he reported them to the Queen upon a promise that they should not be divulged-Dr. Abbott is left in a dilemma. If the paper entitled 'Tyrone's Propositions' was a true note of them made by a member of the Council, he knows that the statement which he contradicts is substantially true; if not, he knows nothing about it :-unless, indeed, he will admit as evidence Essex's own summary account of them as reported by Camden. Cecil's declaration in the Star Chamber to the same effect in November, 1599-'His conditions were, pardon for all the rebels in Ireland, restoration of all lands held from any by the English, and entire freedom of conscience'-he produces as a witness on his own side, because Cecil, he says, 'describes the demand'-the last of the three conditions-not as monstrous, but only as "needless," implying that toleration already existed' (p. 142); and a needless demand (he seems to think) could not have been embodied in a proposition which was open to other objections. But Camden's account is not qualified by any such comment; and for penetration into 'underlying motives,' Dr. Abbott (as we have seen) sometimes holds Camden an authority. Now Camden tells us that when Essex, the day after his arrival at Nonsuch, was called before the Council to explain-Being questioned why he contracted such a truce with the rebels, he answered that Tyrone was so confident in his strength that he proudly refused all conditions of peace, unless all the rebels in Ireland might be pardoned their offences, the Irish might be restored to their possessions which the English enjoyed, and the Romish religion might be freely exercised throughout the whole kingdom. And these conditions he [would have] persuaded (persuadere cœpit) the Queen to ratify.' But then, again, if he admits Camden for a witness on this occasion, he admits that the statement in the Declaration is, in this as in all the other instances, exactly true.

XI.

'There passed speech also in this conspiracy of possessing the city of London, which Essex himself, in his own particular and secret inclination, had ever a special mind unto: not as a departure or going from his purpose of possessing the Court, but as an inducement and preparative to perform it upon a surer ground.'

The object of this falsehood was to show that Essex's attempt upon the city, instead of being a deviation from the original plan, was a part of the original plan, so as to fasten upon Essex a more deliberate treason. But it is against all the evidence (see pp. 214-15 above) if we take into consideration the passages suppressed by the Government.'

Which is the falsehood? That there passed speech,' &c.; or that Essex was secretly more inclined to the course which was not taken? If the first, unless Dr. Abbott can find one of the suppressed passages in which one of the conspirators, who had attended all the

meetings, denied that any speech of possessing the city of London had passed at any of them, I do not see how the publication of the entire evidence without any omission at all could have affected the question; for there is certainly abundant testimony both in the published and unpublished parts of the depositions to the fact that such speech did pass. If the last, which of the suppressed passages proves that the possession of the city was not the plan which Essex, in his own particular and secret inclination,' preferred?

XII.

'Having therefore concluded upon this determination, now was the time to execute in fact all that he had before in purpose digested.'

The truth was that nothing had been concluded or digested up to the very moment when the conspirators issued from the gates of Essex House. See PP. 21519 above.

Dr. Abbott's 'pages above' have a great deal to answer for. But does he really think that he has proved in these four pages that Essex had not in purpose digested' anything, up to the moment when he decided to lock up the Lords of the Council in his library and set out for the city with 200 gentlemen at his back, crying out that somebody was going to murder him? I read those pages attentively in their place without any suspicion that they would be appealed to in behalf of so extravagant an assertion as this; and though I do not undertake to report the substance of those or any other four pages of Dr. Abbott's composition without having them before me to refer to, I think I may say that what he attempted to prove in them was only that no part of the plot had been so settled as not to admit of a change at the last moment. This is true: but it is also true that this is what the official narrative implies: which represents Essex as having on Saturday afternoon, in consequence of a summons to attend the Council, 'determined to hasten his enterprise' (of surprising the Court) and execute it the next morning; and again, as having, later on the same evening, in consequence of news that the Court had taken alarm, determined to change the plan and begin with an appeal to the city. And this was the determination which (having before in purpose digested,' but given up in deference to the opinion of the majority of his advisers) he now-that is, on Saturday night-resolved to execute in fact.'

6

If Dr. Abbott wishes to know how much and what was concluded and digested between that time and the moment when the conspirators issued from the gates of Essex House,' he will find it all in a narrative to which he can have no difficulty in referring—a narrative which was certainly intended and believed to be veracious, and in which all the passages suppressed by the Government were carefully taken into consideration-the same narrative, in fact, to which

he himself refers us in note 2, p. 215-and in the same page. I need not quote it here; for I cannot believe either that his own counter-statement will be thought by anybody but himself (and perhaps our re viewer) to be in itself credible; or that, if it were proved correct, it would be accepted by anybody else as a reason for concluding that the statement in the Declaration was not believed by its authors to be true.

The rest of the story of that day, as told in the Declaration, supplies Dr. Abbott with no more instances of suppression or misrepresentation. And having now gone patiently through his whole collection, I still wait to hear of a single material circumstance in which the effect of the original depositions is misrepresented in the narrative put forth by Queen Elizabeth.

JAMES SPEDDING.

OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING.

In these days a garden is an artificial production with which nature has as much to do as with the weaving of a Turkey carpet. The art of carpet-bedding has been carried to perfection, and in consequence we all know what to expect when we enter a flower-garden in the late summer months. There are the patches of scarlet, purple, and white, as smooth and even as the emerald turf in which they are embedded. There is not a withered leaf nor a straggling spray to be seen, for it is the gardener's first object to repress the luxuriance of nature, and it is part of his duty to go over the beds every morning to reduce them to the same trim and level uniformity. These brilliant patches of colour are embellished or relieved by a bordering of a sedum, which resembles the truncated head of an artichoke, but which has, for some unknown reason, been enrolled in the catalogue of ornamental plants. The ideal which our English gardeners strive to fulfil is to be found in the flower-beds of our London parks, and if they are able to imitate their model with more or less success, it matters little to them that the parterre which blazes into colour in July and August remains brown and barren for the greater part of the year. The tyranny of fashion has prevailed alike in the gardens of rich and poor, of the squire, the parson, and the farmer, and the delightful occupation of gardening is exalted, or as we think debased, to become a skilled art, in which there is no place for amateurs.

It was not so in the gardens of our youth, and over some of these the destroying hand has not yet passed. There was the stamp of character and all the charms of a surprise in the distinctive peculiarities of our old-fashioned walled gardens. One was famous for its peaches, sheltered from the early frosts by the thatched coping of its mud walls; another, for its wealth of golden-drop plums. In one there was a shady corner for lilies of the valley; in another a sunny exposure where the autumn violets were the first to bloom. In all there were grass alleys, crooked and hoary old apple-trees, valued as much for their age as for the quality of their fruit; there was a wealth and variety of pot-herbs, one wall was crowned by a patch of yellow sedum, another was fringed with wall-flowers, and the old bricks were often covered by a network of the delicate and beautiful creeper,

the mother of millions.' There was the delightful smell of newlyturned mould, to mingle with the fragrance of a hedge of sweet peas, or of a bed of clove gillyflowers. Sweetwilliam and mignonette filled the vacant spaces, and the bees from a row of straw hives were humming over all. It is sad to think that such gardens as we describe must almost be numbered among the things of the past.

This lament over the lost glories of our English gardens is suggested by the perusal of a rare and curious folio, published in 1629, which bears the following title :

Paradisi in Sole. Paradisus Terrestris. A Garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed up with a Kitchen garden of all manner of herbs, raves and fruites, for meate or sause, used with us, and an Orchard of all sorte of fruitbearing Trees and Shrubbes fit for our Land, together with the right orderinge, planting and preserving of them, with their uses and vertues. Collected by John Parkinson, Apothecary of London, 1629.

'Qui veut paragonner l'artifice à Nature,
Et nos parcs à Eden, indiscret il mesure
Le pas de l'éléphant par le pas du ciron,
Et de l'aigle le vol par çi du mouscheron.'

This comprehensive title is printed on a small scutcheon, in order not to interfere with the quaint and elaborate representation of the Garden of Eden, which occupies the rest of the title-page. The tree of knowledge, its fruit still unplucked by Adam, appears in the centre of the plate. Adam is grafting an apple-tree; Eve, clothed only by her hair, is skipping airily downhill to pick up a pine-apple, and all sorts of flowers of wondrous proportions grow in the foreground. There is a tulip four times as big as Eve's head, and a cyclamen which is at least five feet high.

Parkinson dedicates his folio to the Queen, Henrietta Maria, not in the fulsome tone of adulation which we associate with dedications of that and succeeding ages, but rather as one conscious that he confers a favour in laying before her the fruit of so much labour and research. After giving good practical direction as to the site of the garden and its soil, he furnishes the reader with geometrical designs for the beds, and advice as to the relative merits of borderings in tiles, lead, thrift, and box, and he then goes on

to furnish the inward parts and beds with those fine Flowers that (being strangers unto us, and giving the beauty and bravery of their colours so early before many of our owne bred flowers, the most to entice us to their delight) are most beseeming it: and namely with Daffodils, Fritillaries, Jacinthes, Saffron-flowers, Lillies, Flowerdeluces, Tulipas, Anemones, French Cowslips or Beareseares, and a number of such other flowers, very beautifull, delightfull, and pleasant, whereof although many have little sweete sent to commend them, yet their earlinesse and exceeding great beautie and varietie doth so farre countervaile that defect (and yet I must tell you withall that there is among the many sorts of them some, and that not a few, that doe excell in sweetnesse, being so strong and heady, that they rather offend by too much than by too little sent, and some again are of so mild and VOL. VII.-No. 35.

K