Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, notices the attractions of a garden as amongst the finest remedies for depression of the mind.  I must give the following extracts from his quaint but interesting pages.

    “To see the pleasant fields, the crystal fountains,
    And take the gentle air amongst the mountains.

“To walk amongst orchards, gardens, bowers, mounts, and arbours, artificial wildernesses, green thickets, arches, groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such like pleasant places, (like that Antiochian Daphne,) brooks, pools, fishponds, between wood and water, in a fair meadow, by a river side, ubi variae avium cantationes, florum colores, pratorum frutices, &c. to disport in some pleasant plain, or park, run up a steep hill sometimes, or sit in a shady seat, must needs be a delectable recreation. Hortus principis et domus ad delectationem facta, cum sylva, monte et piscina, vulgo la montagna:  the prince’s garden at Ferrara, Schottus highly magnifies, with the groves, mountains, ponds, for a delectable prospect; he was much affected with it; a Persian paradise, or pleasant park, could not be more delectable in his sight.  St. Bernard, in the description of his monastery, is almost ravished with the pleasures of it.  “A sick man (saith he) sits upon a green bank, and when the dog-star parcheth the plains, and dries up rivers, he lies in a shady bower,” Fronde sub arborea ferventia temperat astra, “and feeds his eyes with variety of objects, herbs, trees, to comfort his misery; he receives many delightsome smells, and fills his ears with that sweet and various harmony of birds; good God, (saith he), what a company of pleasures hast thou made for man!”

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“The country hath his recreations, the city his several gymnics and exercises, May games, feasts, wakes, and merry meetings to solace themselves; the very being in the country; that life itself is a sufficient recreation to some men, to enjoy such pleasures, as those old patriarchs did.  Dioclesian, the emperor, was so much affected with it, that he gave over his sceptre, and turned gardener.  Constantine wrote twenty books of husbandry.  Lysander, when ambassadors came to see him, bragged of nothing more than of his orchard, hi sunt ordines mei.  What shall I say of Cincinnatus, Cato, Tully, and many such? how they have been pleased with it, to prune, plant, inoculate and graft, to show so many several kinds of pears, apples, plums, peaches, &c.”

The Romans of all ranks made use of flowers as ornaments and emblems, but they were not generally so fond of directing or assisting the gardener, or taking the spade or hoe into their own hands, as are the British peasantry, gentry and nobility of the present day.  They were not amateur Florists.  They prized highly their fruit trees and pastures and cool grottoes and umbrageous groves; but they expended comparatively