Paul Johnson

And Another Thing | 5 July 2008

A gardener must be a philosopher but never an atheist

issue 05 July 2008

Somebody asked: ‘How do you express your love of country in this leaden age? How do you sweep aside the multicultural poison and simply assert — “I am an English patriot?”’ I answer: ‘Create a garden, or help those who do so.’ There is no more English activity than gardening, and it has been so for over a thousand years. Indeed, there were Anglo-Saxon gardens before: traces remain. Gardens grew under castle walls, and were tended by the wives of men who wore chain mail. They took the place of water lilies when the moats were peaceably drained. The first great English essay, written by Francis Bacon early in the 17th century, is ‘Of Gardens’. I have just reread it. It is long, elegant but detailed and full of ripe knowledge, about nature and our intimate relationship with her.

Bacon is particularly good on the scents and smells of a garden which, stirred by faint breezes, he compares, in its coming and going, to the warbling of music.

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