Obs. [f. SPRING sb.1 2 and 9.] a. A nursery for young plants. In quot. fig. b. A garden having concealed jets of water liable to be set in action by persons treading on the mechanism. c. A pleasure-garden frequented by the public.
In later use chiefly as the special name of popular resorts in Hyde Park and at Vauxhall.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, II. xxxvi. 431. All … haue made vse of … his Bookes, as of a Seminarie, a Spring-garden or Store-house of all kinds of sufficiency and learning.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., Four Plays, I. Sophocles would … Like a spring garden shoot his scornfull blood Into their eyes, durst come to tread on him.
a. 1664. Kath. Philips, Country Life, Poems (1667), 90. To Hide-parke let them go, And hasting thence be full of fears, To lose Spring-Garden shew.
1685. (title) The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence,… as they are managed in the Spring Garden, Hyde Park.
c. 1700. Celia Fiennes, Diary (1888), 181. Its a place that is used like our Spring Gardens, for the Company of the Town to walk in the Evening.
1751. (title) A Sketch of the Spring-Gardens, Vaux-hall.
1752. (title) The Spring-Garden Journal.
