Chapter V: Vaniere, tribute to, xiii (1)

Van-Huysum, his skill in painting fruit, 56, 156

Villages, rural, 23, 199

Vineyard at Bethnal-green, 14

Violets, xxxi., 30, 50, 55, 205

Vispre, 157

Voltaire, xi., xiii., xx., xxxiv., 80
---- his garden interview with the Prince de Ligne, xxxvi.

W.

Wakefield horticultural soc., 122

Walpole, Horace, xxix., 1, 80, 91, 163, 176
---- on Sir W. Temple, 112
---- on Kent, 132
---- on Bridgman, 136

Walpole, Horace, on Browne, 154
---- on Gilpin, 173

Walton, Isaac, xi., 30, 93, 94, 102, 104

Warton, Thomas, 6, 8, 10, 72, 143, 161

Watelet, xvii.

Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, his zeal for planting, 70

Watson, Sir W. 93, 142

Weymouth, Lord, xxviii.

Weston, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 57, 92
---- his zeal for planting, 66

Whately, xvi., xviii., 50, 72
---- brief testimonies to his genius, vii., 72, 74, 75, 195
---- on spring, 31
---- his tribute to Shenstone, 150

Wildman, 65

Whitmill, 62

William III. his delight in gardening, xxvii.

Worlidge, his attachment to gardens, 28
---- on those of France, xxvii.
---- mentions a garden at Hoxton, 61

Wotton, Sir H. 93

Wynn, Sir W. W. his zeal for planting, 69

X, Y.

Xenophon, 198

Young, Dr. on Pope's death, 131

FOOTNOTES:

* * * * *

[1] Few persons have shewn more attachment to family portraits than Miss Seward. This is strongly exemplified in several bequests in her will; not only in her bequest to Emma Sneyd, and in that to Mrs. Powys, but also in the following:--"The miniature picture of my late dear friend, Mr. Saville, drawn in 1770, by the late celebrated artist Smart, and which at the time it was taken, and during many successive years, was an exact resemblance of the original, I bequeath to his daughter, Mrs. Smith, who I know will value and preserve it as a jewel above all prize; and in case of her previous demise, I bequeath the said precious miniature to her daughter, Mrs. Honora Jager, exhorting the said Honora Jager, and her heirs, into whose hands soever it may fall, to guard it with sacred care from the sun and from damp, as I have guarded it, that so the posterity of my valued friend may know what, in his prime, was the form of him whose mind through life, by the acknowledgment of all who knew him, and could discern the superior powers of talent and virtue, was the seat of liberal endowment, warm piety, and energetic benevolence."

Being thus on the subject of portraits, let me remark, that it is not always that we meet with a faithful likeness. A review of Mad. de Genlis's _Petrarch et Laure_, justly observes, that "it is doubtful if any of the portraits of _Petrarch_, which still remain, were painted during his life-time. However that may be, it is impossible to trace in them, either the elevation of his mind, the fire of his imagination, or the pensive melancholy of his soul." In the Essays on Petrarch, by Ugo Foscolo, he informs us, that "_Petrarch's_ person, if we trust his biographers, was so striking with beauties, as to attract universal admiration. They represent him with large and manly features, eyes full of fire, a blooming complexion, and a countenance that bespoke all the genius and fancy that shone forth in his works." Do we yet know one really good likeness of _Mary Queen of Scots_?

[2] It has often struck me (perhaps erroneously), that the attachment which the great Sully evinced for gardens, even to the last period of his long-protracted life, (eighty-two), _might_ in some degree have been cherished or increased from the writings of the great Lord Bacon. When this illustrious duke retired to his country seats, wounded to the heart by the baseness of those who had flattered him when Henry was alive, his noble and honest mind indulged in the embellishment of his gardens. I will very briefly quote what history relates:--"The life he led in his retreat at _Villebon_, was accompanied with grandeur and even majesty, such as might be expected from a character so grave and full of dignity as his. His table was served with taste and magnificence; he admitted to it none but the nobility in his neighbourhood, some of the principal gentlemen, and the ladies and maids of honour, who belonged to the duchess of Sully. He often went into his gardens, and passing through a little covered alley, which separated the flower from the kitchen garden, ascended by a stone staircase (which the present duke of Sully has caused to be destroyed), into a large walk of linden trees, upon a terrace on the other side of the garden. It was then the taste to have a great many narrow walks, very closely shaded with four or five rows of trees, or palisadoes. Here he used to sit upon a settee painted green, amused himself by beholding on the one side an agreeable landscape, and on the other a second alley on a terrace extremely beautiful, which surrounded a large piece of water, and terminated by a wood of lofty trees. There was scarce one of his estates, those especially which had castles on them, where he did not leave marks of his magnificence, to which he was chiefly incited by a principle of charity, and regard to the public good. At _Rosny_, he raised that fine terrace, which runs along the Seine, to a prodigious extent, and those great gardens, filled with groves, arbours, and grottos, with water-works. He embellished _Sully_ with gardens, of which the plants were the finest in the world, and with a canal, supplied with fresh water by the little river Sangle, which he turned that way, and which is afterwards lost in the Loire. He erected a machine to convey the water to all the basons and fountains, of which the gardens are full. He enlarged the castle of _La Chapelle d'Angillon_, and embellished it with gardens and terraces."

These gardens somewhat remind one of these lines, quoted by Barnaby Gooche:

_Have fountaines sweet at hand, or mossie waters,
Or pleasaunt brooke, that passing through the meads, is sweetly seene._

That fine gardens delighted Sully, is evident even from his own statement of his visit to the Duke d'Aumale's, at Anet, near Ivry, (where Henry and Sully fought in that famous battle), for he says,--"Joy animated the countenance of Madame d'Aumale the moment she perceived me. She gave me a most kind and friendly reception, took me by the hand, and led me through those fine galleries and beautiful gardens, which make Anet a most enchanting place." One may justly apply to Sully, what he himself applies to the Bishop of Evreaux: "A man for whom eloquence and great sentiments had powerful charms."

I had designed some few years ago, to have published a Review of some of the superb Gardens in France, during the reign of Henry IV. and during the succeeding reigns, till the demise of Louis XV., embellished with plates of some of the costly and magnificent decorations of those times; with extracts from such of their eminent writers whose letters or works may have occasionally dwelt on gardens.--My motto, for want of a better, might have been these two lines from Rapin,

_----France, in all her rural pomp appears
With numerous gardens stored._

Perhaps I might have been so greedy and insolent, as to have presumed to have monopolized our Shakspeare's line,--"I love _France_ so well, that I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine."

Isaac Walton gives the following lines from a translation of a German poet, which makes one equally fond of England:

We saw so many woods, and princely bowers,
Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers,
_So many gardens dress'd with curious care_,
That Thames with royal Tiber may compare.

[3] The Encyclopaedia of Gardening has a rich page (35) devoted to Le Notre. The Nouveau Dict. Hist. thus records his genius and his grand and magnificent efforts:--"Ce grand homme fut choisi pour decorer les jardins du chateau de Vau-le-Vicomte. Il en fit un sejour enchanteur, par les ornamens nouveaux, pleins de magnificence, qu'il y prodigua. On vit alors, pour la premiere fois, des portiques, des berceaux, des grottes, des traillages, des labyrinths, &c. embellir varier le spectacle des jardins. Le Roi, temoin des ces merveilles, lui donna la direction de tous ses parcs. Il embellit par son art, Versailles, Trianon, et il fit a St. Germain cette fameuse terrasse qu'on voit toujours avec une nouvelle admiration. Les jardins de Clagny, de Chantilly, de St. Cloud, de Meudon, de Sceaux, le parterre du Tibre, et les canaux qui ornent ce lieu champetre a Fontainbleau, sont encore son ouvrage. Il demanda a faire voyage de l'Italie, dans l'esperance d'acquerir de nouvelles connoissances; mais son genie createur l'avoit conduit a la perfection. Il ne vit rien de comparable a ce qu'il avoit fait en France."

Notwithstanding the above just and high tribute, I have no hesitation in saying, that it is not superior to the magic picture which the fascinating pen of Mad. de Sevigne has drawn of le Notre's creative genius, in her letter of Aug. 7, 1675. Many others of this charming woman's letters breathe her love of gardens.

[4] The Nouveau Dict. Hist. thus speaks of the Pere Rapin:--"A un genie heureux, a un gout sur, il joignoit une probite exacte, un coeur droit, un caractere aimable et des moeurs douces. Il etoit naturellement honnete, et il s'etoit encore poli dans le commerce des grands. Parmi ses differentes Poesies Latines, on distingue le Poeme des Jardins. C'est son chef d'oeuvre; il est digne du siecle d'Auguste, dit l'Abbe Des Fontaines, pour l'elegance et la purete du langage, pour l'esprit et les graces qui y regnent." Among the letters of Rabutin de Bussy, are many most interesting ones from this worthy father.

[5] "Rien n'est plus admirable que la peinture naive que la Pere Vaniere fait des amusemens champetres; on est egalement enchante de la richesse et de la vivacite de son imagination, de l'eclat et de l'harmonie de sa poesie, du choix de la purete de ses expressions. Il mourut a Toulouse en 1739, et plusiers poetes ornerent de fleurs son tombeau."--Nouv. Dict. Hist.

[6] La Comtesse de la Riviere, thus alludes to this convent: "Madame de Sevigne a pour ce monastere une veneration qui est audela de toute expression; elle assure qu'on n'approche pas de ce lieu sans sentir au dedans de soi une onction divine."

[7] The late Sir U. Price, pays a very high compliment to this exquisite poem, in p. 31, vol. i. of his Essays, terming it full of the justest taste, and most brilliant imagery.

[8] In the Earl of Harcourt's garden, at Nuneham, in Oxfordshire, (laid out in some parts under the eye and fine taste of the poet Mason), on a bust of Rousseau are these lines:

Say, is thy honest heart to virtue warm?
Can genius animate thy feeling breast?
Approach, behold this venerable form;
'Tis Rousseau! let thy bosom speak the rest.

There are attractive pages in this little volume of the Viscount's, which would have interested either Shenstone, or Gainsborough, particularly the pages 59, 143, 145, and 146, (of Mr. Malthus's translation), for in these pages "we feel all the truth and energy of nature." A short extract from p. 131, will enable the reader to judge of the writer's style:--"When the cool evening sheds her soft and delightful tints, and leads on the hours of pleasure and repose, then is the universal reign of sublime harmony. It is at this happy moment that Claude has caught the tender colouring, the enchanting calm, which equally attaches the heart and the eyes; it is then that the fancy wanders with tranquillity over distant scenes. Masses of trees through which the light penetrates, and under whose foliage winds a pleasant path; meadows, whose mild verdure is still softened by the transparent shades of the evening; crystal waters which reflect all the near objects in their pure surface; mellow tints, and distances of blue vapour; such are in general the objects best suited to a western exposure. The sun, before he leaves the horizon, seems to blend earth and sky, and it is from sky that evening views receive their greatest beauty. The imagination dwells with delight upon the exquisite variety of soft and pleasing colours, which embellishes the clouds and the distant country, in this peaceful hour of enjoyment and contemplation."

[9] He was enthusiastically devoted to the cultivation of his gardens, which exhibited enchanting scenery, umbrageous walks, and magnificent water-falls. When thus breathing the pure air of rural life, the blood-stained monsters of 1793 seized him in his garden, and led him to the scaffold. "He heard unmoved his own sentence, but the condemnation of his daughter and grand-daughter, tore his heart: the thought of seeing two weak and helpless creatures perish, shook his fortitude. Being taken back to the _Conciergerie_, his courage returned, and he exhorted his children to prepare for death. When the fatal bell rung, he recovered all his wonted cheerfulness; having paid to nature the tribute of feeling, he desired to give his children an example of magnanimity; his looks exhibited the sublime serenity of virtue, and taught them to view death undismayed. When he ascended the cart, he conversed with his children, unaffected by the clamours of the ferocious populace; and on arriving at the foot of the scaffold, took a last and solemn farewell of his children; immediately after he was dismissed into eternity."

Sir Walter Scott, after noticing "the wild and squalid features" of Marat, who "lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar, among his cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his death-screech was again heard," thus states the death of another of the murderers of the Malherbes:--"Robespierre, in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot himself, had only inflicted a horrible _fracture on his under-jaw_. In this situation they were found like wolves in their lair, foul with blood, mutilated, despairing, and yet not able to die. Robespierre lay on a table in an anti-room, his head supported by a deal box, and his hideous countenance half-hidden by a bloody and dirty cloth bound round his shattered chin. As the fatal cars passed to the guillotine, those who filled them, but especially Robespierre, were overwhelmed with execrations. The nature of his previous wound, from which the cloth had never been removed till the executioner _tore_ it off, added to the torture of the sufferer. The shattered jaw dropped, and the wretch yelled aloud, to the horror of the spectators. A mask taken from that dreadful head was long exhibited in different nations of Europe, and appalled the spectator by its ugliness, and the mixture of fiendish expression with that of bodily agony."

Mons. Malherbes loved to relate an answer made to him by a common fellow, during his stay at Paris, when he was obliged to go four times every day to the prison of the Temple, to attend the king: his extreme age did not allow him to walk, and he was compelled to take a carriage. One day, particularly, when the weather was intensely severe, he perceived, on coming out of the vehicle, that the driver was benumbed with cold. "My friend," said Malherbes to him, in his naturally tender manner, "you must be penetrated by the cold, and I am really sorry to take you abroad in this bitter season."--"That's nothing, M. de Malherbes; in such a cause as this, I'd travel to the world's end without complaining."--"Yes, but your poor horses could not."--"Sir," replied the honest coachman, "_my horses think as I do_."

[10] I cannot pass by the name of Henry, without the recollection of what an historian says of him: "L'Abbe Langlet du Fresnoy a publie cinquante-neuf lettres de a bon Roi, dans sa nouvelle edition du Journal de Henry III. on y remarque du feu de l'esprit, de l'imagination, et sur-tout cette eloquence du coeur, qui plait tout dans un monarque.--On l'exortoit a traiter avec rigueur quelques places de la Ligue, qu'il avoit redites par la force: _La satisfaction qu'on tire de la vengeance ne dure qu'un moment_ (repondit ce prince genereuse) _mais celle qu'on tire de la clemence est eternelle_. Plus on connoitre Henri, plus on l'aimera, plus on l'admiriroet."

[11] The king, knowing his fine taste for sculpture and painting, sent him to Italy, and the Nouv. Dict. Hist. gives this anecdote: "La Pape instruit de son merite, voulut le voir, et lui donna une assez longue audience, sur la fin de laquelle le Notre s'ecria en s'adressant au Pape: J'ai vu les plus grands hommes du monde, Votre Saintete, et le Roi mon maitre. Il y a grande difference, dit le Pape; le Roi est un grand prince victorieux, je suis un pauvre pretre serviteur des serviteurs de Dieu. Le Notre, charme de cette reponse, oublia qui la lui faisoit, et frappant sur l'epaule du Pape lui repondit a son tour: Mon Reverend Pere, vous vous portez bien et vous enterrerez tout la Sacre College. Le Pape, qui entendoit le Francois, rit du pronostic. Le Notre, charme de plus en plus de sa bonte, et de l'estime particuliere qu'il temoignoit pour le Roi, se jeta au cou du Pape et l'embrassa. C'etoit au reste sa coutume d'embrasser tous ceux qui publioient les louanges de Louis XIV., et il embrassoit le Roi lui-meme, toutes les fois que ce prince revenoit de la campagne."

[12] I will conclude by mentioning a justly celebrated man, who, it seems was not over fond of his garden, though warmly attached both to Boileau, and to Mad. de Sevigne,--I mean that most eloquent preacher Bossuet, of whom a biographer, after stating that he was so absorbed in the study of the ancient fathers of the church, "qu'il ne se permettoit que des delassemens fort courts. Il ne se promenoit que rarement meme dans son jardin. Son jardinier lui dit un jour: _Si je plantois des Saint Augustins, et des Saint Chrysostomes, vous les viendriez voir; mais pour vos arbres, vous ne vous en souciez guere_."

[13] Mr. Worlidge, who wrote during part of the reigns of Charles II. and James II. judiciously observes, that "the glory of the French palaces, often represented to our English eyes in sculpture, are adorned _with their beauteous gardens before them_; which wanting, they would seem without lustre or grandeur."

[14] He was fined L30,000 for having taken a favourite of the king's, in the very presence chamber, by the nose, for having insulted him, and afterwards dragging him out of the room.

[15] It was to this nobleman, that Addison addressed his elegant and sublime epistle, after he had surveyed with the eyes and genius of a classical poet, the monuments and heroic deeds of ancient Rome.

[16] Lord Chesterfield thus speaks of this distinguished man:--"His private life was stained by no vices, nor sullied by any meanness. His eloquence was of every kind; but his invectives were terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him." Sir W. Chatham Trelawney used to observe of him, that it was impossible for the members of the side opposed to him in the House of Commons to look him in the face when he was warmed in debate: he seemed to bid them all a haughty defiance. "For my own part," said Trelawney, "I never dared cast my eyes towards his, for if I did, _they nailed me to the floor_."

Smollet says, that he displayed "such irresistible energy of argument, and such power of elocution, as struck his hearers with astonishment and admiration. It flashed like the lightning of heaven against the ministers and sons of corruption, blasting where it smote, and withering the nerves of opposition; but his more substantial praise was founded upon his disinterested integrity, his incorruptible heart, his unconquerable spirit of independance, and his invariable attachment to the interest and liberty of his country." Another biographer thus mentions him:--"His elevated aspect commanded the awe and mute attention of all who beheld him, whilst a certain grace in his manner, conscious of all the dignities of his situation, of the solemn scene he acted in, as well as his own exalted character, seemed to acknowledge and repay the respect he received; his venerable form, bowed with infirmity and age, but animated by a mind which nothing could subdue; his spirit shining through him, arming his eye with lightning, and cloathing his lips with thunder; or, if milder topics offered, harmonizing his countenance in smiles, and his voice in softness, for the compass of his powers was infinite. As no idea was too vast, no imagination too sublime, for the grandeur and majesty of his manner; so no fancy was too playful, nor any allusion too comic, for the ease and gaiety with which he could accommodate to the occasion. But the character of his oratory was dignity; this presided in every respect, even to his sallies of pleasantry."

[17] Sir Walter Scott's attachment to gardens, breaks out even in his Life of Swift, where his fond enquiries have discovered the sequestered and romantic garden of _Vanessa_, at Marley Abbey.

[18] So thought Sir W. Raleigh;

Sweet violets, love's paradise, that spread
Your gracious odours ...
Upon the gentle wing of some calm-breathing wind,
That plays amidst the plain.

The lines in Twelfth Night we all recollect:

That strain again;--it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south
That breathes upon a bank of _violets_,
Stealing and giving odour.

That these flowers were the most favourite ones of Shakspeare, there can be little doubt--Perditta fondly calls them

----sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath.

When Petrarch first saw Laura: "elle avail une robe verte, sa coleur favorite, parsemee de _violettes_, la plus humble des fleurs."--Childe Harold thus paints this flower:

The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes
(Kiss'd by the breath of heaven) seems colour'd by its skies.

[19] One almost fancies one perceives Lord Bacon's attachment to gardens, or to rural affairs, even in the speech he made before the nobility, when first taking his seat in the High Court of Chancery; he hoped "that these same _brambles_ that _grow_ about justice, of needless charge and expence, and all manner of exactions, might be rooted out;" adding also, that immediate and "_fresh_ justice was the _sweetest_." Mr. Mason, in a note to his English Garden, after paying a high compliment to Lord Bacon's picturesque idea of a garden, thus concludes that note:--"Such, when he descended to matters of more elegance (for, when we speak of Lord Bacon, to treat of these was to descend,) were the amazing powers of this universal genius."

[20] Mr. Pope's delight in gardens, is visible even in the condensed allusion he makes to them, in a letter to Mr. Digby; "I have been above a month strolling about in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, from garden to garden, but still returning to Lord Cobham's, with fresh satisfaction. I should be sorry to see my Lady Scudamore's, till it has had the full advantage of Lord Bathurst's improvements."

[21] A biographer thus speaks of the Prince de Ligne: "Quand les rois se reunirent a Vienne en 1814, ils se firent tous un devoir de l'accuellier avec distinction, et furent enchante de la vivacite de son esprit, et de son intarissable gaiete, qui malgre ses infirmites et son grand age, ne l'avoit pasencore abandonne. Ses saillies, et ses bon mots etoient comme autrefois repetes pour tous." His generous heart thus speaks of the abused and unfortunate Marie Antoinette:--"The breath of calumny has not even respected the memory of the loveliest and best of women, of whose spotless heart and irreproachable conduct, no one can bear stronger evidence than I. Her soul was as pure as her face was fair; yet neither virtue nor beauty could save the victim of sanguinary liberty." In relating this (says his biographer), his voice faultered, and his eyes were suffused with tears. He thus briefly states, with his usual humour and vivacity, his conversation with Voltaire as to the garden at Ferney:

_P. de L._--Monsieur, Monsieur, cela doit vous coupe beaucoup, quel charmant jardin!

_Volt._--Oh! mon jardinier est un bete: c'est moi meme qui ait fait tout.

_P. de L._--Je le croi.

[22] Monsieur Thomas, in his eulogy of Descartes says, it should have been pronounced at the foot of Newton's statue: or rather, Newton himself should have been his panegyrist. Of this eulogy, Voltaire, in a most handsome letter to Mons. Thomas, thus speaks:--"votre ouvrage m'enchante d'un bout a l'autre, et Je vais le relire des que J'aurai dicte ma lettre." The sleep and expanding of flowers are most interestingly reviewed by Mr. Loudon in p. 187 of his Encyclop., and by M. V. H. de Thury, in the above discourse, a few pages preceding his seducing description of the magnificent garden of M. de Boursault.

So late ago as the year 1804 it was proposed at Avignon, to erect an obelisk in memory of Petrarch, at Vaucluse: "il a ete decide, qu'on l'elevera, vis-avis _l'ancien jardin_ de Petrache, lieu ou le lit de sorgue forme un angle."

[23] This garden (as Mr. Walpole observes) was planted by the poet, enriched by him with the fairy gift of eternal summer.

[24] Mr. Pope thus mentions the vines round this cave:--

Depending vines the shelving cavern skreen,
With purple clusters blushing through the green.

[25] Nearly eight pages of Mr. Loudon's Encyclop. are devoted to a very interesting research on the gardens of the Romans. Sir Joseph Banks has a paper on the Forcing Houses of the Romans, with a list of Fruits cultivated by them, now in our gardens, in vol. 1 of the _Hort. Trans._

[26] Dr. Pulteney gives a list of several manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, the writers of which are unknown, and the dates not precisely determined, but supposed to have been written, if not prior to the invention of printing, at least before the introduction of that art into England. I select the two following.--

No. 2543. De Arboribus, Aromatis, et _Floribus_.

No. 2562. Glossarium Latino-anglicum Arborum, _Fructuum_, Frugam, &c.

And he states the following from Bib. S. Petri Cant:--

No. 1695. Notabilia de Vegetabilibus, et Plantis.

Dr. Pulteney observes, that the above list might have been considerably extended, but that it would have unnecessarily swelled the article he was then writing.

The Nouv. Dict. Hist. mentions a personage whose attachment to his garden, and one of whose motives for cultivating that garden, does not deserve a notice:--"Attale III. Roi de Pergame, fils de Stratonice, soulla la throne en repandant le sang de ses amis et de sea parens. Il abandonna ensuite le soin de ses affaires _pour s'occuper entirement de son jardin_. Il y cultivoit des poisons, tels que l'aconit et la cigue, qu'il envoyoit quelque fois en present a ses amis. Il mourut 133 ans avant Jesus Christ."

[27] To have completed the various contrasting vicissitudes of this poor _Suffolk_ farmer's life, he should have added to his other employments, those of another _Suffolk_ man, the late W. Lomax, who had been _grave-digger_ at the pleasant town of Bury St. Edmund's, for thirty-six years, and who, also, for a longer period than thirty-six years, had been a _morrice-dancer_ at all the elections for that borough.

[28] Gerarde, speaking of good sorts of apples and pears, thus mentions the above named _Pointer_:--"Master Richard Pointer has them all growing in his ground at Twickenham, near London, who is a most cunning and curious grafter and planter of all manner of rare fruits; and also in the ground of an excellent grafter and painful planter, Master Henry Bunbury, of Touthil-street, near unto Westminster; and likewise in the ground of a diligent and most affectionate lover of plants, Master Warner, neere Horsely Down, by London; and in divers other grounds about London."

[29] The fate of this poor man reminds one of what is related of Corregio:--"He received from the mean canons of Parma, for his Assumption of the Virgin, the small pittance of two hundred livres, and it was paid him in copper. He hastened with the money to his starving family; but as he had six or eight miles to travel from Parma, the weight of his burden, and the heat of the climate, added to the oppression of his breaking heart, a pleurisy attacked him, which, in three days, terminated his existence and his sorrows in his fortieth year."

If one could discover a portrait of either of the authors mentioned in the foregoing list, one might, I think, inscribe under each of such portraits, these verses:

Ce pourtrait et maint liure
Par le peintre et l'escrit,
Feront reuoir et viure
Ta face et ton esprit.

They are inscribed under an ancient portrait, done in 1555, which Mr. Dibdin has preserved in his account of Caen, and which he thus introduces: "As we love to be made acquainted with the _persons_ of those from whom we have received instruction and pleasure, so take, gentle reader, a representation of Bourgueville."

[30] "Mr. John Parkinson, an apothecary of this city, (yet living, and labouring for the common good,) in the year 1629, set forth a work by the name of _Paradisus Terrestris_, wherein he gives the figures of all such plants as are preserved in gardens, for the beauty of their flowers, in use in meats or sauces; and also an orchard for all trees bearing fruit, and such shrubs as for their beauty are kept in orchards and gardens, with the ordering, planting, and preserving of all these. In this work he hath not superficially handled these things, but accurately descended to the very varieties in each species, wherefore I have now and then referred my reader, addicted to these delights, to this work, especially in flowers and fruits, wherein I was loth to spend too much time, especially seeing I could adde nothing to what he had done upon that subject before."

[31] "Mr. Hartlib (says Worlidge) tells you of the benefits of _orchard fruits_, that they afford curious walks for pleasure, food for cattle in the spring, summer, and winter, (meaning under their shadow,) fewel for the fire, shade for the heat, physick for the sick, refreshment for the sound, plenty of food for man, and that not of the worst, and drink also of the best."

Milton also in the above Tractate thus speaks:--"In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature, not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth."

[32] In the above tract of Dr. Beale's, he thus breaks out in praise of the Orchards of this _deep and rich_ county:--"From the greatest person to the poorest cottager, all habitations are encompassed with orchards, and gardens, and in most places our hedges are enriched with rows of fruit trees, pears or apples. All our villages, and generally all our highways, (all our vales being thick set with rows of villages), are in the spring time sweetened and beautified with the blossomed trees, which continue their changeable varieties of ornament, till (in the end of autumn), they fill our garners with pleasant fruit, and our cellars with rich and winy liquors. Orchards, being the pride of our county, do not only sweeten, but also purify the ambient air, which I conceive to conduce very much to the constant health and long lives for which our county hath always been famous. We do commonly devise a shadowy walk from our gardens, through our orchards (which is the richest, sweetest, and most embellished grove) into our coppice woods, or timber woods." Dr. Beale does not praise the whole of their land. He describes some as "starvy, chapt, and cheany, as the basest land upon the Welch mountains." He makes amends, however, for this, for he describes the nags bred on their high grounds, as very different from our present hackney-coach horses; they "are airey and sinewy, full of spirits and vigour, in shape like the _barbe_, they rid ground, and gather courage and delight in their own speed."

[33] A Lady Gerard is mentioned in two letters of Mr. Pope, to W. Fortescue, Esq. They have no date to them. They appear in Polwhele's History of Devonshire. "I have just received a note from Mrs. Blount, that she and Lady Gerard will dine here to-day." And "Lady Gerard was to see Chiswick Gardens (as I imagined) and therefore forced to go from hence by five; it was a mortification to Mrs. Blount to go, when there was a hope of seeing you and Mr. Fortescue." There are three more letters, without date, to Martha Blount, written from the Wells at Bristol, and from Stowe, in which Pope says, "I have no more room but to give Lady Gerard my hearty services." And "once more my services to Lady Gerard." "I desire you will write a post-letter to my man John, at what time you would have the pine apples, to send to Lady Gerard." Probably Martha Blount's Lady Gerard was a descendant of Rea's.

[34] A most curious account of the _Tulipomania_, or rage for tulips, formerly in Holland, may be seen in Phillips's Flora Historica.

[35] Perhaps no one more truly painted rich pastoral scenes than Isaac Walton. This occurs in many, many pages of his delightful _Angler_. The late ardently gifted, and most justly lamented Sir Humphry Davy too, in his _Salmonia_, has fondly caught the charms of Walton's pages. His pen riots in the wild, the beautiful, the sweet, delicious scenery of nature:--"how delightful in the early spring, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odours of the bank, perfumed by the violet, and enamelled as it were with the primrose, and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee." Mr. Worlidge, in his Systema Agriculturae, says, that the delights in angling "rouzes up the ingenious early in the spring mornings, that they have the benefit of the sweet and pleasant morning air, which many through sluggishness enjoy not; so that health (the greatest treasure that mortals enjoy) and pleasure, go hand in hand in this exercise. What can be more said of it, than that the most ingenious, most use it." Mr. Whately, in his usual charming style, thus paints the spring:--"Whatever tends to animate the scene, accords with the season, which is full of youth and vigour, fresh and sprightly, brightened by the verdure of the herbage, and the woods, gay with blossoms, and flowers, and enlivened by the songs of the birds in all their variety, from the rude joy of the skylark, to the delicacy of the nightingale."

[36] Tusser seems somewhat of Meager's opinion:--

Sow peason and beans, in the wane of the moon,
Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soon;
That they with the planet may rest and arise,
And flourish, with bearing most plentifull wise.

The celebrated Quintinye says, "I solemnly declare, that after a diligent observation of the moon's changes for thirty years together, and an enquiry whether they had any influence in gardening, the affirmative of which has been so long established among us, I perceive it was no weightier than old wives' tales."

The moon (says Mr. Mavor) having an influence on the tides and the weather, she was formerly supposed to extend her power over all nature.

There is a treatise, by _Claude Gadrois_, on the _Influences des Astres_. Surely this merits perusal, when the Nouv. Dict. Hist. thus speaks of him:--"Il etoit ami du celebre Arnauld et meritoit de l'etre par _la justesse de son esprit_ et la purete de ses moeurs, par la bonte de son caractere et par la droiture de son coeur."

The following wise experiment occurs in an ancient book on husbandry; but if the two parties there mentioned had lived with Leonard Meager, one must not do him the injustice of supposing he would have been a convert to their opinion:--"_Archibius_ is said to have written (or sent word most likely) to _Antiochus_, king of _Syria_, that if you bury a speckled toad inclosed in an earthen pot, in the middle of your garden, the same will be defended from all hurtful weather and tempests." Meager, however, is kept in countenance by Mr. Worlidge, who, in his chapter of Prognostics, at the end of his interesting Systemae Agriculturae, actually states that

If dog's guts rumble and make a noise, it presageth rain or snow.

The cat, by washing her face, and putting her foot over her ear, foreshews rain.

The squeaking and skipping up and down of mice and rats, portend rain.

Leonard Meager thus notices a nurseryman of his day:--"Here follows a catalogue of divers sorts of fruits, which I had of my very loving friend, Captain Garrle, dwelling at the great nursery between Spittlefields and Whitechapel; a very eminent and ingenious nurseryman." Perhaps this is the same nurseryman that Rea, in his _Pomona_, mentions. He says (after naming some excellent pear-trees) "they may be had out of the nurseries about London, especially those of Mr. Daniel Stepping, and Mr. Leonard _Girle_, who will faithfully furnish such as desire these, or any other kinds of rare fruit-trees, of whose fidelity in the delivery of right kinds, I have had long experience in divers particulars, a virtue not common to men of that profession." At this period, the space between Spittlefields and Whitechapel, must have consisted of gardens, and perhaps superb country houses. The Earl of Devonshire had a fine house and garden near Petticoat-lane. Sir W. Raleigh had one near Mile-end. Some one (I forget the author) says, "On both sides of this lane (Petticoat-lane) were anciently hedges and rows of elm trees, and the pleasantness of the neighbouring fields induced several gentlemen to build their houses here; among whom was the Spanish Ambassador, whom Strype supposes was Gondamour." Gondamour was the person to please whom (or rather that James might the more easily marry his son Charles to one of the daughters of Spain, with her immense fortune) this weak monarch was urged to sacrifice the life of Raleigh.

Within one's own memory, it is painful to reflect, on the many pleasant fields, neat paddocks, rural walks, and gardens, (breathing pure air) that surrounded this metropolis for miles, and miles, and which are now ill exchanged for an immense number of new streets, many of them the receptacles only of smoke and unhealthiness.

[37] These lines are from him, at whose death (says Sir W. Scott in his generous and glowing eulogy) we were stunned "by one of those death-notes which are peeled at intervals, as from an archangel's trumpet"--they are from "that mighty genius which walked amongst men as something superior to ordinary mortality, and whose powers were beheld with wonder, and something approaching to terror, as if we knew not whether they were of good or evil"--they are from "that noble tree which will never more bear fruit, or blossom! which has been cut down in its strength, and the past is all that remains to us of Byron: whose excellences will _now_ be universally acknowledged, and his faults (let us hope and believe) not remembered in his epitaph." His "deep transported mind" (to apply Milton's words to him) thus continues his moralization:--

What are the hopes of man? old Egypt's king
CHEOPS, erected the first pyramid,
And largest; thinking it was just the thing
To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;

But somebody or other rummaging,
Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:
Let not a monument give you, or me, hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of CHEOPS.

The Quarterly Review, in reviewing Light's Travels, observes, that "Cheops employed three hundred and sixty thousand of his subjects for twenty years in raising this pyramid, or pile of stones, equal in weight to six millions of tons; and to render his precious dust more secure, the narrow chamber was made accessible only by small intricate passages, obstructed by stones of an enormous weight, and so carefully closed, externally, as not to be perceptible. Yet how vain are all the precautions of man! Not a bone was left of Cheops, either in the stone coffin, or in the vault, when Shaw entered the gloomy chamber." Sir Walter Scott himself, has justly received many eulogies. Perhaps none more heart-felt, than the effusion delivered at a late Celtic meeting, by that eloquent and honest lawyer, the present Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Exchequer, in Scotland, which was received by long, loud, and continued applause.

[38] John Bauhine wrote a Treatise in 1591, De Plantis a Divis sanctisve nomen habentibus.

Their Preface to the above Vol. ii. has this observation: "Plants, when taken from the places whence they derive their extraction, and planted in others of different qualities, _betray such fondness for their native earth_, that with great difficulty they are brought to thrive in another; and in this it is that the florist's art consists; for _to humour each plant_ with the soil, the sun, the shade, the degrees of dryness or moisture, and the neighbourhood it delights in, (for there is a natural antipathy between some plants, insomuch that they will not thrive near one another) are things not easily attainable, but by a length of study and application."

[39] What these ruffles and lashes were, I know not. Perhaps the words of Johnson may apply to them:--

Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart,
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.
This mournful truth is every where confess'd,
Slow rises worth, by poverty oppress'd.

[40] Barnaby Gooche, in his Chapter on Gardens, calls the sun "the captaine and authour of the other lights, _the very soule of the world_."

[41] A translation of De Lille's garden thus pleads:--

Oh! by those shades, beneath whose evening bowers
The village dancers tripp'd the frolic hours;
By those deep tufts that show'd your fathers' tombs,
Spare, ye profane, their venerable glooms!
To violate their sacred age, beware,
Which e'en the awe-struck hand of time doth spare.

[42] Mr. Whateley observes, that "The whole range of nature is open to him, (the landscape gardener) from the parterre to the forest; and whatever is agreeable to the senses, or the imagination, he may appropriate to the spot he is to improve; it is a part of his business to collect into one place, the delights which are generally dispersed through different species of country."

[43] At page 24 he says, "_Cato_, one of the most celebrated writers on Husbandry and Gardening among the Romans, (who, as appears by his Introduction, took the model of his precepts from the _Greeks_) in his excellent Treatise _De Re Rustica_, has given so great an encomium on the excellence and uses of this good plant, (the Brocoli) not only as to its goodness in eating, but also in physick and pharmacy, that makes it esteemed one of the best plants either the field or garden produces."

[44] His Chapter on the Water-Works of the Ancient Romans, French, &c. is charmingly written. Those who delight in the formation of rivers, fountains, falls of water, or cascades, as decorations to their gardens, may inspect this ingenious man's Hydrostatics. And another specimen of his genius may be seen in the magnificent iron gateway now remaining at _Leeswood_, near Mold, and of which a print is given in Pugh's _Cambria Depicta_.

[45] In this volume is a letter written to Switzer, from his "ingenious friend Mr. Thomas Knowlton, Gardener to the Earl of Burlington, who, on account of his own industry, and the opportunity he has had of being educated under the late learned Dr. Sherrard, claims a very advanced place in the list of Botanists." This letter is dated Lansborough, July, 1728. I insert part of this letter:--"I hope, Sir, you will excuse the freedom I take in giving you my opinion, having always had a respect for your endeavours in Husbandry and Gardening, ever since you commenced an author. Your introduction to, and manner of handling those beloved subjects, (the sale of which I have endeavoured to promote) is in great esteem with me; being (as I think) the most useful of any that have been wrote on these useful subjects. If on any subject, you shall hereafter revise or write farther upon, any communication of mine will be useful or serviceable to you, I shall be very ready to do it. I heartily wish you success in whatever you undertake, as it tends to a publick good." Dr. Pulteney says of Knowlton, "His zeal for English Botany was uncommonly great, and recommended him successfully to the learned Botanists of this country. From Sir Hans Sloane, he received eminent civilities."

[46] few short notices occur of names formerly eminent in gardening:--"My late ingenious and laborious friend, Mr. _Oram_, Nurseryman, of Brompton-lane."

"That great virtuoso and encourager of gardening, Mr. Secretary Johnson, at Twickenham."

"Their beautiful aspects in pots, (the nonpareil) and the middle of a desert, has been the glory of one of the most generous encouragers of gardening this age has produced, I mean the Right Honourable the Lord Castlemain."

"The late noble and most publick spirited encourager of arts and sciences, especially gardening, his Grace the Duke of Montague, at Ditton."

"The Elrouge Nectarine is also a native of our own, the name being the reverse of _Gourle_, a famous Nurseryman at Hogsden, in King Charles the Second's time, by whom it was raised."

And speaking of the successful cultivation of vines in the open air, he refers to the garden of a Mr. _Rigaud_, near _Swallow-street_; and to another great cultivator of the vine, "of whose friendship I have proof, the Rev. Mr. _Only_, of _Cottesmore_, in Rutland, some time since deceased; one of the most curious lovers of gardening that this or any other age has produced." This gentleman, in 1765, published "An Account of the care taken in most civilized nations for the relief of the poor, more particularly in the time of scarcity and distress;" 4to. 1s. Davis. I believe the same gentleman also published, in 1765, a Treatise "Of the Price of Wheat."

[47] Lord Bacon says, "Because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of musick) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air." The Prince de Ligne says,

Je ne veux point avoir l'orgueilleuse tulipe;
_L'odorat en jardin_ est mon premier principe.

The translation of _Spectacle de la Nature_, a very pleasing work, observes that "Flowers are not only intended to beautify the earth with their shining colours, but the greatest part of them, in order to render the entertainment more exquisite, diffuse a fragrance that perfumes all the air around us; and it should seem as if they were solicitous to _reserve their odours for the evening and morn_, when walking is most agreeable; but their sweets are very faint during the heat of the day, when we visit them the least."

I must again trespass on the pages of the great Bacon, by briefly shewing the _natural wildness_ he wishes to introduce into one part of his garden:--"thickets, made only of sweet-briar and honeysuckle, and some wild vine amongst, and the ground set with violets, strawberries, and primroses; for these are sweet, and prosper in the shade."

The dew or pearly drops that one sees in a morning on cowslips, remind one of what is said of Mignon:--"Ses ouvrages sont precieux par l'art avec le quel il representoit les fleurs dans tout leur eclat, et les fruits avec toute leur fraicheur. La rosee et les goutes d'eau qu'elle repand sur les fleurs, sont si bien imitees dans ses tableaux, qu'on est tente d'y porter la main." It is said also that in the works of Van-Huysum, "le veloute des fruits, l'eclat des fleurs, le transparent de la rosee, tout enchante dans les tableaux de ce peintre admirable." Sir U. Price observes of this latter painter, "that nature herself is hardly more soft and delicate in her most delicate productions, than the copies of them by Van-Huysum." Two flower pieces by this painter, sold at the Houghton sale for 1200_l._

In the pieces of _Bos_, a Flemish painter, the dew was represented so much like nature, as to deserve universal approbation.

Bernazzano painted strawberries on a wall so naturally, that, we are told, the plaster was torn down by the frequent pecking of peacocks.

Amidst these celebrated painters, these admiring judges of nature, let us not forget our never-dying Hogarth; his piercing eye even discovers itself in his letter to Mr. Ellis, the naturalist:--"As for your pretty little seed cups, or vases, they are a sweet confirmation of the pleasure nature seems to take in superadding an elegance of form to most of her works, wherever you find them. How poor and bungling are all the inventions of art!"

[48] The very numerous works of this indefatigable writer, embracing so many subjects, make one think he must have been as careful of his time, as the celebrated friend of the witty _Boileau_: the humane, benevolent, and dignified Chancellor _Aguesseau_, who finding that his wife always kept him waiting an hour after the dinner bell had rung, resolved to devote this time to writing a work on Jurisprudence. He put this project in execution, and in the course of time, produced a quarto work in four thick volumes.

[49] This chesnut tree is thus noticed in a newspaper of August, 1829:--"The celebrated chesnut tree, the property of Lord Ducie, at Tortworth, in the county of Gloucester, is the oldest, if not the largest tree in England, having this year attained the age of 1002 years, and being 52 feet in circumference, and yet retains so much vigour, that it bore nuts so lately as two years ago, from which young trees are now being raised."

[50] There is an 8vo. published in 1717, called the "Lady's Recreation," by _Charles_ Evelyn, Esq. There are two letters subjoined, written to this author by the Rev. Mr. Lawrence. From page 103, 105, 129 and 141, one should think this was not the son of the famous Mr. Evelyn. I now find, that Mr. Lawrence, in the Preface to his Kalendar, inserted at the end of his fifth edition, assures the public, "that the book called the Lady's Recreation could not be published by my approbation, because it was never seen by me till it was in print; besides, I have reason to think it was an artifice of the booksellers to impose upon the world, under the borrowed name of Evelyn."

[51] This sermon was preached for several years by Dr. Colin Milne, by whom it was published in 1799, and afterwards by the Rev. Mr. Ellis, of Merchant Taylors' School. Mr. Ellis, in his History of Shoreditch, gives us much information as to this bequest; in which the handsome conduct of Mr. Denne, a former vicar, is not the least interesting. Mr. Nichols, in vol. iii. of his Literary Anecdotes, bears testimony to Dr. Denne's feeling towards the poor and distressed, and to his attachment to literary pursuits. Three of these Sermons are in the second volume of "Thirty Sermons on Moral and Religious Subjects, by the Rev. W. Jones;" 2 vols. 8vo. 1790, price 16s. There are other editions of Mr. Jones's Sermons, viz. Rev. W. Jones, of Nayland, his Theological, Philosophical, and Miscellaneous Works, with Life, 12 vols. 8vo. _neat_, 7_l._ 7_s._ 6_d._ 1801. Sermons by the late Rev. William Jones, of Nayland, Suffolk: Chaplain to the Right Rev. George Horne, Bishop of Norwich; 1 vol. 8vo. with Portrait of the Author, price 12_s._ Dove, St. John's Square, Printer, 1828. "Of this faithful servant of God, (the Rev. W. Jones) I can speak both from personal knowledge and from his writings. He was a man of quick penetration, of extensive learning, and the soundest piety; and he had, beyond any other man I ever knew, the talent of writing upon the deepest subjects to the plainest understandings."--_Bishop Horsley's Charges._ The Rev. Samuel Ayscough, of the British Museum, began, in 1790, to preach this annual sermon, and, I believe, continued it for fourteen years.

[52] Mr. Ellis, of _Little Gaddesden_, in his Practical Farmer, 8vo. 1732, thus speaks on this subject:--"What a charming sight is a large tree in blossom, and after that, when loaden with fruit, enough perhaps to make a hogshead of cyder or perry! A scene of beauty, hopes, and profit, and all! It may be on less than two feet diameter of ground. And above all, what matter of contemplation does it afford, when we let our thoughts descend to a single kernel of an apple or pear? And again, how heightened, on the beholding so great a bulk raised and preserved, by Omnipotent Power, from so small a body."

[53] The thought of planting the sides of public roads, was first suggested by the great _Sully_.