II
Elizabeth loved to walk in her gardens, and foreigners who visited Hampton Court noted their number and size, and the quaintness with which the flowers and shrubs were trained and clipped. The parks, which her father had increased, she delighted in; there she hunted and gave hunting to the foreign princes who were her guests. Gardens stretched to Kingston,[1] and the parks extended north and east for miles. A German traveller observed with astonishment the arrangement of the ponds:—"The surrounding land is well arranged in gardens and ponds. The latter may at pleasure[2] be left dry or filled with water, and fish then let in. I never before saw the like of them."[3]
Throughout all the gardening of this period, the characteristic excellence is to be found in symmetry, and everything is precisely planned and designed. Straight walks surround geometrical flower-beds; mounds or ponds form a centre to which the walks converge. Bacon's essay on gardens is a picture of elaboration, where the chief garden is surrounded by a hedge which is clipped after a most complete and artificial fashion. Gradually the garden was
