Фрэнсис Бэкон
Of Gardens
AND because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air, where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music, than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and red, are fast flowers of their smells; so that you may walk by a whole row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness: yea, though it be in a morning’s dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as they grow; rosemary little; nor sweet marjoram. That which above all others yields the sweetest smell in the air, is the violet; especially the white double violet, which comes twice a year, about the middle of April, and about Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the muskrose; then the strawberry leaves dying, with a most excellent cordial smell; then the flower of the vines – it is a little dust, like the dust of a bent, which grows upon the cluster, in the first coming forth; then sweet-brier; then wallflowers, which are very delightful, to be set under a parlour, or lower chamber window; then pinks and gilliflowers, especially the matted pink and clove-gilli-flower; then the flowers of the lime tree; then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Of bean flowers I speak not, because they are field flowers; but those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three; that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water mints. Therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.
FOR gardens, speaking of those which are indeed princelike, as we have done of buildings, the contents ought not well to be under thirty acres of ground, and to be divided into three parts: a green in the entrance; a heath or desert in the going forth; and the main garden in the midst; besides alleys on both sides. And I like well, that four acres of ground be assigned to the green, six to the heath, four and four to either side, and twelve to the main garden. The green hath two pleasures: the one, because nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn; the other, because it will give you a fair alley in the midst; by which you may go in front upon a stately hedge, which is to inclose the garden. But because the alley will be long, and in great heat of the year or day, you ought not to buy the shade in the garden by going in the sun through the green; therefore, you are, of either side the green, to plant a covert alley, upon carpenter’s work, about twelve foot in height, by which you may go in shade into the garden. As for the making of knots or figures, with divers coloured earths, that they may lie under the windows of the house, on that side which the garden stands, they be but toys; you may see as good sights, many times, in tarts. The garden is best to be square, encompassed on all the four sides with a stately arched hedge: the arches to be upon pillars of carpenter’s work, of some ten foot high, and six foot broad; and the spaces between of the same dimension with the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let there be an entire hedge, of some four foot high, framed also upon carpenter’s work; and upon the upper hedge, over every arch, a little turret, with a belly enough to receive a cage of birds; and over every space between the arches, some other little figure, with broad plates of round coloured glass, gilt, for the sun to play upon. But this hedge I intend to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but gently slope, of some six foot, set all with flowers. Also I understand, that this square of the garden should not be the whole breadth of the ground, but to leave on either side ground enough for diversity of side alleys; into which the two covert alleys of the green may deliver you; but there must be no alleys with hedges at either end of this great enclosure; not at the hither end, for letting your prospect upon the fair hedge from the green; nor at the further end, for letting your prospect from the hedge, through the arches, upon the heath.
