English Authors on Gardening. (continued 3)

Philip Miller died at the age of eighty, and was emphatically styled by foreigners hortulanorum princeps. Switzer bears testimony to his "usual generosity, openness and freedom." Professor Martyn says, "he accumulated no wealth from his respectable connection with the great, or from the numerous editions of his works. He was of a disposition too generous, and too careless of money, to become rich, and in all his transactions observed more attention to integrity and honest fame, than to any pecuniary advantages." There is a finely engraved portrait of Mr. Miller, by Maillet, prefixed to the "Dictionnaire des Jardiniers, de Philipe Miller, traduit de l'Anglois," en 8 tom. 4to. Paris, 1785.

Dr. Pulteney says of him, "He raised himself by his merit from a state of obscurity to a degree of eminence, but rarely, if ever before, equalled in the character of a gardener." Mr. Loudon (in that "varied and voluminous mass of knowledge," his Encyclopædia), thus remarks:—"Miller, during his long career, had no considerable competitor, until he approached the end of it, when several writers took the advantage of his unwearied labours of near half a century, and fixed themselves upon him, as various marine insects do upon a decaying shell-fish. I except Hitt and Justice, who are both originals, as is also Hill, after his fashion, but his gardening is not much founded in experience." The sister of Mr. Miller married Ehret, whose fine taste and botanical accuracy, and whose splendid drawings of plants, are the finest ornaments of a botanical library.

Mr. Miller fixed his residence adjoining that part of Chelsea church-yard where he lies interred. He died December 18, 1771. Mr. Johnson gives a list of his writings, and of the different editions of his celebrated Dictionary, which he terms "this great record of our art." He farther does full justice to him, by associating his name, at p. 147 and p. 151, with that of "the immortal Swede, whose master mind reduced the confusion and discord of botany to harmony." He calls Miller "the perfect botanist and horticulturist."[84] The following spirited tribute to Mr. Miller, appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1828:—

"Chelsea, June 5.

"Mr. Urban,—In the first volume, page 250, of the second edition of Faulkner's History of Chelsea, just published, which contains a very copious fund of historical, antiquarian, and biographical information, I find inserted the monument and epitaph of Philip Miller, who was so justly styled 'the prince of horticulture' by contemporary botanists, and whose well-earned fame will last as long as the sciences of botany and horticulture shall endure. The epitaph of this distinguished man is correctly given; but the historian appears not to have duly appreciated, if he was even aware of, the circumstances which induced the Fellows of the Linnæan and Horticultural Societies of London to erect this grateful tribute of respectful esteem to him, who in his life-time, had done more than any individual, ancient or modern, towards enlarging the boundaries of the science of horticulture, and very extensively the far more difficult one of botany likewise. These he accomplished in the numerous editions of his unrivalled Dictionary, and in his elaborate introductions to botanical knowledge.

"The reasons which induced the above-mentioned societies to erect the monument in question, were, chiefly, because neither monument, nor tomb, nor even any recording public notice whatever (the 'monumentum ære perennius' of his own immortal works excepted) had previously been provided by any one.

"The relatives of Miller were very few; he had no family, save two sons, one of whom died early, and the other, Charles Miller, at the age of 78, who spent the greater part of his long life in India, and returned not until after his father's funeral; and over his grave, in the old church-yard of Chelsea, a stone and sculptured brass record his name and age and parentage, together with that of his aged and more distinguished sire. This stone, too, was placed by the above-mentioned public-spirited societies, (unto both which the writer has the honour to belong) at the same time as the monument, stated by Faulkner, to the never-dying fame of the father.

"But it is even now scarcely known, that when those meritorious testimonials of public gratitude were showered over the memory of Philip Miller, who had laboured so long and so successfully in the sciences which he loved, there was only one individual in existence, and that a very aged person, who had seen and attended the funeral of Miller, and who alone could point out the very spot where the 'Prince of Horticulture' was inhumed. This venerable person's name was Goodyer; he was the parish clerk of Chelsea church for half a century, and died as such in 1818, at the great age of ninety-four.

"Nevertheless, though last, it should not be concealed that I myself had actually stated and published, in the winter of 1794-5, the neglectful and opprobrious fact of Miller's having no single grave-stone, much less a monument, nor even one funeral line, to designate the spot where rested in its 'narrow house' the mortal relics of so great a man; see my Observations on the Genus Mesembryanthemum, p. 311-14; and, as every reader may not possess that publication, the following extract from it is added:—

"'So much for Miller; he, alas! who pleased so well, or, rather let me say, he who instructed and edified so much, and was even caressed by the great while living, now lies, forgotten by his friends, inhumed amongst the common undistinguished dead, in the bleak cold yard of Chelsea church, the very theatre of his best actions, the physic gardens of the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries, at Chelsea, not half a mile distant, without a tomb! without a stone! nay, destitute of a single line to mark the spot where rests, retired from all its cares and useful toils, the time-worn frame of the 'Prince of Horticulture!' How are those discerning foreigners, who so meritoriously rendered the language of his Dictionary into their own, to judge of this? by what measure are they to estimate the fact? Miller was the author of several publications, besides the very numerous editions of his Dictionary and Kalendar.'

Yours, &c. "A. H. Haworth."

Sir John Hill. His works are many of them enumerated in the Encyclo. of Gardening. The most full list is in Weston's Catalogue. His portrait is engraved in metz by Houston, from after Coates. It is an oval, with a solitaire. A short account of his life and writings was published at Edinburgh in 1779. The most general account of him is in Hutchinson's Biog. Medica. 2 vols. 8vo. See also the Biog. Dramatica, 2nd edit. 1782.

Batty Langley was born at Twickenham, where he resided. He was the author of,

1. Practical Geometry, 1726.

2. New Principles of Gardening, or the laying out and planting parterres, groves, wildernesses, labyrinths, avenues, parks, &c. cuts, 1728, 4to.

3. The sure Method of Improving Estates by Trees, 8vo. One of his chapters is "On the magnitude and prodigious Growth of Trees."

4. Pomona, or the Fruit Gardener, with plates, fol. 1729. At the end is a letter to Mr. Langley, on Cyder, from Hugh Stafford, Esq. of Pynes.

There is a 4to. metz portrait of Mr. Langley, with the name of Carwirtham, as the engraver or print-seller, 1741.

Sir William Watson, an eminent physician, who died in 1787, wrote

1. On the Culture of Mushrooms. In vol. 42 and 43 of the Phil. Trans.

2. Account of the Remains of Tradescant's Garden. In vol. 46 of the Phil. Trans.

3. Account of the Bishop of London's Garden, at Fulham. In vol. 47 of the Phil. Trans. besides many valuable papers in several volumes of these Transactions.

He had the pleasure of introducing Kalm, as well as Pallas, to most of the curious gardens in the environs of London. On the first establishment of the British Museum, he was most active in furnishing its garden, with no fewer than six hundred plants. His house (as Dr. Pulteney observes) "became the resort of the most ingenious and illustrious experimental philosophers that England could boast." Dr. Pulteney has closed a very liberal memoir of him, by inserting Dr. Garthshore's testimony to the humane feeling, the social politeness, and benignity of Sir William. His portrait is painted by Abbot, and engraved by Ryder, 1791. There is a full account of him in Chalmers.

The Rev. William Hanbury, the intimate friend of Churchill, and of Lloyd, in his singular "History of the Charitable Foundations at Church Langton," (and which exhibits his own benevolent heart, and great love for planting and gardening) mentions, at page 185, a full-length portrait of himself, by Penny. Had there been any other portrait of him, it is likely Mr. Nicholls would have mentioned it in his Leicestershire, for that gentleman, as well as Joseph Cradock, Esq. (both of whom are lately deceased), would have been most likely to have known, if any other portrait of this zealous planter did exist; so would Dr. Thomas Warton, who always spoke of Mr. Hanbury as a generous, disinterested, and benevolent man. Earlom engraved, in 1775, a three-quarter metzotinto, from the above portrait by Penny. Mr. Hanbury also published "A Complete Body of Planting and Gardening;" 2 vols. folio. Also, "An Essay on Planting, and a Scheme to make it conducive to the Glory of God, and the Advantage of Society;" Oxford, 8vo. 1s. 1758. And "The Gardener's New Calendar;" 8vo. 1758.

Mr. Hanbury first conceived, in 1751, the establishing at Church Langton, for benevolent purposes, his immense plantations; having procured (particularly from North America) "almost every sort of seed that could be procured." He proposed that an annual sermon should be preached, either in praise of church music, the duty of decorating religious houses, charity in general, or the wonders of the creation; and that a hospital should be founded for the relief of the really distressed. All these extensive plans were frustrated. Even when his first twenty thousand trees had just been planted out, the cattle belonging to the tenants of Mrs. Dorothy Pickering, and Frances Byrd, (who a few years after died worth two hundred thousand pounds, and whose village biography is curiously dispersed throughout the above history) were purposely turned amongst the young trees, and in a little time destroyed them all. "Neither was this all; I was served for a trespass with twenty-seven different copies of writs in one day (by their attorney, Valentine Price, of Leicester); to such a degree of rage and fury were these old gentlewomen raised, at what one should have thought every heart would have rejoiced, and kindly lent an assisting hand." Mr. Hanbury gives many instances of the "venomous rage and passion" of these two old women. They had, says he, "the mortification to find themselves totally despised. Not a gentleman or lady would go near them, two neighbouring clergymen excepted, who were invited to dine with them upon venison." They attempted making a tool of the sow-gelder's son, to enable them to carry on their mean plans, and sent him word, that nothing they could do for him in the parish should be wanting. His answer was, "that favours granted from such people, on such terms, could never prosper, and he desired the other to tell them, they were two old bitches."—"This summer, (says Mr. Hanbury,) was murdered, in the most barbarous manner, the best spaniel that perhaps ever entered the field, and the best greyhound that ever run. With these I had been often entertained in my morning walks. To deprive me of these pleasures, afforded me in my morning recreations, I had discharges from Mrs. Pickering, and Mrs. Byrd, for taking them with me in their manors. To these I paid no regard, and as they never brought any action on that account, it may be supposed they could find no just cause to ground one. What then is to be done? Some method is to be contrived to deprive me of my attendants; the spaniel therefore was the first object destined for destruction. He was small, and of a beautiful black, and had been used to the parlour; and being absent about an hour, came reeling home in the agonies of death; and in about a quarter of an hour after, died in the seemingly most excruciating tortures. Suspecting some villany, I ordered him to be opened, but found everything perfect and entire; I then directed him to be skinned, and coming to the loins, found the traces of a table-fork, which was stuck into the kidneys, and which was the occasion of his speedy and dreadful death. A few days after this, my best greyhound was stuck in the loins, in the like barbarous manner, which brought on the same kind of speedy and agonizing death; and this was the catastrophe of these two noted dogs, which had been much talked of, and were famous amongst sportsmen, as being most perfect in their kind. Some time after this, their game-keeper, in company with his nephew, buried two dogs alive; they were the property of Mr. Wade, a substantial grazier, who had grounds contiguous to a place of cover, called Langton Caudle, where was often game; and where the unfortunate two dogs, straying from their master, had been used to hunt. The game-keeper and his nephew being shooting in this place, the dogs, upon the report of the gun, made towards them. Their shooting them or hanging them would have been merciful, but they buried them alive; and what words can express the abhorrence of such barbarity to such innocent creatures following the dictates of nature? To prevent a possibility of their scratching a way out, they covered them down with black thorns; over these they laid a sufficient quantity of earth and one large stone, which the rammed down with their heels. Day after day the dogs were heard in this place, with the howling, barking noise of dogs that were lost. Some people resorted to find them out, and wondered it was to no purpose, for nobody could suspect the dogs were under ground; and thus after calling and whistling them, and seeking them for some time, returned, amazed that lost dogs should continue so long in that place; but a sight of none could ever be had. The noise was fancied to come sometimes from one quarter, sometimes from another; and when they came near the place they were in, they ceased howling, expecting their deliverance was at hand. I myself heard them ten days after they had been buried; and seeing some people at a distance, enquired what dogs they were. They are some dogs that are lost, Sir, said they; they have been lost some time. I concluded only some poachers had been there early in the morning, and by a precipitate flight had left their dogs behind them. In short, the howling and barking of these dogs was heard for near three weeks, when it ceased. Mr. Wade's dogs were missing, but he could not suspect those to be his; and the noise ceasing, the thoughts, wonder, and talking about them, soon also ceased. Some time after, a person being amongst the bushes where the howling was heard, discovered some disturbed earth, and the print of men's heels ramming it down again very close; and seeing Mr. Wade's servant, told him, he thought something had been buried there. Then, said the man, it is our dogs, and they have been buried alive: I will go and fetch a spade, and will find them, if I dig all Caudle over. He soon brought a spade, and upon removing the top earth, came to the blackthorns, and then to the dogs, the biggest of which had eat the loins and greatest share of the hind parts of the little one." Mr. Hanbury states the deaths of these two sisters in the course of a few months after. The sums they accumulated by their penurious way of living, were immense. They bequeathed legacies by will to almost every body that were no kin to them except their assiduous attorney, Valentine Price, to whom they left nothing. "But what is strange and wonderful, though their charities in their life-time at Langton were a sixpenny loaf a week only, which was divided into as many parts as there were petitioners, and distributed by eleven of the clock on a Sunday, unless they left the town the day before, which was often the case, and when the poor were sure to fail of their bounty; these gentlewomen, at the death of the last, bequeathed by will upwards of twelve thousand pounds to the different hospitals and religious institutions in the kingdom. A blaze of goodness issued from them at last, and thus ended these two poor, unhappy, uncharitable, charitable old gentlewomen."

Mr. Marshall calls him, "the indefatigable Hanbury, whose immense labours are in a manner lost to the public." No man delighted more than Mr. Hanbury did, in describing the beauty of trees and shrubs: this is visible in the extracts which Mr. Marshall has made in his "Planting and Rural Ornament."

William Shenstone, Esq., justly celebrated for his pure and classic taste in landscape gardening. His tender and pathetic feelings shine throughout most of his works; and the sweetness and simplicity of his temper and manners, endeared him to the neighbourhood and to his acquaintance. Dr. Johnson says, his life was unstained by any crime. He farther says of him, "He began from this time to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful. His house was mean, and he did not improve it; his care was of his grounds. When he came home from his walks, he might find his floor flooded by a shower through the broken roof; but could spare no money for its reparation. In time his expences brought clamours about him, that overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and his groves were haunted by beings very different from fawns and fairies. He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. It is said, that if he had lived a little longer he would have been assisted by a pension: such bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed; but that it was ever asked is not certain; it is too certain that it never was enjoyed."

His intimate friend, Robert Dodsley, thus speaks of him: "Tenderness, indeed, in every sense of the word, was his peculiar characteristic; his friends, his domestics, his poor neighbours, all daily experienced his benevolent turn of mind. He was no economist; the generosity of his temper prevented him from paying a proper regard to the use of money: he exceeded, therefore, the bounds of his paternal fortune, which before he died was considerably incumbered. But when one recollects the perfect paradise he had raised around him, the hospitality with which he lived, his great indulgence to his servants, his charities to the indigent, and all done with an estate not more than three hundred pounds a year, one should rather be led to wonder that he left any thing behind him, than to blame his want of economy. He left, however, more than sufficient to pay all his debts; and, by his will, appropriated his whole estate for that purpose."

His portrait is prefixed to his works, published in 3 vols. 8vo. 1764. His second volume contains his "Unconnected Thoughts on Landscape Gardening;" and the description of the celebrated Leasowes, in that volume, was written by ("the modest, sensible, and humane") Robert Dodsley. His Epistolary Correspondence appeared in 2 vols. 8vo. The title pages of the above first three volumes are attractive from their vignette, or rural embellishments. A portrait of Shenstone was taken in 1758, by Ross, which Hall engraved for Dodsley, in 1780; and this picture by Ross was in the possession of the late most worthy Dr. Graves, of Claverton, who died a few years ago, at the advanced age of ninety. Bell's edition of the Poets has a neat copy of this portrait. Dr. Graves wrote "Recollections of the late William Shenstone." He also dedicated an urn to him, and inscribed these lines thereon:—

Stranger! if woods and lawns like these, If rural scenes thy fancy please, Ah! stop awhile, and pensive view Poor Shenstone's urn: who oft, like you, These woods and lawns well-pleased has rov'd, And oft these rural scenes approv'd. Like him, be thou fair virtue's friend, And health and peace thy steps attend.

Mr. Shenstone died in 1763, and is buried in Hales Owen church yard. An urn is placed in the church to his memory, thus inscribed:—

Whoe'er thou art, with reverence tread These sacred mansions of the dead.— Not that the monumental bust Or sumptuous tomb HERE guards the dust Of rich or great: (Let wealth, rank, birth, Sleep undistinguish'd in the earth;) This simple urn records a name That shines with more exalted fame. Reader! if genius, taste refined, A native elegance of mind; If virtue, science, manly sense; If wit, that never gave offence; The clearest head, the tenderest heart, In thy esteem e'er claim'd a part; Ah! smite thy breast, and drop a tear, For, know, THY Shenstone's dust lies here.

Mr. Mason thus speaks of Shenstone:

——"Nor thou Shalt pass without thy meed, thou son of peace, Who knew'st perchance to harmonize thy shades Still softer than thy song; yet was that song Nor rude nor unharmonious, when attuned To pastoral plaint, or tales of slighted love."

And Mr. Whateley pays his memory the following tribute, previous to his masterly survey of his far-famed and enchanting seat: "An allusion to the ideas of pastoral poetry evidently enters into the design of the Leasowes, where they appear so lovely as to endear the memory of their author, and justify the reputation of Mr. Shenstone, who inhabited, made and directed that celebrated place. It is a perfect picture of his mind, simple, elegant, and amiable, and will always suggest a doubt whether the spot inspired his verses, or whether, in the scenes which he formed, he only realized the pastoral images which abound in his songs."[85] George Mason, in many pages, pays high compliments to Shenstone's taste: "Paine's Hill has every mark of creative genius, and Hagley of correctest fancy; but the most intimate alliance with nature was formed by Shenstone." Mr. Marshall, in his "Planting and Rural Ornament," has some critical remarks on the Leasowes, the expences in perfecting which threw Shenstone "on the rack of poverty, and probably hastened the dissolution of an amiable and valuable man." He says that Enville was originally designed by Shenstone, and that the cascade and chapel were spoken of, with confidence, as his.[86]

Lord Kames. His portrait is prefixed to the memoirs of him, by Lord Woodhouselee, in 2 vols. 4to. 1807. There is an edition of the same work, in 3 vols. 8vo. 1814, with the same portrait, which is engraved from a drawing by D. Martin. His "Gentleman Farmer" spread his fame through Scotland. Its preface is particularly interesting. Mr. Smellie, in his Literary Lives of Gregory, Home, Hume, Adam Smith, and Lord Kames, after giving many interesting particulars of the latter, and after noticing his benevolence to the poor, during the whole course of his long life, proceeds:—"One great feature in the character of Lord Kames, besides his literary talents, and his public spirit, was a remarkable innocency of mind. He not only never indulged in detraction, but when any species of scandal was exhibited in his company, he either remained silent, or endeavoured to give a turn to the conversation. As natural consequences of this amiable disposition, he never meddled with politics, even when politics ran to indecent lengths in this country; and what is still more remarkable, he never wrote a sentence, notwithstanding his numerous publications, without a direct and a manifest intention to benefit his fellow creatures. In his temper he was naturally warm, though kindly and affectionate. In the friendships he formed, he was ardent, zealous and sincere. So far from being inclined to irreligion, as some ignorant bigots insinuated, few men possessed a more devout habit of thought. A constant sense of Deity, and a veneration for Providence, dwelt upon his mind. From this source arose that propensity, which appears in all his writings, of investigating final causes, and tracing the wisdom of the Supreme Author of Nature." He had the honour to be highly esteemed by the celebrated Mrs. Montagu.

The European Magazine of Nov. 1790, which gives an engraved portrait of him, being a copy of the above, thus speaks: "He was one of the very first who to great legal knowledge, added a considerable share of polite literature. He arrived at the highest rank to which a lawyer could attain in his own country; and he has left to the world such literary productions, as will authorize his friends to place him, if not in the highest, yet much above the lowest, class of elegant and polite writers. He died in 1783, leaving to the world a proof, that an attention to the abstrusest branches of learning, is not incompatible with the more pleasing pursuits of taste and polite literature." He was kind-hearted and humane. His pure taste in landscape scenery, is acknowledged by Mr. Loudon, in p. 81 of the Encyclopædia of Gardening. Blair Drummond will long be celebrated as having been his residence, and he there displayed his superior taste in planting and improving.

In his "Elements of Criticism," (a truly original work) there is a distinct chapter on architecture and gardening. He therein thus addresses the reader:—"These cursory observations upon gardening, shall be closed with some reflections that must touch every reader. Rough uncultivated ground, dismal to the eye, inspires peevishness and discontent: may not this be one cause of the harsh manners of savages? A field richly ornamented, containing beautiful objects of various kinds, displays in full lustre the goodness of the Deity, and the ample provision he has made for our happiness. Ought not the spectator to be filled with gratitude to his Maker, and with benevolence to his fellow creatures? Other fine arts may be perverted to excite irregular and even vicious emotions; but gardening, which inspires the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot fail to promote every good affection. The gaiety and harmony of mind it produceth, inclineth the spectator to communicate his satisfaction to others, and to make them happy as he is himself, and tends naturally to establish in him a habit of humanity and benevolence."

John Abercrombie's manly and expressive countenance is best given in the portrait prefixed to an edition in 2 vols. 8vo. published Feb. 1, 1783, by Fielding and Debrett. He is also drawn at full-length at his age of seventy-two, in the sixteenth edition, printed in 1800, with a pleasing view of a garden in the back-ground, neatly engraved. This honest, unassuming man, persevered "through a long life of scarcely interrupted health," in the ardent pursuit of his favourite science. The tenor of his life exemplified how much a garden calms the mind, and tranquilly sets at rest its turbulent passions. Mr. Loudon's Encyclop. of Gardening, after giving some interesting points of his history, thus concludes: "In the spring of 1806, being in his eightieth year, he met with a severe fall, by which he broke the upper part of his thigh bone. This accident, which happened to him on the 15th of April, terminated in his death. After lying in a very weak exhausted state, without much pain, he expired in the night, between April and May, as St. Paul's church struck twelve. He was lamented by all who knew him, as cheerful, harmless, and upright." One of his biographers thus relates of him: "Abercrombie from a fall down stairs in the dark, died at the age of eighty, and was buried at St. Pancras. He was present at the famous battle of Preston Pans, which was fought close to his father's garden walls. For the last twenty years of his life he lived chiefly on tea, using it three times a-day: his pipe was his first companion in the morning, and last at night.[87] He never remembered to have taken a dose of physic in his life, prior to his last fatal accident, nor of having a day's illness but once." A list of his works appears in Watts's Bibl. Brit., and a most full one in Johnson's History of English Gardening, who, with many collected particulars of Abercrombie, relates the great and continually increasing sale of some of his works.

Launcelot Browne, Esq. His portrait was painted by Dance, and engraved by Sherwin. Under this portrait are engraved the following lines, from the pen of Mr. Mason, which are also inscribed on the tomb of Mr. Browne, in the church of Fen-Staunton, Huntingdonshire:

Ye sons of elegance, who truly taste The simple charms which genuine art supplies, Come from the sylvan scenes his genius drew, And offer here your tributary sighs. But know, that more than genius slumbers here, Virtues were his that art's best powers transcend, Come, ye superior train! who these revere, And weep the christian, husband, father, friend.

Mr. Walpole, too, pays Mr. Browne this elegant compliment: "Did living artists come within my plan, I should be glad to do justice to Mr. Browne; but he may be a gainer by being reserved for some abler pen." This celebrated landscape gardener died suddenly, in Hertford Street, May Fair, on the 6th of February, 1783, on his return from a visit to his old friend the Earl of Coventry. Mr. Browne, though bred a common gardener at Stowe, possessed a cultivated mind, and his society was much courted. Joseph Cradock, Esq. called him "a most agreeable, unassuming man." He amassed a large fortune. He was consulted by most of the nobility and gentry, and the places he laid out or altered, were, as Mr. Loudon observes, beyond all reckoning. Mr. Repton has given a list of his principal works.

It has been the fate of this eminent master of landscape embellishment, to be severely censured by some, and lavishly praised by others. The late keen and consummate observer of landscape scenery, Sir Uvedale Price, harshly condemns the too frequent cold monotony and tameness of many of Mr. Browne's creations, and his never transfusing into his works any thing of the taste and spirit which prevail in the poet Mason's precepts and descriptions; and in one of his acute, yet pleasant pages, he alludes to his having but one and the same plan of operation; Sangrado-like, treating all disorders in the same manner. Perhaps the too general smoothness and tameness of Mr. Browne's pleasure-grounds ill accorded with Sir Uvedale's enthusiasm for the more sublime views of forest scenery, rapid and stony torrents and cascades, wild entangled dingles, and craggy breaks; or with the high and sublime notions he had imbibed from the rich scenery of nature so often contemplated by him in the landscapes of Claude, or in those of Rubens, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, or of Titian, "the greatest of all landscape painters." Perhaps Sir Uvedale preferred "unwedgeable and gnarled oaks," to "the tameness of the poor pinioned trees of a gentleman's plantation, drawn up straight," or the wooded banks of a river, to the "bare shaven border of a canal."[88]

Daines Barrington happily said, "Kent has been succeeded by Browne, who hath undoubtedly great merit in laying out pleasure-grounds; but I conceive that in some of his plans, I see rather traces of the kitchen-gardener of old Stowe, than of Poussin or Claude Lorraine: I could wish, therefore, that Gainsborough gave the design, and that Browne executed it."[89] Mr. Loudon observes, "that Browne must have possessed considerable talents, the extent of his reputation abundantly proves; but that he was imbued with much of that taste for picturesque beauty, which distinguished the works of Kent, Hamilton, and Shenstone, we think will hardly be asserted by any one who has observed attentively such places as are known to be his creations." Mr. George Mason candidly asks, "why Browne should be charged with all the defects of those that have called themselves his followers, I have seen no good reason alleged, nor can I suppose it possible to produce one." Many of his imitators exhibited so little talent in their creations, that Mr. Browne's name considerably suffered in the estimation of many.

Mr. Gilpin speaks of Browne's improvements at Blenheim in high terms. Mr. Marshall in his Survey of Stowe and Fisherwick, in vol. i. of his "Planting and Rural Ornament," and at p. 384, pays a fair tribute to him. Much general information respecting him may be seen in Mr. Loudon's chapter "Of the rise, progress, and present state of gardening in the British Isles." The candour and rich conciseness of this review, embraces the whole magic of the art, as respects landscape gardening.[90]

Francis Zavier Vispre wrote "A Dissertation on the Growth of Wine in England", Bath, 8vo. 1786. Mr. Vispré died poor, between thirty and forty years ago, in St. Martin's Lane. He excelled in painting portraits in crayons: Sir Joshua much esteemed him. He was a most inoffensive man, of the mildest manners, and of the purest integrity. I have seen his portrait in crayons, in an oval, finely finished by himself, but know not now where that is. On his mode of training the vine very near the ground, see p. 757 of the Encyclop. of Gardening.

William Mason, precentor and canon of York, died in 1797. His friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted an impressive portrait of him, which is engraved by Doughty. A masterly copy of this fine portrait is in Mr. Cadell's Contemporary Portraits. A copy is also prefixed to the edition of his works, in 4 vols. 8vo. 1811, published by Mr. Cadell. His portrait was also taken by Vaslet, and engraved by Carter, 1771. It is a large metz etching. He translated Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting, to which Sir Joshua added some notes. Mr. Mason has prefixed an Epistle to Sir Joshua, which thus concludes:

And oh! if ought thy poet can pretend Beyond his favourite wish, to call thee friend: Be it that here his tuneful toil has dress'd The muse of Fresnoy in a modern vest; And, with what skill his fancy could bestow, Taught the close folds to take an easier flow; Be it that here, thy partial smile approv'd The pains he lavish'd on the art he lov'd.

Mr. Mason's attachment to painting was an early one, is conspicuous in many of his writings, and in his English Garden, is visible throughout:

——feel ye there What Reynolds felt, when first the Vatican Unbarr'd her gates, and to his raptur'd eye Gave all the god-like energy that flow'd From Michael's pencil; feel what Garrick felt, When first he breath'd the soul of Shakspeare's page.

Sir Joshua, in his will, bequeaths his then supposed portrait of Milton to Mr. Mason.

Mr. Gray thus observes of Mason, when at Cambridge:—"So ignorant of the world and its ways, that this does not hurt him in one's opinion; so sincere and so undisguised, that no mind with a spark of generosity would ever think of hurting him, he lies so open to injury; but so indolent, that if he cannot overcome this habit, all his good qualities will signify nothing at all."

Mr. Mason, in 1754, found a patron in the Earl of Holderness, who presented him with the living of Aston, in Yorkshire. This sequestred village was favourable to his love of poetry and picturesque scenery; which displayed itself at large in his English Garden, and was the foundation of his lasting friendship with Mr. Gilpin, who to testify his esteem, dedicated to him his Observations on the Wye. A biographer of the late Mr. Shore, of Norton Hall, (the friend of Priestley), thus mentions Aston:—"That truly conscientious, and truly learned and excellent man, Mr. Lindsey, spent a whole week in this neighbourhood. He was during that time the guest of his friend Mr. Mason, who was residing on his rectory at Aston, the biographer of Gray, and one whose taste, gave beauty, and poetry, celebrity, to that cheerful village." His friendship for Mr. Gray, terminated only with the life of the latter. In 1770 Mr. Mason was visited at Aston, for the last time, by him. His last letter to Mr. Mason was from Pembroke-hall, in May, 1771, and on the 31st of the next month, and at that place, this sublime genius paid the debt of nature. The following epitaph was written by Mr. Mason, and inscribed on the monument in Westminster Abbey:

No more the Grecian muse unrivall'd reigns; To Britain let the nations homage pay: She felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains, A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray.

He farther evinced his attachment to this elegant scholar by publishing his poems and letters, to which he prefixed memoirs of him. He commences the third book of his English Garden with an invocation to his memory, and records, in lofty language, his eye glistening and his accents glowing, when viewing the charms of all-majestic Nature—the heights of Skiddaw and the purple crags of Borrowdale. And on a rustic alcove, in the garden at Aston, which he dedicated to Mr. Gray, he inscribed this stanza from the celebrated elegy:

Here scatter'd oft, the loveliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble here, And little footsteps lightly print the ground.

Mr. Mason married in 1765 a most amiable woman; she fell at length into a rapid consumption, and at Bristol hot-wells she died. Gray's letter to Mr. Mason while at that place, is full of eloquence; upon which the latter observes, "I opened it almost at the precise moment when it would be necessarily most affecting. His epitaph on the monument he erected on this lady, in the Bristol cathedral, breathes such tender feeling and chaste simplicity, that it can need no apology for being noticed here:

Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear; Take that best gift which heav'n so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form: she bow'd to taste the wave And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fears their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine: E'en from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free; As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, ('Twas e'en to thee) yet the dread path once trod, Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high, And bids "the pure in heart behold their God."

A very short time after Mrs. Mason's death, he began his English Garden, and invokes the genius both of poetry and painting

——that at my birth Auspicious smil'd, and o'er my cradle dropp'd Those magic seeds of Fancy, which produce A Poet's feeling, and a Painter's eye. ——with lenient smiles to deign to cheer, At this sad hour, my desolated soul. For deem not ye that I resume the lyre To court the world's applause; my years mature Have learn'd to slight the toy. No, 'tis to soothe That agony of heart, which they alone, Who best have lov'd, who best have been belov'd, Can feel, or pity: sympathy severe! Which she too felt, when on her pallid lip The last farewell hung trembling, and bespoke A wish to linger here, and bless the arms She left for heav'n.—She died, and heav'n is her's! Be mine, the pensive solitary balm That recollection yields. Yes, angel pure! While memory holds her seat, thine image still Shall reign, shall triumph there; and when, as now, Imagination forms a nymph divine, To lead the fluent strain, thy modest blush, Thy mild demeanour, thy unpractis'd smile, Shall grace that nymph, and sweet Simplicity Be dress'd (ah, meek Maria!) in thy charms.

Dr. Thomas Warton thus speaks of the above poem, when reviewing Tusser's Husbandry:—"Such were the rude beginnings in the English language of didactic poetry, which, on a kindred subject, the present age has seen brought to perfection, by the happy combination of judicious precepts, with the most elegant ornaments of language and imagery, in Mr. Mason's English Garden." His Elfrida and Caractacus, are admired for boldness of conception and sublime description. Elfrida was set to Music by Arne, and again by Giardini. Caractacus was also set to music. Mr. Mason's success with both these dramatic poems was beyond his most sanguine expectation.

Dr. Darwin wrote an epitaph on Mr. Mason; these lines are its concluding part:

Weave the bright wreath, to worth departed just, And hang unfading chaplets on his bust; While pale Elfrida, bending o'er his bier, Breathes the soft sigh and sheds the graceful tear; And stern Caractacus, with brow depress'd Clasps the cold marble to his mailed breast. In lucid troops shall choral virgins throng, With voice alternate chant their poet's song. And, oh! in golden characters record Each firm, immutable, immortal word!

"Those last two lines from the final chorus of Elfrida, (says Miss Seward), admirably close this tribute to the memory of him who stands second to Gray, as a lyric poet; whose English Garden is one of the happiest efforts of didactic verse, containing the purest elements of horticultural taste, dignified by freedom and virtue, rendered interesting by episode, and given in those energetic and undulating measures which render blank verse excellent; whose unowned satires, yet certainly his, the heroic epistle to Sir William Chambers, and its postscript, are at once original in their style, harmonious in their numbers, and pointed in their ridicule; whose tragedies are the only pathetic tragedies which have been written in our language upon the severe Greek model. The Samson Agonistes bears marks of a stronger, but also of an heavier hand, and is unquestionably less touching than the sweet Elfrida, and the sublime Caractacus."

Mr. Mason, in 1756 published four Odes. "It would be difficult to say, (says the biographer of the annual Necrology of 1797,) which is most to be admired, the vividness of the conception, or the spirit of liberty, and the ardent love of independance throughout. The address to Milton in his Ode to Memory, and to Andrew Marvel, in that to Independance, cannot be too much admired. At the period when the Middlesex election was so much agitated, he united with those independant freeholders, who, by their declarations and petitions, throughout the nation, opposed corruption, and claimed a reform in parliament; and when the county of York assembled in 1779, he was of the committee, and had a great share in drawing up their spirited resolutions. The animated vindication of the conduct of the freeholders, and other papers, though printed anonimously in the newspapers, and so printed in Mr. Wyvill's collection of political tracts, in 3 vols. are well known to be Mr. Mason's production. This conduct rendered him obnoxious to the court party. He was at this time one of the king's chaplains, but when it became his turn to preach before the royal family, the queen appointed another person to supply his place. It has been observed, that his sentiments in a later period of his life, took a colour less favourable to liberty. Whether alarmed at the march of the French revolution, or from the timidity of age, we know not. His friend Horace Walpole, charges him with flat apostacy:" The Heroic Epistle to Sir W. Chambers, and the Heroic Postscript, are now positively said to have been written by Mr. Mason. Mr. Thomas Warton observed, "they may have been written by Walpole, and buckramed by Mason."

The late Sir U. Price, in the generous and patriotic conclusion of his letter to Mr. Repton, pays a delicate compliment to the genius of Mr. Mason in whatever concerns rural scenery; and his respect for Mr. Mason, and his high opinion of his talents, is farther shewn in pp. 295 and 371 of his first volume, and in p. 94 of vol. ii. Mr. Mathias, after supposing Mr. Mason to have been the author of the Heroic Epistle, and after paying a high compliment to his general poetry, thus concludes his generous tribute:

Whence is that groan? no more Britannia sleeps, But o'er her lov'd Musæus bends and weeps. Lo, every Grecian, every British muse Scatter the recent flowers and gracious dews Where Mason lies! And in his breast each soft affection dwelt, That love and friendship know; each sister art, With all that colours, and that sounds impart, All that the sylvan theatre can grace, All in the soul of Mason found their place! Low sinks the laurell'd head: in Mona's land I see them pass, 'tis Mador's drooping band, To harps of woe, in holiest obsequies, In yonder grave, they chant, our Druid lies!

Erasmus Darwin. In the life of this justly celebrated physician, by Miss Seward, she informs us, that in the year 1770, he sat to Mr. Wright of Derby; and that it was "a contemplative portrait, of the most perfect resemblance." Whether it has been engraved I know not. He was then in his thirty-eighth year. Dr. Thornton, in his superb work on botany, has given a fine portrait of Dr. Darwin, at a more advanced period of his life. It breathes intelligence in every feature, and is a masterly likeness. The late Mr. Archdeacon Clive preserved a highly-finished miniature portrait of him, which was ordered by Dr. Darwin for the express purpose of being presented to this worthy clergyman, whom he so much esteemed.[91]

Dr. Darwin published,

1. Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life.

2. Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening, 4to. 1800. "A vast field of treasured observation and scientific literature."

3. The Botanic Garden.

Lord Byron, and others, have been severe on this poem. The lines, however, on the soldier's wife and infants, after watching the battle of Minden—those animated ones to Mr. Howard—or when the mother, during the plague in London, commits her children to the grave,

When o'er the friendless bier no rites were read, No dirge slow chanted, and no pall outspread;

these make one gladly acknowledge, that pathetic powers were the gift of Darwin's muse. The sublimity of the following address to our first daring æronaut, merits insertion:

—Rise, great Mongolfier! urge thy venturous flight High o'er the moon's pale, ice-reflected light; High o'er the pearly star, whose beamy horn Hangs in the east, gay harbinger of morn; Leave the red eye of Mars on rapid wing, Jove's silver guards, and Saturn's dusky ring; Leave the fair beams, which issuing from afar Play with new lustres round the Georgian star; Shun with strong oars the sun's attractive throne, The burning Zodiac, and the milky Zone: Where headlong comets with increasing force Through other systems bend their burning course! For thee Cassiope her chair withdraws, For thee the Bear retracts his shaggy paws; High o'er the north thy golden orb shall roll, And blaze eternal round the wondering pole.[92]

Miss Seward, after stating that professional generosity distinguished Dr. Darwin's medical practice at Lichfield, farther says, that "diligently also did he attend to the health of the poor in that city, and afterwards at Derby, and supplied their necessities by food, and all sorts of charitable assistance. In each of those towns, his was the cheerful board of almost open-housed hospitality, without extravagance or pride; deeming ever the first unjust, the latter unmanly. Generosity, wit and science, were his household gods."[93] She again states that when he removed from Lichfield to Derby, "his renown, as a physician, still increased as time rolled on, and his mortal life declined from its noon. Patients resorted to him more and more, from every part of the kingdom, and often from the continent. All ranks, all orders of society, all religions, leaned upon his power to ameliorate disease, and to prolong existence. The rigid and sternly pious, who had attempted to renounce his aid, from a superstition that no blessing would attend the prescriptions of a sceptic, sacrificed, after a time, their superstitious scruples to their involuntary consciousness of his mighty skill." Mr. Mathias, though he severely criticizes some of Dr. Darwin's works, yet he justly calls him "this very ingenious man, and most excellent physician, for such he undoubtedly was."

From scattered passages in Miss Seward's Life of him, one can easily trace the delight he took (notwithstanding his immense professional engagements,) in the scenery of nature and gardens;—witness his frequent admiration of the tangled glen and luxuriant landscape at Belmont, its sombre and pathless woods, impressing us with a sense of solemn seclusion, like the solitudes of Tinian, or Juan Fernandes, with its "silent and unsullied stream," which the admirable lines he addresses to the youthful owner of that spot so purely and temperately allude to:—

O, friend to peace and virtue, ever flows For thee my silent and unsullied stream, Pure and untainted as thy blameless life! Let no gay converse lead thy steps astray, To mix my chaste wave with immodest wine, Nor with the poisonous cup, which Chemia's hand Deals (fell enchantress!) to the sons of folly! So shall young Health thy daily walks attend, Weave for thy hoary brow the vernal flower Of cheerfulness, and with his nervous arm Arrest th' inexorable scythe of Time.

So early, and indeed throughout his whole life, did Dr. Darwin enforce the happy consequences of temperance and sobriety; from his conviction of the pernicious effects of all kinds of intemperance on the youthful constitution. He had an absolute horror of spirits of all sorts, however diluted. Pure water was, throughout the greater part of his temperate life, his favourite beverage. He has been severely censured (no doubt very justly so), for some of his religious prejudices. Old Walter Mapes, the jovial canon of Salisbury, precentor of Lincoln, and arch-deacon of Oxford, in the eleventh century, considered water as fit only for heretics.

One may again trace his fondness for the rich scenery of nature, when he in 1777 purchased a wild umbrageous valley near Lichfield, with its mossy fountain of the purest water. This spot he fondly cultivated. The botanic skill displayed by him on this spot, did not escape the searching eye of Mr. Loudon, for in p. 807 of his Encyclop. of Gardening, he pays a deserved compliment to him.[94] Miss Seward wrote some lines on this favoured valley, and these are part of them:

O! may no ruder step these bowers profane, No midnight wassailers deface the plain; And when the tempests of the wintry day Blow golden autumn's varied leaves away, Winds of the north, restrain your icy gales, Nor chill the bosom of these hallow'd vales.

His attachment to gardens, induced him to honour the memory of Mr. Mason, by lines once intended for his monument; and he was suggesting improvements at the priory at Derby (and which he had just described the last morning of his life in a sprightly letter to a friend), when the fatal signal was given, and a few hours after, on the 18th of April, 1802, and in his sixty-ninth year, he sunk into his chair and expired. "Thus in one hour (says his affectionate biographer) was extinguished that vital light, which the preceding hour had shone in flattering brightness, promising duration; (such is often the cunning flattery of nature), that light, which through half a century, had diffused its radiance and its warmth so widely; that light in which penury had been cheered, in which science had expanded; to whose orb poetry had brought all her images; before whose influence disease had continually retreated, and death so often "turned aside his levelled dart!"[95] That Dr. Darwin, as to his religious principles or prejudices, displayed great errors of judgment in his Zoonomia, there can be no doubt. An eminent champion of Christianity, truly observed, that Dr. Darwin "was acquainted with more links in the chain of second causes, than had probably been known to any individual, who went before him; but that he dwelt so much, and so exclusively on second causes, that he too generally seems to have forgotten that there is a first." For these errors he must long since have been called to his account, before one who can appreciate those errors better than we can. Though the Accusing Spirit must have blushed when he gave them in, yet, let us hope, that the Recording Angel, out of mercy to his humane heart, and his many good and valuable qualities, may have blotted them out for ever.

Rev. William Gilpin, who, as Mr. Dallaway, in his Observations on the Arts, observes, "possesses unquestionably the happy faculty to paint with words;" and who farther highly compliments him in his supplementary chapter on Modern Gardening, annexed to his enriched edition of Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes. The Topographer says he "describes with the language of a master, the artless scenes of uncultivated nature." Mr. Walpole in his postscript to his Catalogue of Engravers, after premising, that it might, perhaps, be worth while "to melt down this volume and new cast it," pays this tribute to him: "Were I of authority sufficient to name my successor, or could prevail on him to condescend to accept an office which he could execute with more taste and ability; from whose hands could the public receive so much information and pleasure as from the author of the Essay on Prints, and from the Tours, &c.? And when was the public ever instructed by the pen and pencil at once, with equal excellence in the style of both, but by Mr. Gilpin?"

Had Mr. Gilpin written nothing more than his "Lectures on the Catechism," that alone would have conferred on him the name of a meritorious writer. His allusion to Plato, his reflections on the Last Judgment, his animated address to youth, and his conclusion of his sixteenth lecture, must strike deep into the heart of every reader. His "Sermons preached to a Country Congregation," prove him a pious, charitable, and valuable man.[96]

The glowing imagery of his style, when viewing the beautiful scenery in many parts of England, and some of the vast and magnificent ones of Scotland, is fraught with many fervid charms. Still we are forced to join Mr. Mathias, in the remonstrance he so justly makes as to the jargonic conceit of some of his language. Mr. Gilpin's first work on picturesque beauty, was his Observations on the River Wye, made in the year 1770. He afterwards published:

Forest Scenery—Picturesque Beauties of the Highlands—Mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland—Western parts of England—Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex—Hampshire, Sussex and Kent. Three Essays, on Picturesque Beauty, on Picturesque Travel, and on Sketching Landscape, to which is added, a poem on Landscape Painting. A full account of his numerous works may be seen in Watts's Bibl. Brit. A complete list of them is also given by Mr. Nichols, in vol. i. of his Illustrations, with a brief memoir. Mr. Johnson also gives a list of such of his works as relate to picturesque scenery, with their titles at large. His portrait was painted by Walton, and engraved in metz by Clint.

James Anderson published the following works; and I have given the price of such of them as appeared in the late Mr. Harding's Agricultural Catalogue:—

1. The Bee, or Literary Intelligencer, 18 vols. 8vo. Edinb. 1791.

2. Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History, Arts and Miscellaneous Literature, 6 vols. 8vo. Lond. 3l. 10s.

3. Essays relating to Agriculture and Rural Affairs, 3 vols. 8vo. 1l. 7s.

4. Practical Treatise on draining Bogs, 8vo. 6s.

5. Practical Treatise on Peat Moss, 8vo. 5s.

6. On Lime as a Cement and Manure, 8vo. 2s. 6d.

7. An Account of the different kinds of Sheep found in the Russian Dominions, and amongst the Tartar Hordes, 8vo. 6s.

8. Investigation of the Causes of Scarcity of 1800. 8vo. 2s. 6d.

9. Miscellaneous Thoughts on Planting Timber Trees, chiefly for the climate of Scotland, by Agricola, 8vo. Edinb. 1777.

10. Description of a Patent Hot-house, 1804. 12mo. 5s.

In "Public Characters of 1800 and 1801," a portrait is given of him, a list of his works, and it thus speaks of him: "The manners of this ingenious and very useful man were plain and frank, an indication of an honest and good heart. He was benevolent and generous, a tender parent, and a warm friend, and very highly respected in the circle of his acquaintance." There is a portrait of him, painted by Anderson, and engraved by Ridley. A copy is given in the Mirror, (published by Vernon and Hood), of Nov. 1799. Another is given in the Gentleman's Magazine. He died at West Ham, Essex, in 1808, aged 69. Mr. Lysons, in the Supplement to his Environs of London, gives a few particulars of him.

Horace Walpole. He was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, who so long guided the destinies of England, and whose attractive and benevolent private life, seems to have fully merited the praise of Pope's elegant muse:

Seen him I have; but in his happier hour Of social pleasure,—ill exchang'd for power— Seen him uncumber'd with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe.

The best portraits of this intelligent and acute writer, Horace Walpole, are the portrait in Mr. Dallaway's richly decorated edition of the Anecdotes of Painting, from Sir Joshua Reynolds, and that in Mr. Cadell's Contemporary Portraits, from Lawrence. Dance also drew him. Another portrait is prefixed to the ninth volume of his works, in 4to. 1825, from a picture in the possession of the Marquis of Hertford. There is another portrait, engraved by Pariset, from Falconot. Mr. Walpole died in March, 1797, at his favourite seat at Strawberry-hill, at the age of eighty. His manners were highly polished, from his having, during the course of a long life, frequented the first societies. His conversation abounded with interesting anecdote and playful wit. Felicity of narration, and liveliness of expression, mark his graceful pen. The Prince de Ligne (a perfect judge) thus speaks of his History of the Modern Taste in Gardening:—"Je n'en admire pas moins l'eloquence, et la profondeur, de son ouvrage sur les jardins." Mr. Walpole himself says:—"We have given the true model of gardening to the world: let other countries mimic or corrupt our taste; but let it reign here on its verdant throne, original by its elegant simplicity, and proud of no other art than that of softening nature's harshnesses, and copying her graceful touch."

Sir U. Price, in vol. i. p. 18 of his Essays, pays high respect to Mr. Walpole, and differs from him "with great deference and reluctance." He observes:—"I can hardly think it necessary to make any excuse for calling Lord Orford, Mr. Walpole; it is the name by which he is best known in the literary world, and to which his writings have given a celebrity much beyond what any hereditary honour can bestow." Mr. Johnson observes:—"To his sketch of the improvements introduced by Bridgman and Kent, and those garden artists, their immediate successors, we may afford the best praise; he appears to be a faithful, and is, an eloquent annalist." It is impossible to pass by this tribute, without reminding my reader, that Mr. Johnson's own review of our ornamental gardening, is energetic and luminous; as is indeed the whole of his comprehensive general review of gardening, from the earliest period, down to the close of the last century.

The Hon. Daines Barrington. He devoted himself to literary pursuits; was a profound antiquary, and a truly worthy man. He died in 1800, aged 73, at his chambers in the Temple, and was buried in the Temple church. The attractive improvements in the gardens there, may be said to have originated with him. He possibly looked on them as classic ground; for in these gardens, the proud Somerset vowed to dye their white rose to a bloody red, and Warwick prophesied that their brawl

——in the Temple garden, Shall send, between the red rose and the white, A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

He published,

1. Observations on the more Ancient Statutes, 4to. To the 5th edition of which, in 1796, is prefixed his portrait.

2. The Naturalist's Calendar, 8vo.

3. A translation of Orosius, ascribed to Alfred, with notes, 8vo.

4. Tracts on the probability of reaching the North Pole, 4to.

5. In vol. vii. of the Archæologia, is his paper On the Progress of Gardening. It was printed as a separate tract by Mr. Nichols, price 1s. 6d.

6. Miscellanies on various subjects, 4to.

Mr. Nichols, in his Life of Bowyer, calls him "a man of amiable character, polite, communicative and liberal;" and in the fifth volume of his Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, he gives a neatly engraved portrait of Mr. Barrington, and some memorials or letters of his. Mr. Boswell ("the cheerful, the pleasant, the inimitable biographer of his illustrious friend"), thus relates Dr. Johnson's wish to become acquainted with Mr. Barrington:—"Soon after he had published his excellent Observations on the Statutes, Johnson waited on that worthy and learned gentleman, and having told him his name, courteously said, 'I have read your book, Sir, with great pleasure, and wish to be better known to you.' Thus began an acquaintance which was continued with mutual regard as long as Johnson lived." John Harris, Esq. the learned author of Philological Enquiries, thus speaks of Mr. Barrington's Observations on the Statutes:—"a valuable work, concerning which it is difficult to decide, whether it is more entertaining or more instructive."

Joseph Cradock, Esq. whose "Village Memoirs" display his fine taste in landscape gardening. This feeling and generous-minded man, whose gentle manners, polite learning, and excellent talents, entitled him to an acquaintance with the first characters of the age, died in 1826, at the great age of eighty-five. This classical scholar and polished gentleman, who had (as a correspondent observes in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1827) "the habit of enlivening and embellishing every thing which he said with a certain lightning of eye and honied tone of voice," shone in the first literary circles, and ranked as his intimate and valued friends (among many other enlightened persons), David Garrick, and Warburton, Hurd, Johnson, Goldsmith, Percy, and Parr. Dr. Johnson called him "a very pleasing gentleman." Indeed, he appears from every account to have been in all respects an amiable and accomplished person. He had the honour of being selected to dance a minuet with the most graceful of all dancers, Mrs. Garrick, at the Stratford Jubilee. It was to Mr. Cradock, that Dr. Farmer addressed his unanswerable Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare. In acts of humanity and kindness, he was surpassed by few. Pope's line of the gay conscience of a life well spent, might well have been applied to Mr. Cradock. When in Leicestershire, "he was respected by people of all parties for his worth, and idolized by the poor for his benevolence." This honest and honourable man, depicted his own mind in the concluding part of his inscription, for the banks of the lake he formed in his romantic and picturesque grounds, in that county:—

Here on the bank Pomona's blossoms glow, And finny myriads sparkle from below; Here let the mind at peaceful anchor rest, And heaven's own sunshine cheer the guiltless breast.[97]

In 1773 he partly took his "Zobeide" from an unfinished tragedy by Voltaire. On sending a copy to Ferney, the enlightened veteran thus concluded his answer: "You have done too much honour to an old sick man of eighty. I am, with the most sincere esteem and gratitude,

"Sir, your obedient servant, "Voltaire."[98]

I cannot refrain from adding a short extract from the above quoted magazine, as it brings to one's memory another much esteemed and worthy man:—"Here, perhaps, it may be allowable to allude to the sincere attachment between Mr. Cradock, and his old friend Mr. Nichols. For very many years Mr. Nichols had been accustomed to pay Mr. Cradock an annual visit at Gumley Hall; but on Mr. Cradock settling in London, the intercourse became incessant, and we doubt not that the daily correspondence which took place between them, contributed to cheer the latter days of these two veterans in literature. They had both of them in early life enjoyed the flattering distinction of an intimacy with the same eminent characters; and to hear the different anecdotes elicited in their animated conversations respecting Johnson and others, was indeed an intellectual treat of no ordinary description. Mr. Cradock and Mr. Nichols possessed a similarity in taste and judgment. They were both endowed with peculiar quickness of comprehension, and with powers and accuracy of memory rarely equalled." One may say of the liberal minded Mr. Nichols, what Mr. Murphy said of Dr. Johnson, that his love of literature was a passion that stuck to his last stand. The works of Mr. Cradock have, since his decease, been published by Mr. J. B. Nichols, in 4 vols. 8vo. They contain his Essay on Gardening and Village Memoirs. They are enriched by a miniature portrait of him, by Hone, in 1764, when Mr. Cradock was in his prime of life, in his twenty-second year, and when his piercing eyes and intelligent countenance, were thought to have resembled those of Mr. Garrick. There is also a profile shade of Mr. Cradock, taken of him only a month before his decease. In the above quoted magazine, is a copy of this profile, with a memoir.

Sir Joseph Banks. There is a fine portrait of him by Russel, engraved by Collyer. In Mr. Cadell's Contemporary Portraits is another fine one, from the pencil of Lawrence. His portrait is preserved by the Horticultural Society of London, and in the British Museum is his bust, chiselled and presented by the Hon. Mrs. Damer. A good copy of the engraving by Collyer is in the European Magazine for Feb. 1795, and from the memoir there given I select the following:

"If to support the dignity of the first literary society in the world, and by firmness and candour to conciliate the regard of its members; if rejecting the allurements of dissipation, to explore sciences unknown, and to cultivate the most manly qualities of the human heart; if to dispense a princely fortune in the enlargement of science, the encouragement of genius, and the alleviation of distress, be circumstances which entitle any one to a more than ordinary share of respect, few will dispute the claim of the person whose portrait ornaments the present magazine.... In short, he is entitled to every praise that science, liberality, and intelligence can bestow on their most distinguished favourites."

Dr. Pulteney, in his handsome dedication of his Sketches on the progress of Botany, to Sir Joseph, thus alludes to his voyage with Cook:—"To whom could a work of this nature with so much propriety be addressed, as to him who had not only relinquished, for a series of years, all the allurements that a polished nation could display to opulence; but had exposed himself to numberless perils, and the repeated risk of life itself, that he might attain higher degrees of that knowledge, which these sketches are intended to communicate."

The Academy of Sciences at Dijon, in their "Notice sur Sir Jos. Banks," thus apostrophizes his memory:—"Ombre de Banks! apparois en ce lieu consacré au culte des sciences et des lettres; viens occuper la place que t'y conservent les muses, accepter les couronnes qu'elles-mêmes t'ont tressées! viens recevoir le tribut de nos sentimens, témoignage sincère de notre douleur et de not regrets; et par le souvenir de tes vertus, viens enflammer nos cœurs de cet amour pour le bien, qui fut le mobile de toutes tes actions!"[99]

Mr. Johnson, in his History of English Gardening, justly calls him "This universal patron of the arts and sciences. Natural history was the favourite of his scientific studies, and every part of it was enriched by his researches." He again hails him as "a munificent friend of science and literature." The name of Banks will always be associated with that of Solander, the favourite pupil of Linnæus, and with that of the immortal Cook. De Lille closes his Jardins with a most generous and animated invocation to the memory of this intrepid navigator.

William Falconer. The portrait of this eminent physician of Bath, is engraved by Fitler, from a painting by Daniel, of Bath, in 1791. It is prefixed to his "Influence of the Passions upon Disorders." He died in August, 1824, at the age of eighty-one. He published,

1. Essay on the Preservation of the Health of Persons employed in Agriculture, 1s. Bath, 1789.

2. Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Natural History; selected from the principal writers of antiquity. 1793. 4to.

3. Remarks on the Influence of Climate, Situation, Nature of Country, &c. The Encyclop. of Gardening calls this "a most interesting work." A writer in the New Monthly Mag. says "it displays an almost unlimited extent of learning and research."

4. An Historical View of the Taste for Gardening and Laying out Grounds among the Nations of Antiquity. 8vo. 1s. 6d. 1783. Dilly.

A list of his other works (nearly twenty in number), may be seen in the Dictionary of Living Authors, or in vol. xii. of the New Monthly Mag.; which last work says that the late Lord Thurlow, at whose table he was almost a constant guest, declared that "he never saw such a man; that he knew every thing, and knew it better than any one else." Neither this last publication, nor Dr. Watts in his Bibl. Brit. mention Dr. Falconer's Historical View of the Taste for Gardening.

William Curtis. This honest, much-esteemed, and inoffensive man, though so deservedly eminent as a botanist, published only the following work on horticulture:—"Directions for Cultivating the Crambe Maritima, or Sea-kale for the Use of the Table." A new edition, enlarged, with three engravings. 2s. 6d. Mr. Loudon says, that this pamphlet has done more to recommend the culture of sea-kale and diffuse the knowledge of it, than all his predecessors. Nearly three pages of the Encyclopædia are enriched with the result of all that has appeared on the cultivation of this vegetable by English, Scotch, or French writers.

The botanical works of Mr. Curtis have long been held in high esteem. The first number of his Flora Londinensis appeared in 1777. He commenced his Botanical Magazine in 1787. His Observations on British Grasses, appeared in a second edition, with coloured plates, in 1790. His Lectures were published after his death, to which is prefixed his portrait. His portrait is also given in Dr. Thornton's Botany. He died in 1799, was buried in Battersea church-yard, and on his grave-stone these lines are inscribed:—

While living herbs shall spring profusely wild, Or gardens cherish all that's sweet and gay, So long thy works shall please, dear nature's child, So long thy memory suffer no decay.

Thomas Martyn, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, whose striking portrait, from a picture by Russel, appears in Dr. Thornton's superb work on botany. He died in June, 1825, in the ninetieth year of his age. His edition of Miller's Gardener's Dictionary, appeared in 4 vols. folio. Mr. Johnson observes, that this work "requires no comment. It is a standard, practical work, never to be surpassed." Mr. Martyn also published Flora Rustica, a description of plants, useful or injurious in husbandry, with coloured plates, 4 vols. 8vo.

Sir W. Chambers. There are portraits of him by Sir J. Reynolds, engraved by Collyer and by Green; one by Cotes, engraved by Houston, in 1772; and a profile by Pariset, after a drawing by Falconot. He died in 1796, aged sixty-nine. He published,

1. Designs for Chinese Buildings.

2. Plans and Views of the Buildings and Gardens at Kew.

3. A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, second edition, with additions. To which is annexed an Explanatory Discourse, 4to. 1773. This work gave rise to those smart satires, An Heroic Epistle, and An Heroic Postscript.

Humphrey Repton, Esq. His portrait is prefixed to his Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, folio. 1803. He also published on this subject:

1. Letter to U. Price, Esq. on Landscape Gardening, 8vo. 1794.

2. Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening, folio, 1795.

3. Enquiry into the Changes in Landscape Gardening, 8vo. 1806.

4. On the Introduction of Indian Architecture and Gardening, folio, 1808.

5. On the supposed Effect of Ivy upon Trees. A charming little essay inserted in the Linn. Trans. vol. xi.

6. Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, 4to. 1816. In p. 80 of the Encyclop. of Gardening, is some general information respecting Mr. Repton.

William Forsyth, Esq. His portrait is prefixed to the seventh edition of his Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees, 8vo. 1824; also to the 4to. edition of the same work in 1802. He also published Observations on the diseases, defects, and injuries in all kinds of Fruit and Forest Trees, with an account of a particular method of cure, 8vo. 1791. Mr. Forsyth died in 1804.

Mr. James Dickson, who established the well-known seed and herb shop in Covent-garden, and died at the age of eighty-six, a few years ago, appears to have been very much esteemed. His family at Croydon possess his portrait, and there is another preserved by the Horticultural Society. He married for his second wife a sister of the intrepid traveller Mungo Park. Mr. Dickson, when searching for plants in the Hebrides, in 1789, was accompanied by him. Handsome mention is made of Mr. Dickson in the Life of Mungo Park, prefixed to the "Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa." In the above life, the friendly and generous assistance which Sir Joseph Banks shewed both to Mr. Dickson, and to Mungo Park, is very pleasingly recorded. A memoir of Mr. Dickson is given in the 5th vol. of the Hort. Transactions. He published, Fasciculus Plantarum Cryptog. Brit. 4 parts 4to. 1785-1801.

Richard Payne Knight, Esq. author of The Landscape, a didactic poem, 4to. 1794. A second edition, with a preface, appeared in 4to. in 1795. This poem is the only production of Mr. Knight, on the subject of landscape scenery, except his occasional allusions thereto, in his Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste, the second edition of which appeared in 8vo. in 1805. This latter work embraces a variety of subjects, and contains many energetic pages, particularly those on Homer, and on the English drama. His philosophical survey of human life "in its last stages," (at p. 461), and where he alludes to "the hooks and links which hold the affections of age," is worthy of all praise; it is deep, solemn, and affecting. The other publications of this gentleman are enumerated in Dr. Watts's Bibl. Brit. Mr. Knight, in his Landscape, after invoking the genius of Virgil, in reference to his

——O qui me gelidis in vallibus Hœmi Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat unbrâ,

thus proceeds, after severely censuring Mr. Browne, who

——bade the stream 'twixt banks close shaved to glide; Banish'd the thickets of high-bowering wood, Which hung, reflected o'er the glassy flood: Where screen'd and shelter'd from the heats of day, Oft on the moss-grown stone reposed I lay, And tranquil view'd the limpid stream below, Brown with o'er hanging shade, in circling eddies flow. Dear peaceful scenes, that now prevail no more, Your loss shall every weeping muse deplore! Your poet, too, in one dear favour'd spot, Shall shew your beauties are not quite forgot: Protect from all the sacrilegious waste Of false improvement, and pretended taste, One tranquil vale![100] where oft, from care retir'd He courts the muse, and thinks himself inspired; Lulls busy thought, and rising hope to rest, And checks each wish that dares his peace molest.

After scorning "wisdom's solemn empty toys," he proceeds:

Let me, retir'd from business, toil, and strife, Close amidst books and solitude my life; Beneath yon high-brow'd rocks in thickets rove, Or, meditating, wander through the grove; Or, from the cavern, view the noontide beam Dance on the rippling of the lucid stream, While the wild woodbine dangles o'er my head, And various flowers around their fragrance spread.

Then homeward as I sauntering move along, The nightingale begins his evening song; Chanting a requiem to departed light, That smooths the raven down of sable night.

After an animated tribute to Homer, he reviews the rising and the slumbering, or drooping of the arts, midst storms of war, and gloomy bigotry.

Hail, arts divine!—still may your solace sweet Cheer the recesses of my calm retreat; And banish every mean pursuit, that dares Cloud life's serene with low ambitious cares. Vain is the pomp of wealth: its splendid halls, And vaulted roofs, sustain'd by marble walls.— In beds of state pale sorrow often sighs, Nor gets relief from gilded canopies: But arts can still new recreation find, To soothe the troubles of th' afflicted mind; Recall the ideal work of ancient days, And man in his own estimation raise; Visions of glory to his eyes impart, And cheer with conscious pride his drooping heart.

After a review of our several timber trees, and a tribute to our native streams, and woods; and after describing in happy lines Kamtschatka's dreary coast, he concludes his poem with reflections on the ill-fated Queen of France, whose

Waning beauty, in the dungeon's gloom, Feels, yet alive, the horrors of the tomb!

Mr. Knight's portrait, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is preserved at Downton Castle, near Ludlow; and is engraved among Cadell's Contemporary Portraits. It is also engraved by Bromley, from the same painter. Another portrait was in the library of the late Mr. Johnes, at Havod.

Dr. Andrew Duncan. He died at Edinburgh in June 1828, at the great age of eighty-four. His portrait was drawn by Raiburn, and engraved by Mitchell. He was a contemporary of several eminent persons, whose society and friendship formed one of the chief pleasures of his life. There was scarcely an institution proposed for the benefit of his native city, Edinburgh, to which his name will not be found a contributor. He was, in fact, the patron and benefactor of all public charities. In 1809 he projected, and by his exertions, succeeded in establishing, the Horticultural Society of Edinburgh. His animated and scientific discourses, delivered at the meetings of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, will always be perused with eager pleasure by every horticulturist. In that delivered in December, 1814, and inserted in the fifth number of their Memoirs, this zealous well-wisher of his native city, thus exults:—"I am now, gentlemen, past the seventieth year of my age, and I have been a steady admirer both of Flora and Pomona from the very earliest period of my youth. During a pretty long life, it has been my lot to have had opportunities of visiting gardens in three different quarters of the globe, in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa; and from what I have seen, I am decidedly of opinion, that at the present day, there is not a large city in the world, which enjoys a supply of vegetable food in more abundance, in greater variety, or in higher excellence, than the city of Edinburgh. From the potatoe to the pine-apple,—from the most useful to the most delicious productions of the vegetable kingdom, we are not at present outdone, as far as my observation goes, by any large city on the face of the earth." His medical talents may well be believed not to have been small, when it is told, that he was the rival in practice, and by no means an unsuccessful one, of the illustrious Cullen, of the Monros, and of Gregory. In private life, Dr. Duncan was eminently distinguished for his sociality, and the desire to benefit all mankind. He was a member of several social clubs. His favourite amusement was gardening. He possessed a garden in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, which he cultivated entirely with his own hands, and on the door of which was placed, in conspicuous letters, 'hinc salus.' He was particularly kind to the students attending his lectures, and gave a tea-drinking every Sunday evening to about a dozen of them, by rotation, who assembled at six o'clock and went away at eight. When old, he used sometimes to forget the lapse of time, and in his lectures, frequently spoke about the late Mr. Haller, who lived a century before. To the last year of his life he never omitted going up, on the morning of the 1st of May, to wash his face in the dew of the summit of a mountain near Edinburgh, called Arthur's Seat. He had the merit of being the father of the present Dr. Duncan, the celebrated author of the Edinburgh Dispensatory, and professor of materia medica. Dr. Duncan's funeral was properly made a public one, at which the professors, magistrates, and medical bodies of Edinburgh attended, to testify their sorrow and respect.

Sir Uvedale Price. His portrait was taken by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and is now at Foxley.[101] The Hereford Journal of Wednesday, September 16, 1829, thus relates his decease:—"On Monday last died, at Foxley, in this county, Sir Uvedale Price, Bart. in the eighty-third year of his age. The obituary of 1829 will not record a name more gifted or more dear! In a county where he was one of the oldest, as well as one of the most constant of its inhabitants, it were superfluous to enumerate his many claims to distinction and regret. His learning, his sagacity, his exquisite taste, his indefatigable ardour, would have raised to eminence a man much less conspicuous by his station in life, by his correspondence with the principal literati of Europe, and by the attraction and polish of his conversation and manners. Possessing his admirable faculties to so venerable an age, we must deplore that a gentleman who conferred such honour on our county is removed from that learned retirement in which he delighted, and from that enchanting scene which, in every sense, he so greatly adorned. He is succeeded in his title by his only son, now Sir Robert Price, one of our representatives."

Sir Uvedale published the following:

1. An Essay on the Picturesque, as compared with the Sublime and Beautiful, and on the use of studying pictures for the purpose of improving real landscape, 8vo. 1794. This volume was afterwards published in 1796, in 8vo. with considerable additions, and in 1798 was published at Hereford a second volume, being an Essay on Artificial Water, an Essay on Decorations near the House, and an Essay on Architecture and Buildings as connected with Scenery.

2. A Letter to H. Repton, Esq. on the application of the practice and principles of Landscape Painting to Landscape Gardening. Intended as a supplement to the Essays. To which is prefixed Mr. Repton's Letter to Mr. Price. Lond. 1795, 8vo. Second edition, Hereford, 1798, 8vo. This is a sportive display of pleasant wit, polished learning, and deep admiration of the great landscape painters. Keen as some of his pages are, and lamenting that there should have been any controversy ("or tilting at each other's breasts,") on the subject of Launcelot Browne's works, "I trust, (says he,) however, that my friends will vouch for me, that whatever sharpness there may be in my style, there is no rancour in my heart." Mr. Repton in his Enquiry into the Changes of Landscape Gardening, acknowledges "the elegant and gentleman-like manner in which Mr. Price has examined my opinions." Indeed, many pages in this present letter shew this.

3. A Dialogue on the distinct Characters of the Picturesque and the Beautiful, in answer to the objections of Mr. Knight, 1801, 8vo.[102]

A general review of Sir Uvedale's ideas on this subject, is candidly given by Mr. Loudon at p. 78 of his Encyclop. after a mature study of all the modern writers who have endeavoured to form "a taste for the harmony and connection of natural scenery." Mr. Loudon farther calls him "the great reformer of landscape gardening."

We have to regret, that though so many springs must have cheered the long life of Sir Uvedale Price, (and which he calls the dolce prima vera, gioventū dell'anno, and whose blossoms, flowers, and "profusion of fresh, gay, and beautiful colours and sweets," he so warmly dwelt on in many of his pages,) and though the number of these springs must have nearly equalled those which gilded the days of Lord Kames, of the honourable Horace Walpole, of Mr. Gilpin, and of Joseph Cradock, Esq. yet we have to regret that his classic pen has presented to the public no other efforts of his genius and cultivated taste, than the few respectable ones above stated. Had he chose to have indulged his own powers in describing what has been done towards "embellishing the face of this noble kingdom," (to quote his own words,) we might have perused descriptive pages equal to his own critical and refined review of Blenheim, or of Powis Castle, and of a character as high and pure, as those of Thomas Whateley. In proof of this, we need only refer to many pages in his Essays,—not only when he so well paints the charms of sequestered nature, whether in its deep recesses, o'er canopied with luscious eglantine,—in the "modest and retired character of a brook,"—the rural simplicity of a cottage, with its lilacs and fruit trees, its rustic porch, covered with vine or ivy, but when he dwells on the ruins and on "the religious calm" of our abbeys,[103] or on our old mansion-houses, with their terraces, their summer-houses covered with ivy, and mixed with wild vegetation. And we need farther only to refer to those feeling pages in his second volume, where he laments that his own youth and inexperience should (in order to follow the silly folly of being in the fashion,) have doomed to sudden and total destruction an old paternal garden, with all its embellishments, and whose destruction revives in these pages all the emotions of his youth; and he concludes these pages of regret, by candidly confessing, that he gained little but "much difficulty, expence and dirt," and that he thus detains his readers in relating what so personally concerns himself, "because there is nothing so useful to others, however humiliating to ourselves, as the frank confession of our errors and of their causes. No man can equally with the person who committed them, impress upon others the extent of the mischief done, and the regret that follows it." It is painful to quit pages so interesting as those that immediately follow this quotation.[104]

There are few objects that the enlightened mind of Sir Uvedale has not remarked. Take the following as an instance:

"Nothing is so captivating, or seems so much to accord with our ideas of beauty, as the smiles of a beautiful countenance; yet they have sometimes a striking mixture of the other character. Of this kind are those smiles which break out suddenly from a serious, sometimes from almost a severe countenance, and which, when that gleam is over, leave no trace of it behind—

Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, And e'er a man has time to say, behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up.

There is another smile, which seems in the same degree to accord with the ideas of beauty only: it is that smile which proceeds from a mind full of sweetness and sensibility, and which, when it is over, still leaves on the countenance its mild and amiable impression; as after the sun is set, the mild glow of his rays is still diffused over every object. This smile, with the glow that accompanies it, is beautifully painted by Milton, as most becoming an inhabitant of heaven:

To whom the angel, with a smile that glow'd Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue, Thus answered."

The great object in the above Essays, is to improve the laying out of grounds by studying the productions "of those great artists who have most diligently studied the beauties of nature. On this subject he has in these volumes poured forth the effusions of his richly gifted mind, in his contemplation of the works of those really great painters, whose landscape scenery, from the most rural to the grandest, "have been consecrated by long uninterrupted admiration." Instead of the narrow, mechanical practice of a few English gardeners, or layers-out of grounds, he wishes "the noble and varied works of the eminent painters of every age, and of every country, and those of their supreme mistress Nature, should be the great models of imitation."[105] He has supported many of his opinions or observations, or embellished or enlivened them, by acute allusions, not only to Milton but to Shakspeare, whom he calls "that most original creator, and most accurate observer."[106]

He has depicted his own mind in p. 378 of the first volume of his Essays; for after lamenting that despotic system of improvement which demands all to be laid open,—all that obstructs to be levelled to the ground,—houses, orchards, gardens, all swept away,—nothing tending to humanize the mind—and that a despot thinks every person an intruder who enters his domain, wishing to destroy cottages and pathways, and to reign alone, he thus proceeds:—"Here I cannot resist paying a tribute to the memory of a beloved uncle, and recording a benevolence towards all the inhabitants around him, that struck me from my earliest remembrance; and it is an impression I wish always to cherish. It seemed as if he had made his extensive walks as much for them as for himself; they used them as freely, and their enjoyment was his. The village bore as strong marks of his and of his brother's attentions (for in that respect they appeared to have but one mind), to the comforts and pleasures of its inhabitants. Such attentive kindnesses, are amply repaid by affectionate regard and reverence; and were they general throughout the kingdom, they would do much more towards guarding us against democratical opinions

Than twenty thousand soldiers, arm'd in proof.

The cheerfulness of the scene I have mentioned, and all the interesting circumstances attending it, (so different from those of solitary grandeur,) have convinced me, that he who destroys dwellings, gardens and inclosures, for the sake of mere extent, and parade of property, only extends the bounds of monotony, and of dreary, selfish pride; but contrasts those of vanity, amusement and humanity."

One may trace, too, his feeling mind towards the conclusion of his second volume, where, after many pleasing pages on the rural scenery of cottages, and in hamlets and villages, ("where a lover of humanity may find so many sources of amusement and interest,") and on the means of embellishing them, "I could wish (says he) to turn the minds of improvers from too much attachment to solitary parade, towards objects more connected with general habitation and embellishment; ... and it may be truly said, that there is no way in which wealth can produce such natural unaffected variety, and such interest, as by adorning a real village, and promoting the comforts and enjoyments of its inhabitants. Goldsmith has most feelingly described (more, I trust, from the warmth of a poetical imagination and quick sensibility than from real fact), the ravages of wealthy pride. My aim is to shew, that they are no less hostile to real taste, than to humanity; and should I succeed, it is possible that those, whom all the affecting images and pathetic touches of Goldsmith would not have restrained from destroying a village, may even be induced to build one, in order to shew their taste in the decoration and disposition of village-houses and cottages." After many traces of village scenery, he thus proceeds: "The church, together with the church-yard, is, on various accounts, an interesting object to the villagers of every age and disposition; to the old and serious, as a spot consecrated to the purposes of religion, where the living christian performs his devotions, and where, after his death, his body is deposited near those of his ancestors and departed friends, and relations: to the young and thoughtless, as a place where, on the day of rest from labour, they meet each other in their holiday clothes; and also (what forms a singular contrast with tombs and grave-stones), as the place which at their wakes, is the chief scene of their gaiety and rural sports." After speaking of the yew, which from the solemnity of its foliage, is most suited to church-yards, being as much consecrated to the dead as the cypress among the ancients, he says that "there seems to be no reason, why in the more southern parts of England, cypresses should not be mixed with yews, or why cedars of Libanus, which are perfectly hardy, and of a much quicker growth than yews, should not be introduced. In high romantic situations, particularly, where the church-yard is elevated above the general level, a cedar, spreading his branches downwards from that height, would have the most picturesque, and at the same time, the most solemn effect."