolas for Roses.
A noticeable thing in the planning of a Roman garden, and one that is too often absent from our own, is the great attention paid to the value of water. In many places where there is an abundant supply of water, with streams running close by, or even through the garden, we find no attempt made to use the value of water either decoratively or for useful purposes. We are apt to dispose our gardens for the purposes of large collections of flowers, whereas the Roman with his small store of them was forced to bring every aid to bear on varying his garden, such as seats, fountains, and little artificial brooks. The cost, even in small gardens, of arranging a decorative effect of water, where water is plentiful, would not amount to so very much, and in many cases would be a great saving of labour. We use wells to some extent, and, to my mind, a properly-built well-head, with a roof and posts, and seats, is one of the most beautiful garden ornaments we can have.
The well-head itself should be built of brick raised about eighteen inches above the ground, and should be at least fourteen inches broad in the shelf, so that the buckets have ample room in which to stand. The coil and windlass are better if they are both simple, and of good timber. Round this a brick path, two feet broad, should be laid. Over all a roof of red tiles supported on square wooden posts or brick pillars, would give shade to the well, and to a seat of plain design that should be placed against the outer edge of the brick path. And if beds of flowers were set about it all, as I have seen done, and well done, in a cottage garden in Kent, the effect is quaint and beautiful.
I have no doubt that in Roman England such wells were built where the supply of water was not equal to great distribution. But it is amazing to think that such a tiny village as Laurentium, where Pliny had one of his villas outside Rome, held three Inns, in each of which were baths always heated and ready for travellers, and that it has taken us until the present day to bring the bath into the ordinary house.
Naturally, when one casts one’s eyes over a picture of a Roman garden in England, and compares it with a garden of to-day, the very first thing we find missing is that mass of colour and that wonderful variety of bloom that constitutes the apex of modern gardening. Where they were surprised, or gave themselves sudden shocks to the eye, it was by means of little grottos, fountains, vistas at the ends of long alleys, statues in a wild part of a garden, or unexpected seats commanding a prospect opened out by an arrangement of the trees. We prepare for ourselves wildernesses in which the Spring shall paint her wonderful picture of Anemones, Daffodils, Crocuses, and such flowers; where Blue Bells and Primroses, Ragged Robin, and Foxgloves hold us by their vivid colour. Our scarlet armies of Geranium, our banks of purple Asters, or the flaming panoplies of Roses with which we illuminate our gardens would seem to the Roman something wonderful and strange. Yet, in a sense, his taste was more subtle. He held green against green, a bed of Herbs, the occasional jewel of a clump of Violets, more to his manner of liking. And he arranged his garden so as to contain as many varieties of walks as possible.
In the evenings now, when I am, by chance, staying in the house whose garden holds that summer-house I love, I can see my old Roman of my dreams wandering over his estate, and I almost feel his presence near me as his ghost sits on the wooden seat by the lawn and his eyes seem to peer across the meadows back to where Rome herself lies over the eastern hills. An exile, buried far from Rome, his spirit seems to hover here as if he could not sleep in peace away from the warm, sweet Italy of his birth.
II
ST. FIACRE, PATRON SAINT OF GARDENERS AND CAB-DRIVERS
Gardeners who, to a man, are dedicated to peaceful and meditative pursuits, should care to know of the story of Saint Fiacre, the Irish Prince who turned hermit, and after his death was hailed Patron of Gardeners.
He left Ireland, says the story, at that time when a missionary zeal was sending Irish monks the length and breadth of Europe. As Saint Pol left Britain and slew the Dragon on the Isle of Batz; Saint Gall drove the spirits of flood across the Lake of Constance; Saint Columban founded monasteries in Burgundy and the Apennines, so did Saint Fiacre leave his native land and take himself to France, and there by a miracle enlarge the space of his garden.
At Meaux, on the river Marne, near Paris, the Bishop Saint Faron had founded a new monastery in the woods and called it the Monastery of Saint Croix. To this monastery came the son of the Irish King, and made his vows. It was early days in Europe, for Saint Fiacre died in or about the year 670, and it is almost impossible to imagine the perils and discomforts of his journey, for in Britain and Gaul fighting was going on, roads were bad and unsafe, the sea had to be crossed in an open boat.
But these Celts, driven west by war, now began to make their own war on Europe, not with sword and shield and battle-cry, but with pilgrim’s staff, and reed pen, and the device of Christ on their hearts. Illumination, one of the marvels of monkish accomplishment, was spread throughout Europe by bands of Irish monks, who, taking the wonderful traditions of such work as “The Book of Kells,” and those works written and illuminated at Lindisfarne, went their ways from country to country spreading their culture as well as their message.
Saint Fiacre stayed a certain time in the monastery until, indeed, the voice within him calling for more solitude and for another mode of life, forced him to go to the Bishop. To him he spoke of his vocation, of those feelings within him that prompted him to become a hermit.
The good Bishop seeing in Fiacre a good intention, and perceiving doubtless the holy nature of the monk, granted him a space on his own domain, some way from the monastery, on the edge of the woods and the plain of Brie. To this place the monk repaired and began the great work of his life.
Now it is not easy for the best of men at the best of times to live solitary in a wood without becoming something of a self-conscious or morbid person. Not so with these old hermits. They seemed to have the grace of such excessive spirituality as to have been uplifted above ordinary men, and to have lost all sense of loneliness in conversation with the Saints, and in communion with God.
What finer means of reaching this exalted condition than by labouring to make a garden in the wilderness? Saint Fiacre cleared a space in the woods with his own hands, and in this space he built an oratory to Our Lady, and a hut by it wherein he dwelt. All must have been of the most primitive order; one of those beehive shaped buildings, such as still remain in Ireland, for the oratory, fashioned out of stones and mud in what is called rag-work, and most probably roofed with turf.
After the work of building he began to make his garden. It is evident that his clearing was not near the river as the fountain or well from which he drew his water is still to be seen and it is a considerable distance away.
Imagine the solitary life of this priest gardener, whose food depended entirely on the produce of the ground. To any man the silence of the woods holds a mysterious calm, a weird, haunting uneasiness. To dwellers in woods, after a time, the silence becomes full of friendly voices; the fall of Acorns; the crackling of twigs as a wild animal forces a passage through the undergrowth; the snap of trees in the frost; the shuffling of birds getting ready for the night. But here, in the wild woods of Meaux in those early times, wolves, bears, wild boars lived.
It is possible to imagine the Saint on his knees at night, the trees, dark masses round his garden, a heaven above him pitted with stars, the smoke of his breath as he prays rising like incense. And, as has been known to be the case, all wild animals fearless of him, and friendly to him in whom they see, by instinct, one who will do them no harm. As Saint Jerome laid down with the lions, as Saint Francis spoke with Brother Wolf, and Sister Lark, so Saint Fiacre must have spoken with his friends, the beasts. In the heart of a gardener lies something to which all wild nature responds.
But consider a man of that time alone in the wood, at that time when men knew so little and whose lives were full of superstitious guesses at scientific facts. And think how much more full of dread Fiacre must have been than an ordinary man, since he was one of a nation to whom fairies and goblins of every kind are daily actualities. Think of the Saint seeing his own face daily reflected in the well as he drew his water; think of the mysterious quality of water in lonely wells when it seems now to be troubled by unseen hands, now to lift a clear smiling face to the sky. He must be a mystic and a man filled with a simple goodness who can garden in a wilderness like this.
One can picture him seated at the door of his hut eating his Acorn mash or Herb soup after a day’s work and prayer. A stout wooden spade rests by his side, the shaft of Oak worn smooth by his hands. In front of him what labours show in the ground! Huge stumps of trees that have been uprooted and dragged away; herbs he has tried to grow showing green in the heavy soil; wild flowers sweeting the air; here the beginnings of a vineyard; there the first blades of a patch of Wheat, or Oats.
In various parts of Europe were other Irish people at work sweetening the soil. Saint Gobhan near Laon, Saint Etto, at Dompierre, Saint Caidoc and Saint Fricor in Picardy, and Saint Judoc also there, Saint Fursey, at Lagny, six miles north of Paris; and a daughter of an Irish king, Saint Dympna, at Gheel, in Belgium. These are but a few of the Irish who ventured forth to save the world. Beyond all of these does Saint Fiacre appeal to us who love our gardens.
Self-denial has been called the luxury of the Saints, yet the phrase-maker would seem to such denials of unessentials as rich foods and wines, and mortifications of the flesh which a man may choose to do without any suggestion of Saintship. Here, in Saint Fiacre, we have a man whose process of purification was symbolised by his work. The uprooting of trees, the uprooting of a thousand superstitious ideas; the purifying of the soil, the cleansing of his heart; the growing of food, the sustenance for his spirit besides his body.
He leaves his native land, he becomes monk, hermit, gardener. He dwells in the wilds of a forest, one man, alone, doing no great deed one might imagine that would cause his fame to travel, living his quiet simple life shut right away from the world by leagues of forest, more buried than a man in the wilderness. For cathedral, the depth of his woods, the aisles of great trees, the tracery and windows made by boughs and leaves. For choir, the birds. He was, one would think, so utterly alone, that no step but his own ever broke the silence of the woodland glades; so isolated that no human voice but his own ever penetrated the brakes and thickets. Yet he became known.
Doubtless some hunter, a wild man, to whom the tracks in the forest were as roads, coming one day through the woods after game, burst into the clearing, and stood amazed, paused suspicious, wondering to see the little oratory, the hut, the garden all about. The hunter casts his keen eyes about, here and there, alert, scenting danger, eyeing the new place with anxious wonder, holding his spear in readiness. Then comes the Saint from his hut and calls him brother, bids him put down his spear, sit and eat.
The hunter goes; a swineherd, seeking lost droves of pigs turned loose to fatten on the acorns, comes across the place. The news filters through the country, reaches the huddled villages by the river, reaches the dwellers in the hills, the people of the forest. They come to look, to stare, to be amazed. To each Saint Fiacre offers his hospitality.
As men, drawn irresistibly by a strong personality, will throng towards a well whose water is supposed to contain some virtue, or a stone to touch which restores lost friends, so they came to test the holiness of this man of the woods, and found him good, and true, and full of peace. And they marvelled to find a garden in the wood, and, being entreated, eat of its produce, and heard the holy man preach, and saw him heal. Then the Saint was forced to build another hut for those of his visitors who came from far to consult him, and, as the crowds grew greater he was forced to go to the Bishop to ask for more land.
Saint Faron, the Bishop of Meaux, to whom all the forest belonged, knew his man. One can imagine two such men leading lofty and spiritual lives meeting in the monastery. I like to think of the Bishop as one of those thin men full of years, with a skin like parchment, his holiness shining out of his eyes, a man whose quiet voice, tuned to the silence of the monastery, breathes peace. And Fiacre, bronzed with the open air, rough with labour, with the curious eyes of the mystic, eyes that looked as if they had pierced the veil of a mystery, standing before his Bishop asking for his grant of land.
Coming from the depths of the heavy wood into the town, leaving the silence of his forest for the noise of the place, he must have felt strange. Those who met him were, I am sure, conscious of the atmosphere he carried with him, the envelope all lonely men wear, the curious reserve common to all dwellers in woods, and wilds.
The Bishop consented to the demand, and gave him his desire after a curious manner. Perhaps to test this hermit whose fame had already spread so far, perhaps to see how real were the stories he must have heard of his spiritual son, this holy gardener, he granted him as much land as he could enclose with his spade in one day.
Back went Saint Fiacre to his forest clearing, to his friends the birds, his bubbling wells, his aisles of trees, his garden, now well grown, and, breaking a stick he marked out far and wide the space of land he needed, more than any man could in one day enclose with any spade. And after that into the little oratory he went and prayed for help.
You may be sure every movement of this was carefully observed. A woman envied him and spied on these proceedings. I take it she was some woman to whom, before the Saint grew famous, the peasants came for spells and simples, a wise woman, a witch, whose reputation was at stake.
The Saint’s prayer was answered. The woman, evil report on her tongue, made her journey to the Bishop of Meaux, and accused Fiacre of magic, of dealings with the Devil. Roused by the report, the Bishop came to see the Saint and saw all that had happened. In one day all the wide space Fiacre had marked out had been enclosed. After that the oratory was denied to all women. Even as late as 1641, nearly a thousand years after his death, when Anne of Austria visited his shrine in the Cathedral of Meaux she did not enter the Chapel but remained outside the grating. It was the legend, handed down all that time, that any woman who entered there would go blind or mad.
Where the Saint had dug his solitary garden, and on the site of his cell a great Benedictine Priory was built in after years, where his body was kept and did many wonders of healing, especially in the cure of a certain fleshy tumour, which they called “le fie de St. Fiacre.” After many years, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, his body was removed to the Cathedral at Meaux.
So it may be seen for how good a cause he became known as Patron of Gardeners, and it must now be shown why he is called the Patron of Cab Drivers. In 1640 a man of the name of Sauvage started an establishment in Paris from which he let out carriages for hire. He took a house for this business in the Rue St. Martin, and the house was known as the Hotel de St. Fiacre, and there was a figure of the Saint over the doorway.
All the coaches plying from here began to be called, for short, fiacres, and the drivers placed images of the Saint on their carriages, and claimed him as their patron.
There is a Pardon of St. Fiacre in Brittany; and there are churches and altars to him all over France.
III
EVELYN’S “SYLVA”
On my table, as I write, is the copy of “Sylva” that John Evelyn himself gave to Sir Robert Morray, and in which he wrote in ink that is now faded and brown, as are his own autograph corrections in the text,
“—from his most humble servant, Evelyn.”
The title page runs thus:
SYLVA, or a Discourse of FOREST-TREES, AND THE Propagation of Timber In His MAJESTIES Dominions By J. E. Esq;
As it was Delivered in the Royal Society the XVth of October CIϽIϽCLXII. upon Occasion of certain Quaeries Propounded to that Illustrious Assembly, by the Honorable the Principal Officers, and Commissioners of the Navy.
To which is annexed
POMONA or, An Appendix concerning Fruit-Trees in relation to CIDER;
The Making and several ways of Ordering it.
Published by the express Order of the ROYAL SOCIETY
ALSO
KALENDARIUM HORTENSE; Or, ye Gard’ners Almanac; Directing what he is to do Monethly throughout the year.
—Tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis Ingredior, tantos ausus recludere fonteis. _Virg._
LONDON: Printed by Jo. Martyn, and Ja. Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society, and are to be sold at their Shop at the Bell in S. Paul’s Church-yard;
MDCLXIV.
This book was the first ever printed for the Royal Society, and contains, as may be seen, a practically complete record of seventeenth century planting and gardening, thus having an unique interest for all who follow the craft.
John Evelyn, from the day he began his lessons under the Friar in the porch of Wotton Church, was a curious observer of men and things, but especially was he devoted to all manners and styles of gardening.
Nothing was too small, too trivial to escape his notice; from the weather-cocks on the trees near Margate—put there on the days the farmers feasted their servants, to the interest he found in watching the first man he ever saw drink coffee.
The positions he held under Charles II. and James II. were many and varied, yet he found time to collect samples in Venice, and travel extensively, to write a Play, a treatise called: “Mundus Muliebris, or the Ladies’ Dressing Room, Unlocked,” and a pamphlet, called “Tyrannus, or the Mode,” in which he sought to make Charles II. dress like a Persian, and succeeded in so doing.
But above all these things he held his chiefest pleasure in seeing and talking of the arrangement of gardens, passing on this love to his son John, who, when a boy of fifteen, at Trinity College, Oxford, translated “Rapin, or Gardens,” the second book of which his father included in his second edition of “Sylva.”
His Majesty Charles II., to whom the “Sylva” is dedicated, was a monarch to whom justice has never been properly done. He is represented by pious but inaccurate historians, those men who for many years gave a false character of jovial good nature to that gross thief and sacrilegious monster, Henry VIII., as a King who spent most of his time in the Playhouse, or in talking trivialities with gay ladies, and in making witty remarks to all and sundry in his Court. The side of him that took interest in shipbuilding, navigation, astronomy, in the founding of the Royal Society, in the advancement of Art, in the minor matters of flower gardening and bee-keeping is nearly always suppressed. It was largely through his interest in this volume of Evelyn’s that the Royal forests were properly replanted; and it was in a great measure due to Royal interest that the parks and estates of the noblemen of England became famous in after years for their beautiful timber.
In that part of the “Sylva” dealing with forest trees, there were a hundred hints to all lovers of nature and of gardens, for your good gardener is a man very near in his nature to a good strong tree, and loves to observe the play of light and shade in the branches of those that give shade to his garden walks.
Evelyn tells us how the Ash is the sweetest of forest fuelling, and the fittest for Ladies’ Chambers, also for the building of Arbours, the staking of Espaliers, and the making of Poles. The white rot of it makes a ground for the Sweet-powder used by gallants. He tries to introduce the Chestnut as food, saying how it is a good, lusty and masculine food for Rustics; and commenting on the fact that the best tables in France and Italy make them a service. He tells us how the water in which Walnut husks and leaves are boiled poured on the carpet of walks and bowling-greens infallibly kills the worms without hurting the grass. That, by the way, is a matter for discussion among gardeners, seeing that some say that the movements of worms from below the surface to their cast on the lawn lets air among the grass roots and is good for them.
He tells us how the Horn-beam makes the stateliest hedge for long garden walks. He advises us how to make wine of the Birch, Ash, Elder, Oak, Crab and Bramble. He praises the Service-Tree, and the Eugh, and the Jasmine, saying of this last how one sorry tree in Paris where they grow “has been worth to a poor woman, near twenty shillings a year.”
All this and much besides of diverting and instructive reading, varied with remarks on the gardens of his friends and acquaintances, as when he “cannot but applaud the worthy Industry of old _Sir Harbotle Grimstone_, who (I am told) from a very small _Nursery of Acorns_ which he sowed in the neglected corners of his ground, did draw forth such numbers of _Oaks_ of competent growth; as being planted about his _Fields_ in even and uniform rows, about one hundred foot from the _Hedges_; bush’d and well water’d till they had sufficiently fix’d themselves, did wonderfully improve both the beauty, and the value of his _Demeasnes_,” for the honour and glory of filling England with fine trees and gardens to improve, what he calls—the Landskip.
The exigencies of the present moment when Imperial Finance threatens to tax all good parks and orchards out of existence, and to make all fine flower gardens out of use, except to the enormously wealthy, makes the “Gard’ners Calendar” all the more interesting as showing what manner of flowers, fruits, and vegetables were in use in the Seventeenth Century, and the means employed to grow and preserve them.
Then, as now, there was a danger of over cultivation of certain plants and flowers, so that a man might have more pride in the number and curiosity of his flowers, than in the beauty and colour of them. It is a certain fault in modern gardeners that they do not study the grouping and massing of colours, but do, more generally, take pride in over-large specimens, great collections, and rare varieties. But this age and that are times of collecting, of connoisseurship, ages that produce us great art of their own but have an extraordinary knowledge of the arts and devices of the past. Not that I would decry the friendly competitions of this and that man to grow rare rock plants, or bloom exotics the one against another, but I do most certainly prefer a rivalry in producing beautiful effects of colour; and love better to see a great mass of Roses growing free than to see one poor tree twisted into the semblance of a flowering parasol as men now use in many of the small climbing Roses.
To the end that gardeners and lovers of gardens may know how those past gardeners treated their fruits and flowers, I give the whole of Evelyn’s “Gard’ners Calendar,” than which no more complete account of gardens of that time exists.
It would be as well to note, before arriving at our Seventeenth Century Calendar, how the art of gardening had grown in England after the time of the Romans.
From the time that every sign of the Roman occupation had been wiped out to the beginning of the thirteenth century, gardens as we know them to-day did not exist. The first attempts at gardens within castle walls were little plots of herbs and shrubs with a few trees of Costard Apples. It appears that all those plants and flowers the Romans cultivated had been lost, and that with the sterner conditions of living all such arrangements as arbours of cut Yew trees, or elaborate Box-edged paths had completely vanished. Certainly they did have arbours for shade, but of a simple kind and quite unlike the elaborate garden houses the Romans built.
There were vineyards and wine made from them as early as the Eighth Century, and in the reign of Edward the Third wine was made at Windsor Castle by Stephen of Bourdeaux. The Cherry trees brought here by the Romans had quite died out and were not recovered until Harris, Henry the Eighth’s Irish fruiterer, grew them again at Sittingbourne. In the Twelfth Century flower gardening again came in, and within the castle walls pleasant gardens were laid out with little avenues of fruit trees, and neat beds of flowers. Of the fruit trees there was the Costard Apple, the only Apple of that time, from which great quantities of cider—that “good-natured and potable liquor”—was made. There was the great Wardon Pear, from which the celebrated Wardon pies were made; they were Winter Pears from a stock originally cultivated by those great horticulturists the Cistercian monks of Wardon in Bedfordshire. Then there was also the Quince, called a Coyne, the Medlar, and I believe the Mulberry, or More tree. In the borders, Strawberries, Raspberries, Barberries and Currants were grown, that is in a well-stocked garden such as the Earl of Lincoln had in Holborn in 1290. Then there was a plot set aside as a Physic garden where herbs grew and salads of Rocket, Lettuce, Mustard, Watercress, and Hops. In one place, probably overlooking the pond or fountain which was the centre of such gardens, was an arbour, and walks and smaller gardens were screened off by wattle hedges. In that part of the garden devoted to flowers were Roses, Lilies, Sunflowers, Violets, Poppies, Narcissi, Pervinkes or Periwinkles. Lastly, and most important was the Clove Pink, or Gilly-flower, a variety of Wallflower then called Bee-flower. Add to this an apiary and you have a complete idea of the mediæval garden.
Later, in the Fifteenth Century came a new feature into the garden, a mound built in the centre for the view, made sometimes of earth, but very often of wood raised up as a platform, and having gaily carved and painted stairways. These, with butts for archery, and bowling-greens, and a larger variety of the old kinds of flowers, showed the principal difference.
We come now to the gardens of the Sixteen Century, when flower gardening was extremely popular. Spenser and the other poets are always describing the beauties of flowers, and from these and old Herbals, from Bacon, Shakespeare and other writers of that time, we are able to see how, slowly but surely, the art of flower growing had advanced. The gardens were very exact and formal, and were divided in geometrical patterns, and grew large “seats” of Violets, Penny Royal, and Mint as well as other herbs. Above all, a new addition to the mounds, archery butts and bowling-greens, was the maze which had a place in every proper garden of the Elizabethans.
The first garden where flower growing was taken really seriously belonged to John Parkinson, a London apothecary who had a garden in Long Acre. Great importance was given to smell, as is highly proper, and flower gardens were bordered with Thyme, Marjoram and Lavender. Highly-scented flowers were the most prized, and for this reason the prime favourite the Carnation, was more grown than any other flower. Of this there were fifty distinct varieties of every shape and size, including the famous large Clove Pink, the golden coloured Sops-in-Wine.
With the increase in the variety of the Rose, of which about thirty kinds were known, came the fashion, quickly universal, of keeping potpourri of dried Rose leaves, many of which were imported from the East, from whence, years before, had come quantities of Roses to supply the demand in Winter in Rome.
As the fashion for growing flowers increased so, also, did the efforts of gardeners to procure new and rare flowers from foreign countries, and soon the Fritillary, Tulip and Iris were extensively cultivated, and were treated with extraordinary care.
Following this came the rage for Anemones and Ranunculi, in which people endeavoured to excel over their friends. And after that came in small Chrysanthemums, Lilac or Blue Pipe tree, Lobelia, and the Acacia tree.
It will be seen that within quite a short space of time the old garden containing few flowers, and only those as a rule that had some medicinal properties, vanished before a perfect orgy of colour and wealth of varieties; and that gardening for pleasure gave the people a new and fascinating occupation. The rage for Anemones and for the different kinds of Ranunculus developed until in the late Seventeenth Century the madness, for it was nothing else, for Tulip collecting came in, to give place still later to the Rose, and in our day only to be equalled by the collection of Chrysanthemums and Orchids.
The best books previous to Evelyn’s “Sylva” are Gervase Markham’s “Country House-Wife’s Garden,” (1617), and John Parkinson’s “Paradisus in Sole” (1629).
One word more on the subject of flower mania. The rage for the Tulip that attacked both English and Dutch in the late Seventeenth Century is one of the most peculiar things in the history of gardening. The Tulip is really a Persian flower, the shape of it suggesting the name, thoulyban, a Persian turban. It was introduced into England about 1577, by way of Germany, having been brought there by the German Ambassador from Constantinople. By the Seventeenth Century there had developed such a passion for this flower that it led to wreck and ruin of rich men who paid fabulous sums for the bulbs, a single bulb being sold for a fortune. One bulb of the Semper Augustus was sold for four thousand six hundred florins, a new carriage, a pair of grey horses, and complete harness. So great did the business in Tulips become that every Dutch town had special Tulip exchanges, and there speculators assembled and bid away vast sums to acquire rare kinds. The mania lasted about three years, and was only finally stopped by the Government.