to Surrey, the soil being dry and sandy; but I should speak much of the gardens, fountains and groves that adorn it, were they not generally known to be amongst the most natural, and (till this later and universal luxury of the whole nation, since abounding in such expenses) the most magnificent that England afforded, and which indeed gave one of the first examples to that elegancy, since so much in vogue and followed, for the managing of their waters and other elegancies of that nature.”  Before he came into the possession of his paternal estate he resided at Say’s Court, near Deptford, an estate which he possessed by purchase, and where he had a superb holly hedge four hundred feet long, nine feet high and five feet broad.  Of this hedge, he was particularly proud, and he exultantly asks, “Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind?” When the Czar of Muscovy visited England in 1698 to instruct himself in the art of ship-building, he had the use of Evelyn’s house and garden, at Say’s Court, and while there did so much damage to the latter that the owner loudly and bitterly complained.  At last the Government gave Evelyn L150 as an indemnification.  Czar Peter’s favorite amusement was to ride in a wheel barrow through what its owner had once called the “impregnable hedge of holly.”  Evelyn was passionately fond of gardening.  “The life and felicity of an excellent gardener,” he observes, “is preferable to all other diversions.”  His faith in the art of Landscape-gardening was unwavering.  It could remove mountains.  Here is an extract from his Diary.

“Gave his brother some directions about his garden” (at Wooton Surrey), “which, he was desirous to put into some form, for which he was to remove a mountain overgrown with large trees and thickets and a moat within ten yards of the house.”

No sooner said than done.  His brother dug down the mountain and “flinging it into a rapid stream (which carried away the sand) filled up the moat and levelled that noble area where now the garden and fountain is.”

Though Evelyn dearly loved a garden, his chief delight was not in flowers but in forest trees, and he was more anxious to improve the growth of plants indigenous to the soil than to introduce exotics.[007]

Sir William Temple was so attached to his garden, that he left directions in his will that his heart should be buried there.  It was enclosed in a silver box and placed under a sun-dial.

Dr. Thomson Reid, the eminent Scottish metaphysician, used to be found working in his garden in his eighty-seventh year.

The name of Chatham is in the long list of eminent men who have enjoyed a garden.  We are told that “he loved the country:  took peculiar pleasure in gardening; and had an extremely happy taste in laying out grounds.”  What a delightful thing it must have been for that great statesman, thus to relieve his mind from the weight of public care in the midst of quiet bowers planted and trained by his own hand!