Page images
PDF
EPUB

to be, if you do not point any of the lower rooms for a dining place of servants; for, otherwise, you shall have the servants' dinner after your own for the steam of it will come up as in a tunnel; and so much for the front: only I understand the height of the first stairs to be sixteen foot, which is the height of the lower room.

Beyond this front is there to be a fair court, but three sides of it of a far lower building than the front; and in all the four corners of that court fair staircases, cast into turrets on the outside, and not within the row of buildings themselves but those towers are not to be of the height of the front, but rather proportionable to the lower building. Let the court not be paved, for that striketh up a great heat in summer, and much cold in winter: but only some side alleys with a cross, and the quarters to graze, being kept shorn, but not too near shorn. The row of return on the banquet side, let it be all stately galleries: in which galleries let there be three or five fine cupolas in the length of it, placed at equal distance, and fine coloured windows of several works: on the household side, chambers of presence and ordinary entertainments, with some bed-chambers and let all three sides be a double house, without thorough lights on the sides, that you may have rooms from the sun, both for forenoon and afternoon. Cast it also, that you may have rooms both for summer and winter; shady for summer and warm

for winter. You shall have sometimes fair houses so full of glass, that one cannot tell where to become to be out of the sun or cold. For embowed windows, I hold them of good use; (in cities, indeed, upright do better, in respect of uniformity towards the street;) for they be pretty retiring places for conference; and, besides, they keep both the wind and sun off; for that which would strike almost through the room doth scarce pass the window but let them be but few, four in the court, on the sides only.

Beyond this court, let there be an inward court, of the same square and height, which is to be environed with the garden on all sides; and in the inside, cloistered on all sides upon decent and beautiful arches, as high as the first story: on the under story, towards the garden, let it be turned to a grotio, or place of shade, or estivation; and only have opening and windows towards the garden, and be level upon the floor, no whit sunk under ground, to avoid all dampishness: and let there be a fountain, or some fair work of statues, in the midst of the court, and to be paved as the other court was. These buildings to be for privy lodgings on both sides, and the end for privy galleries: whereof you must foresee that one of them be for an infirmary, if the prince or any special person should be sick, with chambers, bed-chamber, "antecamera," and "recamera," joining to it: this upon the second story. Upon the ground story, a fair

gallery, open, upon pillars; and upon the third story likewise, an open gallery upon pillars, to take the prospect and freshness of the garden. At both corners of the farther side, by way of return, let there be two delicate or rich cabinets, daintily paved, richly hanged, glazed with crystalline glass, and a rich cupola in the midst; and all other elegancy that may be thought upon. In the upper gallery too, I wish that there may be, if the place will yield it, some fountains running in divers places from the wall, with some fine avoidances. And thus much for the model of the palace; save that you must have, before you come to the front, three courts; a green court piain, with a wall about it; a second court of the same, but more garnished with little turrets, or rather embellishments, upon the wall; and a third court, to make a square with the front, but not to be built, nor yet enclosed with a naked wall, but enclosed with terraces leaded aloft, and fairly garnished on the three sides; and cloistered on the inside with pillars, and not with arches below. As for offices, let them stand at distance, with some low galicries to pass from them to the palace itself.

OF GARDENS.

God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of

man; without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks: and a man shall ever see, that, when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection. I do hold it, in the royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season. For December and January, and the latter part of November, you must take such things as are green all winter; holly, ivy, bays, juniper, cypress trees, yew, pines, fir trees, rosemary, lavender; periwinkle, the white, the purple, and the blue; germander, flag, orange trees, lemon trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved; and sweet marjoram, warm set. There followeth, for the latter part of January and February, the mezeron tree, which then blossoms; crocus vernus, both the yellow and the gray; primroses, anemones, the early tulip, the hyacinthus, orientalis, chamaïris fritellaria. For March there come violets, especially the single blue, which are the earliest; the early daffodil, the daisy, the almond tree in blossom, the peach tree in blossom, the cornelian tree in blossom, sweetbriar. In April follow the double white violet, the wallflower, the stock gillidower, the cowslip, flower-de-luces, and lilies of all natures; rosemary flowers, the tulip, the double peony, the pale daffodil, the French honey-suckle, the cherry tree in blossom, the damascene and

plum trees in blossom, the white thorn in leaf, the lilach tree. In May and June come pinks of all sorts, especially the blush pink; roses of all kinds, except the musk, which comes later; honey-suckles, strawberries, bugloss, columbine, the French marigold, flos Africanus, cherry tree in fruit, ribes, figs in fruit, rasps, vine-flowers, lavender in flowers, the sweet satyrian, with the white flower; herba muscaria lilium convallium, the apple tree in blossom. In July come gilliflowers of all varieties, musk-roses, the lime tree in blossom, early pears, and plums in fruit, gennitings, codlins. In August come plums of all sorts in fruit, pears, apricots, berberries, filberds, musk-mellons, monks-hoods of all colours. In September come grapes, apples, poppies of all colours, peaches, melocotones, nectarines, cornelians, wardens, quinces. In October and the beginning of November come services, medlars, bullaces, roses cut or removed to come late, hollyoaks, and such like. These particulars are for the climate of London: but my meaning is perceived, that you may have ver perpetuum," "as the place affords.

And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air, where it comes and goes, (like the warbling of music,) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and red, are fast flowers of their smells; so that you may walk by a whole row

« PreviousContinue »