emulate the stars. The plain there is as level as the sea, which with green grass allures the eye, and so smooth that there is nought to hinder him who runs through it. Neither is therein any waste place: for in some parts are apple trees, in other vines, which are either spread on the ground or raised on poles. A mutual strife is there between nature and art; so that what one produces not, the other supplies. ALEXANDER NECKAM (1157-1217). CHAPTER III MEDIAEVAL, RENAISSANCE AND TUDOR GARDENS Alexander Neckam, the earliest Englishman to write on Gardens, was born at St Albans, 1157, being the foster-brother of Richard Cœur de Lion -his mother "fovit Ricardum ex mamilla dextra, sed Alexandrum fovit ex mamilla sua sinistrå”—at the age of twenty-three he became a professor at the University of Paris, 1180-1186. Hurt at the pun on his name by the Benedictine Abbot of St Albans "Si bonus es venias; si nequam, nequaquam ("Come if you are good, if naughty, by no means") he became an Augustinian monk at Cirencester, and Abbot 1213. Died 1217 near Worcester and was buried in Cathedral. Author of a Latin poem, "De Laudibus Divine Sapientiæ," a metrical paraphrase of his own prose treatise "De Naturis rerum" which was meant to be a manual of the scientific knowledge of the time, with contemporary anecdotes and stories.-Thomas Wright, M.A. Preface to Neckam's Works. HERE ERE the garden should be adorned with roses and lilies, the turnsole (heliotrope), violets, and mandrake; there you should have parsley, cost, fennel, southern-wood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop, mint, rue, ditanny, smallage, pellitory, lettuces, garden-cress, and peonies. There should also be beds planted with onions, leeks, garlic, pumpkins and shalots. The cucumber growing in its lap, the drowsy poppy, the daffodil and brank-ursine (acanthus) ennoble a garden. Nor are there wanting, if occasion furnish thee, pottageherbs, beets, herb-mercury, orache, sorrel and mallows. Anise, mustard, white pepper and wormwood (absynth) do good service to the gardenlet. A noble garden will give thee also medlars, quinces, wardentrees, peaches, pears of St Riole, pomegranates, lemons (citron apples), oranges (golden apples), almonds, dates, which are the fruits of palms, and figs. I make no mention of ginger and gariofilia, cinnamon, liquorice, and zituala, and Virga Sabeæ dis tilling incense, myrrh, aloe and lavender, resin, storax and balsaam, and Indian laburnum. Saffron and sandyx will not be absent, if thou wilt follow our counsel. Who has not experienced the virtues of thyme and pennyroyal? Who is ignorant that borage and purslain are devoted to uses of diet? . . . The myrtle, too, is the friend of temperance; whence it comes that it is wont to be offered to the goddess who is named Cypris, for the same reason that the tufted bird is slain to Nux, the goddess of night, that the goat is devoted to Bacchus, and the swine to Ceres. But those, whom such toil interests, distinguish between heliotrope (solsequium) and our heliotrope, which is called marigold (calendula); and between wormwood, (artemisia) and our wormwood, which is called centaury (febrifugium). It is agreed, too, that the beard of Jove (Jovis barba) is one grass, and Jove's beard (barba Jovis) is another. The iris bears a purple flower, the marsh elder a white one; the gladiolus a yellow one; but the foetid palm (Spatula fætida) has none. The horehound, hound's tongue, the Macedonian rock, parsley, the hoop withe (snakewood), groundsel, ground ash, which is also the queen, three kinds of milk-vetch (astrologia) are well-known herbs. But Macer and Dioscorides and many others make diligent inquiries into the properties of herbs. Whence let us now pass to other matters. Of the Natures of Things. (On herbs, trees, and flowers which grow in the garden.) 1 I www 1 HAVE made two gardens that please me wonderfully. I do PETRARCH not think they are to be equalled in all the world. And I (1304-1374). must confess to you a more than female weakness with which I am haunted. I am positively angry that there is anything so beautiful out of Italy. 1 Mr T. Hudson Turner, in his "Observations on the State of Horticulture in England in Early Times" (Archæological Journal, vol. v.), a paper full of antiquarian research and of great interest, regards Neckam's description of a "noble garden" as in a great degree rhetorical and untrustworthy. ST BERNARD CLAIRVAUX One of these gardens is shady, formed for contemplation, and sacred to Apollo. It overhangs the source of the river, and is terminated by rocks, and by places accessible only to birds. The other is nearer my cottage, of an aspect less severe, and devoted to Bacchus; and, what is extremely singular, it is in the midst of a rapid river. The approach to it is over a bridge of rocks; and there is a natural grotto under the rocks; which gives them the appearance of a rustic bridge. Into this grotto the rays of the sun never penetrate. I am confident that it much resembles the place where Cicero sometimes went to declaim. It invites to study. Hither I retreat during the noontide hours; my mornings are engaged upon the hills, or in the garden sacred to Apollo. Here I would most willingly pass my days, were I not too near Avignon, and too far from Italy. For why should I conceal this weakness of my soul? I love Italy, and I hate Avignon. The pestilential influence of this horrid place impoisons the pure air of Vaucluse, and will compel me to quit my retirement.-Letter from Vaucluse, 1336.- Life of Petrarch,' by Thomas Campbell. F thou desire to know the situation of Clairvaux, let those writings be to thee as a mirror. . . . Then the back part of the Abbey terminates in a broad plain, no small portion of which a wall occupies, which surrounds the Abbey with its extended circuit. Within the enclosure of this wall many and various trees, prolific in various fruits constitute an orchard resembling a wood. Which, being near the cell of the sick, lightens the infirmities of the brethren with no moderate solace, while it affords a spacious walking place to those who walk and a sweet place for reclining to those who are overheated. The sick man sits upon the green sod, and while the inclemency of Sirius burns up the Earth with i his pitiless star, and dries up the rivers, he (the sick man) tempers the glowing stars, under leaves of the trees, into security, and concealment, and shade from the heat of the day; and for the comfort of his pain, the various kinds of grass are fragrant to his nostrils, the pleasant verdure of the herbs and trees gratifies his eyes, and their immense delights are present, hanging and growing before him, so that he may say, not without reason: I sat under the shade of that tree, which I had longed for, and its fruit was sweet to my throat.1 The concert of the coloured birds soothes his ears with their soft melody; and for the cure of our illness, the Divine tenderness provides many consolations, while the air smiles with bright serenity, the earth breathes with fruitfulness, and he himself drinks in with eyes, ears, and nostrils, the delights of colours, songs and odours. Where the orchard terminates, the garden begins, distributed into separate plots, or rather, divided by intersecting rivulets; for although the water appears stagnant, it flows nevertheless with a slow gliding. Here also a beautiful spectacle is exhibited to the infirm brethren: while they sit upon the green margin of the huge basin, they see the little fishes playing under the water, and representing a military encounter, by swimming to meet each other. This water serves the double duty of supporting the fish and watering the vegetables, to which water, Alba, a river of famous name, supplies nourishment by its unwearied wandering.-Description of Clairvaux by a Contemporary of St Bernard. MA -www AIS les Français ont maisons granz, et plenières et peintes, et BRUNETTO belles chambres pour avoir joie et delit sans guerre et LATINI (1230-1294). sans noise et pour ce savent ils mieux faire preaux et vergiers et pommiers entre la manoir car ce est une chose qui molt vaut à delit d'ome.-Libre I., pt. iv., chap. cxxx. Li Livres dou Tresor. P. Chabaille. www Maundeville was an early and imaginative traveller in Palestine, Egypt SIR JOHN and China, and resided three years at Pekin. His work is a pot-pourri of fact, MAUNDEVILL fiction, chronicle, legend and romance. NE JEAR the isle of Peutexoire, which is the land of Prester John, is a great isle, long and broad, called Milsterak, which is in the lordship of Prester John. That isle is very 1 See extract from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.' с (1300-1372). |