Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/186

120 divided, by the best authorities, into two parts, the "flower-garden" and the "herb-garden." Both were walled, both elaborately designed, but the Italian ornamentation, the statues, fountains, dials—all works of art in themselves—were reserved for the former. As system began to rule supreme in the flower-garden, a concession to man's undisciplined desires was made in the "heath" or the "wilderness," where a wildness which had no part in the trim order of the gardener's scheme was allowed, though not without some check, to exist.

The wooden figures of Henry VIII.'s day, the gaily coloured beasts then set up, soon yielded to the more durable decoration in stone and lead. Solidity and permanence came more and more to be marks of the design. Thus there sprang into existence the "garden-houses," the "pleasure-house," "gazebo," "banquet-house." Sir Thomas More built him a house in his Chelsea garden, whither he could retire for study and prayer, and spend, if he willed, the whole day in seclusion. Henry VIII. had built more than one of these at Hampton Court—one in the "Mount" garden and one below; but later alterations swept them away.

Bacon's picture, in its size at least, might have been drawn for Hampton Court, with its luxury of space, where green and heath, or "desart" and main garden, with its alleys, might find ample room. "Knots of figures with divers coloured earths" he will not endure, but the "stately arched hedge," set