frightened, but as soon as the mermaid had spoken to them, they thought no more of that. Her voice was so sweet and pleasant, that they fell in love with her there and then, both of them. Well, she told them there was a treasure hidden at the bottom of the pond-lumps of gold, and no one knows what. And she would give them as much as ever they liked if they would come to her in the water and take it out of her hands. So they went in, though it was almost up to their chins, and she dived into the water and brought up a lump of gold almost as big as a man's head. And the men were just going to take it, when one of them said: "Eh!' he said (and swore, you know), 'if this isn't a bit of luck! And, my word! if the mermaid didn't take it away from them again, and gave a scream, and dived down into the pond, and they saw no more of her, and got none of her gold. And nobody has ever seen her since then." No doubt the story

once ran that the oath which scared the

uncanny creature involved the mention of the Holy Name.—Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 78.

Some Old Gardens. BY J. A. SPARVEL-BAYLY.

ARDENING was, as we know, one of the first arts acquired by man. Culinary, and afterwards medicinal, herbs were matters of importance to the head of every family, and it soon dawned upon primeval man that it would be more convenient to have them within reach, without the trouble of seeking them at random in woods, in meadows, and on mountains, as they were wanted. When the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously all those primitive luxuries, and culture became requisite, separate enclosures for rearing herbs and fruits grew expedient. Those most in use, and those demanding the greatest care and closest attention, probably entered first, and gradually extended the domestic enclosure. That good man Noah, we are told, planted a vineyard, drank the

wine of his own making, and unfortunately became drunken. Thus were acquired kitchen gardens, orchards, and vineyards. No doubt the prototype of all these was the garden of Eden; but as that Paradise was a good deal larger than any we read of afterwards, being enclosed by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, and as every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food grew in it, and as two other trees were also found there, of which not a slip or sucker now remains, it does not enter within the scope of the present article. After the fall, no man living was suffered to enter the garden, and the necessities of our first ancestors hardly allowed them time to make improvements on their estate in imitation of it.

When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then a gentleman?

A cavern and a slip of ground, such as we see by the side of a common, were in all probability the earliest seats and gardens; a

well and a crock succeeded the Pison and

the Euphrates. As settlements increased, the orchard and vineyard followed, and the earliest princes of tribes possessed just the necessaries of a farmer. The garden of Alcinous, in the Odyssey, is the most renowned in the heroic times. Is there an admirer of Homer who can read his description without rapture? or who does not form to his imagination a scene of delight more picturesque than the landscapes of Titian? Yet what was that boasted Paradise with which

The gods ordain'd

To grace Alcinous and his happy land.

Why, divested of harmonious Greek and bewitching poetry, it was a small orchard and vineyard, with some beds of herbs and two fountains that watered them, enclosed with a quickset hedge. The whole compass of this much-vaunted garden enclosed just four acres.

Four acres was th' allotted space of ground
Fenc'd with a green enclosure all around.

The trees were apples, figs, pomegranates, pears, olives, and vines, and

Beds of all various herbs for ever green, In beauteous order terminate the scene. This garden of Alcinous, planted by the poet, was enriched by him with the fairy gift

of eternal summer, and no doubt an effort of imagination surpassing anything Homer had ever seen. As he has bestowed on the same happy prince a palace with brazen walls and columns of silver, he certainly intended that the garden should be proportionately magnificent. We are sure, therefore, that as late as Homer's time an enclosure of four acres, comprehending orchard, vineyard, and kitchen-garden, was a stretch of luxury the world at that time never beheld. Previous to this, however, we have in the sacred writings hints of a garden still more luxuriously furnished-we allude to the Song of Solomon, part of the scene of which is undoubtedly laid in a garden. Flowers and fruits are particularly spoken of as the ornament of and the produce of it, and besides these, aromatic plants formed a considerable portion of the pleasure it afforded. The camphor and the cinnamon-tree, with frankincense and all the chief spices, flourished there. Solomon tells us in another place that he made him great works, gardens and orchards, and planted in them trees of every kind. Indeed, we must suppose his gardens to have been both amply and curiously furnished, seeing the kinds, nature, and properties of the vegetable tribes appear to have been a favourite study with the royal philosopher; for we are told that he wrote of plants, from the great cedar of Lebanon down to the hyssop of the wall. Fountains and streams of water, so requisite in a warm climate, appear to have had a share in Solomon's compositions, and were probably designed for ornament as well as use. The hanging gardens of Babylon were a still greater wonder; but as they are supposed to have been formed on terraces and the walls of the palaces of that great city, whither soil was conveyed for the purpose, we may here dismiss them by presuming that they were what sumptuous and expensive gardens have been in all ages until this present day-enriched by artistic works, statues, balustrades, summer-houses, and the like-and altogether unnatural, far from rural, though formed with judgment and taste, and well adapted to the situation and circumstances. Thus we find King Ahasuerus goes immediately from his banquet of wine to walk in the garden of the palace. The garden of Cyrus at Sardis, mentioned by Xenophon, was probably like

the hanging gardens at Babylon, not merely adjacent to the palace, but a part of the building itself, since several of the royal apartments were absolutely under the garden. It is not quite clear what the taste for gardening was among the Greeks. The Academus was, we know, a wooded, shady place; and the trees appear to have been of the olive species. It was situated beyond the limits. of the walls, and adjacent to the tombs of the heroes; and though we are nowhere told the particular manner in which this grove or garden was laid out, it may be gathered from Pausanias that it was a pretty place, highly adapted by art, as well as by nature, to philosophic reflection and contemplation. We are told by Plutarch that, before the time of Cimon, the Academus was a rude and uncultivated spot; but that it was planted by that general, and had water conveyed to it. Whether this water was brought merely for use to refresh the trees, or for ornament, does not appear. The trees are said to have flourished well, until destroyed by Sylla when he besieged Athens. Among the Romans, a taste for gardening any otherwise than as a matter of utility seems not to have prevailed until a very late period. Cato, Varro, and Palladius, make no mention of a garden as an object of pleasure, but solely with respect to its production of herbs and fruits. The Lucullan gardens are the first we find mentioned of remarkable magnificence, though probably as these were so remarkable they were by no means the first. Plutarch speaks of them as incredibly expensive, and equal to the magnificence of kings. They contained artificial elevations of ground to a most surprising height, buildings projected into the sea, and vast pieces of water made upon land. It is not improbable from the above account, and from the fact of Lucullus having spent much time in Asia, where he had an opportunity of studying the most splendid constructions of this nature, that the gardens were laid out in the Asiatic style. He acquired the appellation of the Roman Xerxes. Perhaps his gardens bore some resemblance in their arrangement and style to the Babylonian gardens, and thus the epithet would be applicable to the taste, as well as to the size and cost of his works. The Tusculan villa of Cicero, though often

mentioned, is not anywhere described in his works so as to afford an adequate idea of the style in which his grounds and gardens were laid out. There is little to be traced in Virgil. Pines were probably a favourite ornament, and flowers, especially roses, were highly esteemed. The Poestan roses were chiefly valued for their excellent odour; perfumes, indeed, having been always highly valued in warm climates. There appears also to have prevailed among the Romans a piece of luxury which is equally prevalent with ourselves—namely, the forcing of flowers at seasons of the year not suited for their natural bloom; and roses were then the principal flowers upon which we gather from Martial these experiments were made. Pliny tells us that the place of exercise which surrounded his Laurentine villa, used by him as a winter retreat, was bounded by a hedge of box, repaired, where necessary, by rosemary; that there was a vine-walk, and that most of the trees were fig and mulberry. Of his Tuscan villa, the garden forms a considerable part of the description. And in that description what beauty is most lauded? Why, exactly that which was the admiration of this England of ours about 150 years since -box-trees cut into various shapes, monsters, animals, letters, and the name of master and artificer. Thus we see that in an age when architecture displayed all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste-when arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the temple of Peace, Trajan's forum, Domitian's baths, and Adrian's villa, the ruins and vestiges of which still excite our astonishment-a Roman consul, a polished emperor's friend, and a man of taste and literary attainments, delighted in what the English parvenu of today would scarcely deign to give a second glance at. All the circumstances of Pliny's summer garden correspond exactly with those formerly laid out on Dutch principles. He talks of slopes, terraces, a wilderness, shrubs methodically trimmed, a marble basin, pipes spouting water, a cascade falling into the basin, bay - trees alternately planted with planes, and a straight walk, from whence issued others, parted off by hedges of box, and apple-trees with busts and obelisks placed between them. There wants nothing but the fringe of a parterre to make a garden

of the time of Trajan serve for a description of one in the reign of our third William. In the paintings found at Herculaneum and Pompeii are a few traces of gardens. They exhibit small, square enclosures, formed by trellis-work and espaliers, and are regularly ornamented with vases, flowers, and figures. Everything symmetrical and appropriate for the narrow spaces allotted to houses in large cities. When the custom of making square gardens enclosed with walls was established to the exclusion of nature and prospect, pomp and solitude combined to call for something that might enrich and enliven the insipid and unanimated enclosure. Fountains first invented for use which grandeur loves to disguise received embellishment from costly marbles, and at last to contradict utility tossed their waste of waters into the air in spouting columns. Art in the hands of uncultured man assisted Nature; but in the hands of ostentatious wealth it became the means of opposing Nature, and the more it succeeded the more the wealthy thought its power was demonstrated. Canals measured by the line were introduced into gardens in lieu of meandering streams, and terraces were raised aloft in opposition to the facile slopes that in Nature imperceptibly unite the valley to the plain. Balustrades defended these precipitate and dangerous elevations, and flights of steps rejoined them to the flat from which the terrace had been dug. Vases and sculptures were added to these unnecessary balconies, and statues furnished the lifeless spot with mimic representations of the excluded sons of man. Thus difficulty and expense were the constituent parts of the sumptuous and selfish solitudes termed gardens some centuries since. Every improvement that was then made was but a step further from Nature. The tricks of waterworks to wet the unwary, and parterres embroidered in patterns like a petticoat, were but the childish endeavours of fashion and novelty to reconcile greatness to what it had surfeited on. To crown these displays of false taste, the shears were applied to the lovely wildness of form with which Nature has distinguished each species of tree and shrub. The venerable oak, the romantic beech, the useful elm, even the aspiring circuit of the lime, the regular round of the

tain, as I may well call it, begins a Series of such enormous Works for Fortification, as the like is not to be met with in the whole Island." And in another place: "On the Hills from Vale to Vale, some of which are from 60 to 90 Yards deep, and prodigious steep, are thrown up Works, as Ramparts, 12 Yards broad, and proportionally high, which join in right Angles with the Vallies, and serve as a Barrier everywhere."

Dr. Burton was at the expense of having the whole of them "measured and planned out," and it is remarkable with what extreme accuracy the survey was made, so that his map will be more and more valuable as time goes on, and destroys the vestiges of these prehistoric remains. For that they are prehistoric, and not Roman, is indisputable. General Roy, in his great work on Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain, published in 1793, gives the dimensions of many Roman camps, but the largest of them contains little over 125 acres, whereas Dr. Burton, writing of the entrenchments at Garrowby, Huggate, etc., says: "All these Works inclose 4,185 Acres of Ground; whence it is evident here must have been a large Army." Large indeed! He goes on to say in the next sentence: "You see in several Places where their Tumuli or Barrows were, represented by little green Hills." Unfortunately for his theory, these barrows have all been opened since, and found, in every instance, to contain the remains of persons who used flint weapons only, and who were even unacquainted with the use of bronze.

On the whole, Dr. Burton's map, as a map, is most valuable, but his conclusions are utterly erroneous.

Knox.-The next to draw attention to the entrenchments on the wolds was Mr. Robert Knox, of Scarborough. This enthusiastic antiquarian, having been marine surveyor in the East India Company's service, determined to make, in his leisure time, a trigonometrical survey of all the country within 25 miles' radius of Scarborough, and to map down all the ground antiquities. This he accomplished after careful and accurate observation, and published his large map "The Vicinity of Scarborough" in the year 1820. The following year, 1821, he published a reduced map, which was repub

lished in his work, Eastern Yorkshire, 1855. This map embraces both sides of the Great Wold Valley, and traces with great precision the course of all the entrenchments between Flamborough on the east, and Sledmere and Settrington on the west, as then existing. Unfortunately, the author seems to have had peculiar notions about Roman roads. He gives sections of several British entrenchments, consisting of two or three ramparts, 6 feet to 8 feet high, with corresponding ditches, and calls them all Roman roads, e.g., the Argam Dikes, from Rudston to Reighton; the great triple entrenchment from Sledmere to Octon; three entrenchments from Foxholes and High Fordon to Ganton Brow; the Several Dikes from Linton to Sherburn Wold, etc. Of these he writes: "Highly raised Roman roads cross our Wold Hills for many miles in various places;" and again: "The existing roads of the ancient Britons, being only foss-ways, were ill-suited for the superior tactics and mode of warfare practised by the Romans through a country here shagged with heath, and there bristled with furze, brushwood, and thorns; they, therefore, to overlook such hindrances, mostly threw up highly elevated roads on which they might also march in array on vantage ground, and which were both ramparts and roads. As a matter of fact, there are no "highly raised" roads on the wolds at all, though the roads at Garrowby Street and Settrington High Street are slightly raised, and the ramparts to which Captain Knox refers, in the quotations given above, were in all probability the work of ancient British tribes, and not of the Romans.

As in the preceding case, the great value of Captain Knox's map consists in the accurate delineation of entrenchments, many of which have since been utterly destroyed.

Walker. In 1836 Mr. John Walker, of Malton, published a map, with the somewhat eccentric title: "SKETCH of the ANCIENT MILITARY REMAINS on the WESTERN PROMONTORY of the CHILTERN or CHALK RIDGE of the YORKSHIRE WOLDS, or DEIRA, near Birdsall (olim Britesheale), and Settrington (olim Sendriton). Also of the BRIGANTIAN or ROMAN ROADS diverging from MALTON (olim Camulodunum)."

In this map, which reflects much credit on