Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/188

168 which a flight of steps led to broad, straight walks, intersected with flower-beds geometric in form. The patterns harmonised with the details of architecture; the tracery surmounting the Elizabethan house found its counterpart in the design of the flower-beds. The garden was square "because it doth best agree with a man's dwelling," and bounded by a high brick wall, often covered with rosemary and "divers sweet smelling plants." But the old formal garden is too well known to need description, for it has many imitations in these modern days. Familiar in our minds are the quaint yew hedges fantastically clipped, the "covert walks" and "shade alleys" formed by intertwining willows and wych elms, where "one might walk twoe myle &hellip; before he came to their ends." Familiar the maze set with privet, some six feet high, with lavender, marjoram, or thyme, and cut into "meanders, circles, semicircles, windings, and intricate turnings, the walks or intervals whereof are all grass plots"; familiar the fair fountains with their marble sculpture, Neptune and his horses, Thetis and her dolphins, Triton and his fishes, with water spurting vehemently upwards. Indeed these fountains gave rise to many a practical