Note 653 — PART THE THIRD. (continued 2)
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The celebrated poem of "the Botanic Garden," originated in a copy of verses, addressed by Miss Seward to Dr. Darwin, complimenting him on his sequestered retreat near Lichfield. In this retreat there was a mossy fountain of the purest water; aquatic plants bordered its summit, and branched from the fissures of the rock. There was also a brook, which he widened into small lakes. The whole scene formed a little paradise, and was embellished with various classes of plants, uniting the Linnean science, with all the charm of landscape.
When Miss Seward presented her verses to Dr. Darwin, he was highly gratified, she observes, and said, "I shall send this poem to the periodical publications; but it ought to form the exordium of a great work. The Linnean system is unexplored poetic ground, and a happy subject for the muse. It affords fine scope for poetic landscape; it suggests metamorphoses of the Ovidian kind, though reversed. Ovid made men and women into flowers, plants, and trees. You should make flowers, plants, and trees, into men and women. I," continued he, "will write the notes, which must be scientific, and you shall write the verse."
Miss S. remarked, that besides her want of botanic knowledge, the undertaking was not strictly proper for a female pen; and that she felt how much more it was adapted to the ingenuity and vigour of his own fancy. After many objections urged on the part of Dr. Darwin, he at length acquiesced, and ultimately produced his "Loves of the Plants, or Botanic Garden."*
Though this poem obtained much celebrity on its first appearance, it was nevertheless severely animadverted upon by some critics. A writer in the Anti-Jacobin Review, (known to be the late Mr. Canning) parodied the work, by producing "The Loves of the Triangles," in which triangles were made to fall in love with the same fervour of passion, as Dr. Darwin attributed to plants. The style, the imagery, and the entire composition of "The Loves of the Plants," were most successfully imitated. We quote the following.
*See Life of Dr. Darwin, by Miss Seward.
"In filmy, gauzy, gossamery lines, With lucid language, and most dark designs, In sweet tetrandryan monogynian strains, Pant for a pistil in botanic pains; Raise lust in pinks, and with unhallowed fire, Bid the soft virgin violet expire."
We do not think that the Botanic Garden ever fully maintained its former estimation, after the keen Attic wit of Mr. Canning, though the concluding lines of Cowper seem to promise perpetuity to its fame.