Chapter M: STEVENSON published in small 4to. 1661, a book called The Twelve (3)

"The life of these men is finely described in holy writ by _the path of an arrow_, which is immediately closed up and lost. Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixed with a kind of fresh mouldering earth that some time or other had a place in the composition of an human body. Upon this I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter. After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortality, as it were in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabrick. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in _Greek_ or _Hebrew_, and by that means are not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed indeed that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were buried in the plains of _Blenheim_, or in the bosom of the ocean. I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius before they are put in execution. Sir_Cloudesly Shovel's_ monument has very often given me great offence: instead of the brave rough _English_ admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument; for, instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The _Dutch_, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, shew an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea-weed, shells, and coral. But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but, for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together."[73]

REV. JOHN LAWRENCE published "The Clergyman's Recreation, shewing the Pleasure and Profit of the Art of Gardening;" 8vo. 1714. Also a poem, called "Paradise Regained, or the Art of Gardening;" 8vo. 1728. The sixth edition of "The Clergyman's Recreation" has "the effigies of the author, engraved by Vertue." I have seen eight copies of this sixth edition, and in neither of them has this portrait been. No doubt the collecting to form Granger's, has deprived each copy of its portrait. This is an expressive portrait, ornamented with a vine wreath, and with a rich cornucopia or clusters of ripe fruit. The original picture from which Vertue's print was taken, was at Pallion, near Durham, the seat of his grandson, John Goodchild, Esq. In Rodd's catalogue of engraved portraits, printed a few years ago, was "John Lawrence, prebend of Salisbury, _original drawing by Vertue_, price 5s." Mr. Lawrence published also, in folio, in 1726, his System of Agriculture and Gardening. Mr. Nichols, in vol. iv. of his Literary Anecdotes, has given a list of all his works, has preserved a few particulars respecting him, and pays a just tribute to him. A list of his works may also be seen in Watts's Bibl. Brit., and in Mr. Johnson's work. The Encycl. of Gardening informs us that he was "of a hospitable and benevolent disposition, taking great pleasure in presenting a rich dessert of fruit to his friends." He was presented to the rectory of Yelvertoft, Northamptonshire, in 1703, "by the extraordinary uncommon bounty of a generous patron." In 1721, he was presented to that of Bishop's Wearmouth, Durham, where he died in 1732. He was also a prebend of Salisbury.[74]

Mr. Lawrence thus enforces the pleasures of a garden, to his own order:--"to make them happy by loving an innocent diversion, the amusements of a garden being not only most delightful to those that love them, but most wholesome to those that use them. A good man knows how to recapitulate all his pleasures in a devout lifting up of his hands, his eyes and his heart, to the great and bountiful author of nature, who gives beauty, relish, and success to all our honest labours." His pen likewise paints with "soft and tempting colours," the extreme beauty of our fruit-trees, when clothed with their different coloured blossoms, (what Lord Byron calls _the sweet and blooming fruits of earth_):--"What a pleasing entertainment is it to the eye, to behold the apricot in its full blossom, white as snow, and at the same time the peach with its crimson-coloured blooms; both beginning to be interspersed with green leaves! These are succeeded by the pear, the cherry, and the plum, whose blossoms and leaves make a very beautiful mixture in the spring; and it cannot be a less pleasant sight to see clusters of swelling fruit all the summer, as the earnest of the full gratification of another sense in autumn. And now we have come hither, what painter can draw a landskip more charming and beautiful to the eye, than an old Newington peach-tree laden with fruit in August, when the sun has first begun to paint one side of the fruit with such soft and tempting colours? The apricot, the pear, the cherry and plum, when they appear in plenty as they ought, present themselves to the eye at the time of ripening in very inviting blushes. In short, all the several sorts of fruit trees have such pleasing varieties, that were there no other sense to be gratified but the sight, they may vie with a parterre even of the finest flowers." He thus mentions the month of _July_:--"How beautiful and refreshing are the mornings and evenings of such days, when the very air is perfumed with pleasant odours, and every thing that presents itself to the eye gives fresh occasion to the devout admirer to praise and adore the Great Creator, who hath given such wisdom and power to man to diversify nature in such various instances, and (for his own use, pleasure, and profit,) to assist her in all her operations." This worthy clergyman might have applied to the delights of a garden, the sacred words of scripture:--"her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."[75]

ALEXANDER POPE. Numerous are the engraved portraits of this graceful and harmonious poet. Noble's continuation of Granger, gives all, or the greater part of the engravings from his portraits, from which it will be seen, that he was drawn by Kneller, by Richardson, by many others, and particularly by his friend Jervas. As a portrait painter, Mr. Jervas was far from eminent. Pope's attachment to him, however, has enshrined his name in glowing lines to future generations. The portraits of Pope which Jervas drew, were done _con amore_. Mr. Jennings, of Cheapside, has prefixed to his elegant folio edition of the "Essay on Man," a _whole-length_ of Mr. Pope, from after Jervas. In Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. iii. is a very striking bust of Mr. Pope, as an accompaniment to Mr. Dodsley's affecting poem to his memory, which he entitles _The Cave of Pope_. Surely this bust must have strongly resembled Pope, or Mr. Dodsley would not have inserted it. The profile to Ruffhead's Life, in 4to. 1769, _must_ have been a likeness, or Bishop Warburton would not have permitted its insertion. His age was then twenty-four. It is finely engraved by Ravenet, from Kneller. It is a striking portrait. A copy of this is admirably engraved in Bell's Poets, richly ornamented. A copy from that by Richardson is prefixed to Warton's edition. Among the portraits at _Hagley_, is that of Pope, and his dog Bounce, by Richardson.[76] Lord Chesterfield thus speaks of Pope:--"His poor, crazy, deformed body, was a mere Pandora's box, containing all the physical ills that ever afflicted humanity. This, perhaps, whetted the edge of his satire, and may, in some degree, excuse it. I will say nothing of his works; they speak sufficiently for themselves; they will live as long as taste and letters shall remain in this country, and be more and more admired, as envy and resentment shall subside. But I will venture this piece of classical blasphemy: which is, that however he may be supposed to be obliged to Horace, Horace is more obliged to him." Mr. Ruffhead (generally supposed to have had his information from Dr. Warburton) thus states:--"Mr. Pope was low in stature, and of a diminutive and misshapen figure, which no one ridiculed more pleasantly than himself. His constitution was naturally tender and delicate, and in his temper he was naturally mild and gentle, yet sometimes betrayed that exquisite sensibility which is the concomitant of genius. His lively perception and delicate feeling, irritated by wretched ill health, made him too quickly take fire, but his good sense and humanity soon rendered him placable. With regard to the extent of his genius, it was so wide and various, that perhaps it may not be too much to say, that he excelled in every species of composition; and, beside his excellence as a poet, he was both an antiquarian and an architect, and neither in an inferior degree.[77] No man ever entertained more exalted notions of friendship, or was ever more sincere, steady, warm, and disinterested, in all his attachments. Every inch of his heart was let out in lodgings for his friends." Lord Orrery thus speaks of him:--"His prose writings are little less harmonious than his verse; and his voice, in common conversation, was so naturally musical, that I remember honest Tom Southern used to call him the Little Nightingale; his manners were delicate, easy, and engaging; he treated his friends with a politeness that charmed, and a generosity that was much to his honour. Every guest was made happy within his doors; pleasure dwelt under his roof, and elegance presided at his table." One may trace Mr. Pope's hospitality throughout his letters. I will merely select one or two instances. In a letter to _Swift_, he says, "My house is too large; my gardens furnish too much wood and provision for _my_ use. My servants are sensible and tender of me. They have intermarried, and are become rather low friends than servants. Would to God you would come over with Lord Orrery, whose care of you in the voyage I could so certainly depend on; and bring with you your old housekeeper, and two or three servants. I have room for all, a heart for all, and (think what you will) a fortune for all." In another letter to Swift, he says, "I wish you had any motive to see this kingdom. I could keep you; for I am rich, that is, I have more than I want. I can afford room for yourself and two servants. I have, indeed, room enough, nothing but myself at home: the kind and hearty housewife is dead! the agreeable and instructive neighbour is gone! yet my house is enlarged, and the gardens extend and flourish, as knowing nothing of the guests they have lost. I have more fruit trees and kitchen garden than you have any thought of; nay, I have good melons and pineapples of my own growth." In a letter to _Mr. Allen_, he says, "Let me know your day for coming, and I will have every room in my house as warm for you as the owner always would be." Mr. Mathias, in his Pursuits of Literature, (besides expatiating with fond delight, in numerous pages, on the genius of Pope,) thus speaks of him:--"Familiar with the great, intimate with the polite, graced by the attentions of the fair, admired by the learned, a favourite with the nation, independent in an acquired opulence, the honourable product of his genius, and of his industry; the companion of persons distinguished for their virtue, birth, high fashion, rank, or wit, and resident in the centre of all public information and intelligence; every avenue to knowledge, and every mode of observation were open to his curious, prying, piercing, and unwearied intellect."[78]

One may with truth further apply to Mr. Pope what was said of Buchanan, that his mind was stored with all the fire, and all the graces of ancient literature. Mr. Pope's attachment to _gardens_, appears not only in his letter to Martha Blount, describing Sir W. Raleigh's seat--but in his own garden at Twickenham, (where, as Mr. Loudon feelingly observes, _only the soil of which now remains_)--and in his letter to Mr. Blount, describing his grotto--but it also bursts forth in many passages throughout his works--and in his celebrated _Guardian_ (No. 173), which attacks, with the keenest wit, "our study to recede from nature," in our giants made out of yews, and lavender pigs with sage growing in their bellies. His epistle to Lord Burlington confirms the charms he felt in studying nature. Mr. Mason, in a note to his English Garden, says, "I had before called Bacon the prophet, and Milton, the herald of true taste in gardening. The former, because, in developing the constituent properties of a princely garden, he had largely expatiated upon that adorned natural wildness which we now deem the essence of the art. The latter, on account of his having made this natural wildness the leading idea in his exquisite description of Paradise. I here call Addison, _Pope_, Kent, &c. the champions of this true taste." As Mr. Mason has added an _&c._, may we not add to these respected names, that of honest old Bridgman? It was the determination of Lord Byron (had his life been longer spared), to have erected, at his own expence, a monument to Pope.[79] We can gather even from his rapid and hurried "Letter on the Rev. W. L. Bowles's Strictures," his attachment to the high name of Pope:--"If Lucretius had not been spoiled by the Epicurean system, we should have had a far superior poem to any now in existence. As mere poetry, it is the first of Latin poems. What then has ruined it? His ethics. Pope has not this defect; his moral is as pure as his poetry is glorious."--"Pope's charities were his own, and they were noble and extensive, far beyond his fortune's warrant."--"I have loved and honoured the fame and name of that illustrious and unrivalled man, far more than my own paltry renown, and the trashy jingle of the crowd of schools and upstarts, who pretend to rival, or even surpass him. Sooner than a single leaf should be torn from _his_ laurel, it were better that all which these men, and that I, as one of their set, have ever written, should

Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam, or Soho."

"The most _perfect_ of our poets, and the purest of our moralists."--"He is the _moral_ poet of all civilization; and, as such, let us hope that he will one day be the national poet of mankind. He is the only poet that never shocks; the only poet whose _faultlessness_ has been made his reproach. Cast your eye over his productions; consider their extent, and contemplate their variety:--pastoral, passion, mock-heroic, translation, satire, ethics,--all excellent, and often perfect. If his great charm be his _melody_, how comes it that foreigners adore him even in their diluted translations?"[80]

Mr. Mason has also farther recorded the resplendent fame of this celebrated man; for in his _Musaeus_, a monody to the memory of Pope, he invokes the shades of Chaucer, Spencer, and Milton, to do homage to his departing spirit:--

----to cheer thee at this rueful time
While black death doth on thy heart-strings prey.
So may we greet thee with a nobler strain,
When soon we meet for aye in yon star-sprinkled plain.

Milton thus begins _his_ homage:--

Thrice hail, thou heaven-taught warbler, last and best
Of all the train! Poet, in whom conjoin'd
All that to ear, or heart, or head, could yield
Rapture; harmonious, manly, clear, sublime!
Accept this gratulation: may it cheer
Thy sinking soul; or these corporeal ills
Ought daunt thee, nor appal. Know, in high heav'n
Fame blooms eternal on that spirit divine,
Who builds immortal verse."[81]

Sir E. Brydges, in his "Letters on the Genius of Lord Byron," thus characterizes the grace and sweetness of his pathetic powers, in his _Eloisa_:--"When either his passions or imaginations _were_ roused, they were deep, strong, and splendid. Notwithstanding _Eloisa_ was an historical subject, his invention of circumstances of detail, his imagery, the changes and turns of passion, the brilliancy of hues thrown upon the whole, the eloquence, the tenderness, the fire, the inimitable grace and felicity of language, were all the fruits of creative genius. This poem stands alone in its kind; never anticipated, and never likely to be approached hereafter."

Young uttered this sublime apostrophe when the death of Pope was first announced to him:--

_Thou, who couldst make immortals_, art thou dead?

Of his _Essay on Man_, the Nouveau Dict. Hist. Portatif thus speaks:--"Une metaphysique lumineuse, ornee des charmes de la poesie, une morale touchante, dont les lecons penetrent le coeur et convainquent l'esprit, des peintures vives, ou l'homme apprend a se connoitre, pour apprendre a deviner meilleur; tels sont les principaux caracteres qui distinguent le poeme Anglois. Son imagination est egalement sage et feconde, elle prodigue les pensees neunes, et donne le piquant de la nouveante, aux pensees anciennes; il embelloit les matieres les plus seches, par la coloris d'une elocution noble, facile, energeque, variee avec un art infini."

In the gardens of Stowe is the following inscription to

ALEXANDER POPE,
Who, uniting the correctness of judgment
To the fire of genius,
By the melody and power of his numbers,
Gave sweetness to sense, and grace to philosophy.
He employed the pointed brilliancy of his wit
To chastise the vices,
And the eloquence of poetry
To exalt the virtues of human nature;
And, being without a rival in his own age,
Imitated and translated with a spirit equal to the originals,
The best Poets of antiquity.

WILLIAM KENT, whose portrait appears in Mr. Dallaway's rich edition of the Anecdotes of Painting. Kent, with Bridgman, Pope, and Addison, have been termed the fathers of landscape gardening.[82] Mr. Walpole, after reviewing the old formal style of our gardens, in language which it is painful to me thus only to advert to, instead of copying at length, (for I am fully "aware of the mischiefs which generally ensue in _meddling_ with the productions of genius"); and after stating that when _nature_ was taken into the plan, every step pointed out new beauties, and inspired new ideas: "at that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opiniative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden. Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the arts of landscape on the scenes he handled. But of all the beauties he added to the face of this beautiful country, none surpassed his management of water. Thus, dealing in none but the colours of nature, and catching its most favourable features, men saw a new creation opening before their eyes." And again he calls him "the inventor of an art that realizes painting, and improves nature: Mahomet imagined an elysium, but Kent created many." The greatest of all authorities tells us, that in Esher's peaceful grove, both

Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love.

Mr. Mason, in his English Garden, thus panegyrises his elysian scenes:--

---- Kent, who felt
The pencil's power; but fix'd by higher hopes
Of beauty than that pencil knew to paint,
Work'd with the living lives that _nature_ lent,
And realized his landscapes.

Mr. Pope, as well as Kent, would, and Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Mason, must each of them have read with high approbation the following remark of the late Sir Uvedale Price:--"the noble and varied works of the eminent painters of every age and every country, and those of their supreme mistress, Nature, should be the great models of imitation."

Mr. Whateley paints in glowing language, the genius of Kent, both at Stowe, and at Claremont. Mr. George Mason thus honestly and finely pleads for him:--"According to my own ideas, all that has since been done by the most deservedly admired designers, as Southcote, Hamilton, Lyttleton, Pitt, Shenstone, Morris, for themselves, and by Wright for others, all that has been written on the subject, even the gardening didactic poem, and the didactic essay on the picturesque, have proceeded from Kent. Had Kent never exterminated the bounds of regularity, never actually traversed the way to freedom of manner, would any of these celebrated artists have found it of themselves? Theoretic hints from the highest authorities, had evidently long existed without sufficient effect. And had not these great masters actually executed what Kent's example first inspired, them with, the design of executing, would the subsequent writers on gardening have been enabled to collect materials for precepts, or stores for their imaginations? Mr. Price acknowledges himself an admirer of the water-scene at Blenheim. Would it ever have appeared in its present shape, if no Kent had previously abolished the stiffness of canals! If this original artist had barely rescued the liquid element from the constraint of right lines and angles, that service alone would have given him an indubitable claim to the respect of posterity." The Rev. Mr. Coventry, in his admirable exposure of the grotesque absurdities in gardening, (being No. 15 of the World) thus speaks of Kent:--"The great Kent at length appeared in behalf of nature, declared war against the taste in fashion, and laid the axe to the root of artificial evergreens. Gardens were no longer filled with yews in the shape of giants, Noah's ark cut in holly, St. George and the Dragon in box, cypress lovers, laurustine bears, and all that race of root-born monsters which flourished so long, and looked so tremendous round the edges of every grass-plat. The great master above mentioned, truly the disciple of nature, imitated her in the agreeable wildness and beautiful irregularity of her plans, of which there are some noble examples still remaining, that abundantly show the power of his creative genius." Mr. Dallaway, when treating on architecture, in his Anecdotes of the Arts, says, "Kent designed the noble hall at Holkham, terminated by a vast staircase, producing, in the whole, an imposing effect of grandeur not to be equalled in England." Kent died in 1748. He was a contemporary therefore of Horace Walpole. He was buried in the vault at Chiswick, belonging to his friend and patron, Lord Burlington.

BRIDGMAN'S portrait was a private plate. It exhibited a kind-hearted, hale old countenance. As he has the honour of being classed with Mr. _Addison_, and with _Pope_, and _Kent_, as one of the champions who established the picturesque scenery of landscape gardening, (which _Bacon_, and _Spencer_, and _Milton_, as hath been observed, foresaw) his portrait must surely be interesting. The engraved portrait which I saw of him more than fifty years ago, made then a strong impression on me. I think it was an etching. It marked a venerable healthy man. I neither recollect its painter nor engraver; and it is so scarce, that neither Mr. Smith, of Lisle Street, nor Mr. Evans, of Great Queen Street, the intelligent collectors and illustrators of Granger, have been able to obtain it. Perhaps it will be discovered that it was a private plate, done at the expence of his generous and noble employer, Lord Cobham. Of this once able and esteemed man, I can procure little information. The Encycl. of Gardening says, "Lord Cobham seems to have been occupied in re-modelling the grounds at _Stowe_, about the same time that Pope was laying out his gardens at Twickenham. His lordship began these improvements in 1714, _employing Bridgman_, whose plans and views for altering old Stowe from the most rigid character of the ancient style to a more open and irregular design, are still in existence. Kent was employed a few years afterwards, first to paint the hall, and afterwards in the double capacity of architect and landscape-gardener; and the finest scenes there are his creation." The finest views of Stowe gardens were drawn by Rigaud, and published by _Sarah Bridgman_, in 1739. The fine and magnificent amphitheatre at the Duke of Newcastle's, at Claremont, was designed, I believe, by Bridgman. When Queen Caroline added nearly three hundred acres from Hyde Park to the gardens at Kensington, they were laid out by him. He also laid out the gardens at Shardeloes, near Amersham. Mr. Walpole thus mentions Bridgman, after alluding to the shears having been applied to the lovely wildness of nature: "Improvements had gone on, till _London_ and _Wise_ had stocked our gardens with giants, animals, monsters, coats of arms, and mottos, in yew, box and holly. Absurdity could go no farther, and the tide turned. _Bridgman_, the next fashionable designer of gardens, was far more chaste; and whether from good sense, or that the nation had been struck and reformed by the admirable paper in the Guardian, No. 173, he banished verdant sculpture, and did not even revert to the square precision of the foregoing age. He enlarged his plans, disdained to make every division tally to its opposite; and though he still adhered much to straight walks with high clipped hedges, they were only his great lines, the rest he diversified by wilderness and with loose groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges. I have observed in the garden at Gubbins, in Hertfordshire, many detached thoughts, that strongly indicate the dawn of modern taste. As his reformation gained footing, he ventured farther, and in the royal garden at Richmond, dared to introduce cultivated fields, and even morsels of a forest appearance, by the sides of those endless and tiresome walks that stretched out of one into another without intermission. But this was not till other innovators had broke loose too from rigid symmetry. But the capital stroke, the leading step to all that has followed, was (_I believe the first thought was Bridgman's_) the destruction of walls for boundaries, and the invention of fosses,--an attempt then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called them ha! ha's! to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk.[83] One of the first gardens planted in this simple though still formal style, was my father's at Houghton. It was laid out by Mr. Eyre, an imitator of Bridgman."

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 Encyclopaedia), 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 Linnaean 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 aere 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]