people, the fruit trees, the plants, the herbs, the flowers, the change in colours, the birds fluttering, the fountain streaming, the fish swimming, all in such delectable variety, order, dignity; whereby at one moment, in one place, at hand, without travel, to have so full fruition of so many of God's blessings, worthy to be called Paradise."
Neither can one forget Spenser's joyous voice singing—
"Bring hether the Pinke and purple Cullambine
With Gelliflowers;
Bring Coronations and Sops in wine,
Worn of Paramowers;
Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies
And Cowslips and Kingcups and loved Lillies."
Indoors, too, flowers abounded. In summer time the chimneys were trimmed with banks of moss and a white flower "called everlasting." "Their chambers and parlours strawed over with sweete herbs refreshed me," says a Dutch traveller in 1560. "Their nosegays finely intermingled with sundry sorts of fragrant flowers in their bed-chambers with comfortable smell, cheered me up and entirely delighted my senses."
But flowers were a small detail of the luxuries which filled the inside of Elizabethan houses.
