In Elizabethan gardens the fountain was a familiar feature, and fountains were very elaborate with regard to their construction.
Bacon says:
"For fountains they are a great beauty and refreshment: the one that sprinkleth or spouteth water; the other, a fair receipt of water of some thirty or forty foot. For the first, the ornaments of images gilt, or marble, which are in use, do well. Also some steps up to it and some fine pavement about doth well. As for the other kind of fountain, which may be called a bathing-pool, it may admit much curiosity and beauty, as that the bottom be finely paved, and with images; the sides likewise and withal embellished with colored glass and such things of luster encompassed also with fine rails of low statues."
Hentzner saw three famous fountains on his visit to England in 1592, at Hampton Court, Whitehall, and Nonsuch. He describes the one at Hampton Court as follows:
"In the middle of the first and principal court stands a fountain, splendid, high, and massy, with an ingenious water-work, by which you can, if you like, make the water to play upon the ladies and others who are standing by and give them a thorough wetting."
The one at Whitehall was also capable of playing practical jokes:
"A jet d'eau with a sun-dial, which, while strangers are looking at it, a quantity of water forced by a wheel, which the gardener turns at a distance through a number of little pipes, plentifully sprinkles those who are standing round."
More ornate was the fountain at the superb palace of Nonsuch in Surrey:
"In the pleasure and artificial gardens are many columns and pyramids of marble, two fountains that spout water, one round the other like a pyramid upon which are perched small birds that stream water out of their bills. In the Grove of Diana is a very agreeable fountain with Actæon turned into a stag, as he was sprinkled by the goddess and her nymphs with inscriptions. There is besides another pyramid of marble full of concealed pipes which spirt upon all who come within their reach."
In the small formal garden a fountain looks well at the intersection of the paths in the center of the quarters. It is not necessary to have an ornate fountain, for the real charm of a fountain consists in the upward plume of spray that glistens in the sunshine, that turns to pearls in the moonlight, and that always charms the eye of man and delights the neighboring flowers with its spray blown by the breeze.