little figure, with broad plates of round coloured glass gilt, for the sun to play upon. But this hedge I intend to be raised upon a bank, not steep but gently slope of some six foot, set all with flowers. Also I understand that this square of the garden should not be the whole breadth of the ground, but to leave on either side ground enough for diversity of side alleys, unto which the two covert alleys of the green may deliver you; but there must be no alleys with hedges at either end of this great enclosure; not at the higher end for letting your prospect upon this fair hedge from the green, nor at the further end for letting your prospect from the hedge through the arches upon the heath.

For the ordering of the ground within the great hedge, I leave it to variety of device, advising nevertheless, that whatsoever form you cast it into, first it be not too busy or full of work, wherein I, for my part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden stuff, they be for children. Little low hedges round like welts with some pretty pyramids, I like well; and in some places fair columns upon frames of carpenters' work. I would also have the alleys spacious and fair. You may have closer alleys upon the side grounds, but none in the main garden. I wish also in the very middle a fair mount with three ascents and alleys, enough for four to walk abreast, which I would have to be perfect circles, without any bulwarks or embossments, and the whole mount to be thirty foot high, and some fine banqueting house with some chimneys neatly cast, and without too much glass.

For fountains they are a great beauty and refreshment, but pools mar all, and make the garden unwholesome and full of flies and frogs. Fountains I intend to be of two natures, the one that sprinkleth or spouteth water, the other a fair receipt of water of some thirty or forty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud. For the first the ornaments of images gilt, or of marble, which are in use, do well; but the main matter is, so to convey the water as it never stay either in the bowls or in the cistern, that the waters be never by rest discoloured, green or red, or the like, or gather any mossiness or putrefaction. Besides that it is to be cleansed every day by the hand, also some steps up to it, and some fine pavement about it doth well. As for the other kind of fountain, which we may call a bathing-pool, it may admit much curiosity and beauty, wherewith we will not trouble ourselves, as that the bottom be finely paved, and with images; the sides likewise, and withal embellished with coloured glass and such things of lustre ; encompassed also with fine rails of low statues. But the main

point is the same, which we mentioned in the former kind of fountain, which is, that the water be in perpetual motion, fed by a water higher than the pool, and delivered into it by fair spouts and then discharged away under ground by some equality of bores, that it stay little. And for fine devices of arching water without spilling, and making it rise in several forms (of feathers, drinking-glasses, canopies, and the like), they be pretty things to look on, but nothing to health and

sweetness.

For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to be framed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness. Trees I would have none in it, but some thickets made only of sweet-briar and honeysuckle and some wild vine amongst; and the ground set with violets, strawberries, and primroses; for these are sweet and prosper in the shade; and these to be in the heath here and there, not in any order. I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills, (such as are in wild heaths,) to be set some with wild-thyme, some with pinks, some with germander, that gives a good flower to the eye, some with periwinkle, some with violets, some with strawberries, some with cowslips, some with daisies, some with red roses, some with lilium convallium, some with sweet-williams red, some with bears'-foot, and the like low flowers, being withal sweet and sightly. Part of which heaps to be with standards of little bushes pricked upon their top, and part without; the standards to be roses, juniper, holly, barberries (but here and there, because of the smell of their blossom), red currants, gooseberries, rosemary, bays, sweet-briar, and such like. But these standards to be kept with cutting, that they grow not out of course.

For the side grounds you are to fit them with variety of alleys, private, to give a full shade, some of them, wheresoever the sun be. You are to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that when the wind blows sharp, you may walk as in a gallery. And those alleys must be likewise hedged at both ends to keep out the wind; and these closer alleys must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass because of going wet. In many of these alleys likewise, you are to set fruit trees of all sorts, as well upon the walls as in ranges. And this would be generally observed, that the borders wherein you plant your fruit trees, be fair and large, and low and not steep, and set with fine flowers, but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees. At the end of both the side grounds I would have a mount of some pretty height, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast high, to look abroad into the fields.

For the main garden I do not deny but there should be some fair alleys ranged on both sides with fruit trees, and come pretty tufts of fruit trees, and arbours with seats, set in some decent order; but these to be by no means set too thick, but to leave the main garden so as it be not close, but the air open and free; for as for shade, I would have you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there to walk, if you be disposed, in the heat of the year or day; but to make account that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the year; and in the heat of summer, for the morning and the evening or overcast days.

For aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness as they may be turfed, and have living plants and bushes set in them that the birds may have more scope and natural nestling, and that no foulness appear in the floor of the aviary. So I have made a plat-form of a princely garden, partly by precept, partly by drawing, not a model, but some general lines of it, and in this I have spared for no cost. nothing, for great princes, that for the most part taking advice with workmen, with no less cost, set their things together, and sometimes add statuas and such things for state and magnificence, but nothing to the true pleasure of a garden.

But it is

The next six Essays, which are all short, were all in the first publication of 1597. The Forty-seventh, “Of Negotiating," concludes thus :

In dealing with cunning persons we must ever consider their ends to interpret their speeches, and it is good to say little to them, and that which they least look for. In all negotiations of difficulty a man may not look to sow and reap at once, but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

And this is the close of the Forty-eighth, entitled "Of Followers and Friends:"

To take advice of some few friends is ever honourable; for lookers on, many times, see more than gamesters, and the vale best discovereth the hill. There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals, which was wont to be magnified. That that is, is between superior and inferior, whose fortunes may comprehend the one the other.

From the Forty-ninth, "Of Suitors," we select the following passage :

Iniquum petas, ut æquum feras,* is a good rule where a man hath strength of favour, but otherwise a man were better rise in his suit; for he that would have ventured at first to have lost the suitor, will not in the conclusion lose both the suitor and his own former favour. Nothing is thought so easy a request to a great person, as his letter; and yet, if it be not in a good cause, it is so much out of his reputation. . . .

The Fiftieth is entitled "Of Studies;" here is part of it :

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. . . . . Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores.† . . .

...

The Fifty-first, "Of Faction," begins and ends as follows:

Many have an opinion, not wise, that for a prince to govern his estate, or for a great person to govern his proceedings, according to the respect to factions, is a principal part of policy; whereas contrariwise, the chiefest wisdom is either in ordering those things which are general and wherein men of several factions do nevertheless agree, or in dealing with correspondence to particular persons one by one.... When factions are carried too high and too violently, it is a sign of weakness in princes, and much to the prejudice both of their authority and business. The motions of factions under kings ought to be like the motions (as the astronoiuers speak) of the inferior orbs, which may have their proper motions, but yet still are quietly carried by the higher motion of primum mobile.‡

And here are a few sentences from the Fifty-second, entitled "Of Ceremonies and Respects: "

* You may ask too much, in order to obtain a moderate boon + Studies become habits. The primary moving power.

It doth much add to a man's reputation, and is (as queen Isabella said) 'like perpetual letters commendatory to have good forms;' to obtain them it almost sufficeth not to despise them, for so shall a man observe them in others; and let him trust himself with the rest. For if he labour too much to express them, he shall lose their grace, which is to be natural and unaffected. Some men's behaviour is like a verse wherein every syllable is measured. How can a man comprehend great matters, that breaketh his mind too much to small observations?

... It is a good precept generally in seconding another, yet to add somewhat of one's own; as if you would grant his opinion, let it be with some distinction; if you will follow his motion, let it be with condition; if you allow his counsel, let it be with alleging further reason. . . .

The Fifty-third Essay, entitled "Of Praise," was first published in 1612, and commences thus:

Praise is the reflection of virtue, but it is as the glass or body which giveth the reflection. If it be from the common people, it is commonly false and naught, and rather followeth vain persons than virtuous. For the common people understand not many excellent virtues; the lowest virtues draw praise from them, the middle virtues work in them astonishment or admiration, but of the highest virtues they have no sense or perceiving at all; but shows and species virtutibus similes* serve best with them. Certainly fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

Of the Fifty-fourth, entitled "Of Vain-Glory," which is also in the edition of 1612, the latter part is as follows:

In fame of learning the flight will be slow, without some feathers of ostentation. Qui de contemnendâ gloriâ libros scribunt, nomen suum inscribunt. Socrates, Aristotle, Galen, were men full of ostentation. Certainly vain-glory helpeth to perpetuate a man's memory; and virtue was never so beholden to human nature, as it received his due at the second hand. Neither had the fame of Cicero, Seneca, Plinius Secundus, borne her age so well if it had not been joined with some

*

Appearances like to virtues.

Those who write books on despising glory put their names in the title-page.