On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening Part 1

On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening.

by Samuel Felton.

PREFACE.

The following pages apply only to those English writers on gardening who are deceased. That there have been portraits taken of _some_ of those sixty-nine English writers, whose names first occur in the following pages, there can be no doubt; and those portraits may yet be with their surviving relatives or descendants. I am not so presumptuous as to apply to the following most slight memorials, some of which relate to very obscure persons, who claimed neither "the boast of heraldry, nor the pomp of power," but whose

----useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny obscure

benefited society by their honest labour;--I am not so vain as to apply to these, any part of the high testimony which Sir Walter Scott has so justly paid to the merit of Mr. Lodge's truly splendid work of the portraits of celebrated personages of English history. I can only take leave to disjoint, or to dislocate, or copy, a very few of his words, and to apply them to the following scanty pages, as it must be interesting to have exhibited before our eyes _our fathers as they lived_, accompanied with such memorials of their lives and characters, as enable us to compare their persons and countenances with their sentiments:--portraits shewing us how "our ancestors looked, moved, and dressed,"--as the pen informs us "how they thought, acted, lived and died." One cannot help feeling kindness for the memories of those whose writings have pleased us.[1]

What native of the county of Hereford, but must wish to see their town-hall ornamented with a life-breathing portrait of Dr. Beale, embodying, as it were, in the resemblance of the individual, (to use the words of a most eloquent person on another occasion), "his spirit, his feelings, and his character?" Or what elegant scholar but must wish to view the resemblance of the almost unknown Thomas Whately, Esq., or that of the Rev. William Gilpin, whose vivid pen (like that of the late Sir Uvedale Price), has "realized painting," and enchained his readers to the rich scenes of nature?

Dr. Johnson calls portrait painting "that art which is employed in diffusing friends.h.i.+p, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead."

The horticultural intercourse that now pa.s.ses between England and France, induces one to express a wish, that the portraits of many of those delightful writers on this science, whose pens have adorned France, (justly termed from its climate _la terre cla.s.sique d'horticulture_), were selected and engraved; for many of their portraits have never yet been engraved. If this selection were accompanied with a few brief notices of them and their works, it would induce many in this country to peruse some of the most fascinating productions that ever issued from the press. Amongst so many, whose portraits and memoirs would interest us, I will mention those of Champier, who distinguished himself at the battle of Aignadel, and who published at Lyons, in 1533, Campus Elisius Galliae amenitate referens; Charles Etienne, who, in 1529, produced his Praedium Rustic.u.m; and who with Leibault published the Maison Rustique, of which upwards of thirty editions have been published, (and which our Gervase Markham calls _a work of infinite excellencie_); Paulmier de Grenlemesnil, a most estimable man, physician to Charles IX., and who died at Caen in 1588, and wrote a treatise de Vino et Pomaceo; and the only act of whose long life that one regrets is, that his great skill was the means of re-establis.h.i.+ng the health of Charles, who, with his mother, directed the horrid Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew; Cousin, who died in the prison of Besancon, and wrote De Hortorum laudibus; that patriarch of agriculture and of horticulture, Olivier de Serres, whose sage and philosophic mind composed a work rich with the most profound reflections, and whose genius and merit were so warmly patronized by "le bon Henri," and no less by Sully;[2] Boyceau, intendant of the gardens of Louis XIII., who, in 1638, published Traite du Jardinage, selon les raisons de la nature, et de l'art, avec divers desseins de parterres, pelouses, bosquets, &c.; Andre Mollet, who wrote Le Jardin de plaisir, &c.; Claude Mollet, head gardener to Henry IV. and Louis XIII., who, in 1595, planted the gardens of Saint Germain-en-laye, Monceau, and Fontainbleau, and whose name and memory (as Mr. Loudon observes), has been too much forgotten; Bornefond, author of Jardinier Francois, et delices de la campagne; Louis Liger, of consummate experience in the florist's art, "auteur d'un grand nombre d'ouvrages sur l'agriculture, et le jardinage," and one of whose works was thought not unworthy of being revised by London and Wise, and of whose interesting works the Biographie Universelle (in 52 tomes) gives a long list, and mentions the great sale which his Jardinier fleuriste once had; Morin, the florist, mentioned by Evelyn, and whose garden contained ten thousand tulips; the justly celebrated Jean de la Quintinye, whose precepts, says Voltaire, have been followed by all Europe, and his abilities magnificently rewarded by Louis; Le Notre, the most celebrated gardener (to use Mr.

Loudon's words) that perhaps ever existed, and of whom the Biographie Univer. observes, that whatever might have been the changes introduced in whatever Le Notre cultivated, "il seroit difficile de mettre plus de grandeur et de n.o.blesse;"[3] Charles Riviere du Fresnoy "qu'il joignot a un gout general pour tous les arts, des talens particuliers pour la musique et le dessein. Il excelloit sur-tout dans l'art de destribuer les jardins. Il publia plusieurs _Chansons et les Amus.e.m.e.ns serieux et comiques_: pet.i.t ouvrage souvens re-imprime et pleins de peintures vives et plaisantes, de la plupart des etats de la vie. On remarques dans touts ses productions une imagination enjouee et singuliere;"

Pontchasteau, who wrote on the cultivation of fruit trees, whose penitence and devotion were so severely austere, and whose very singular history is given us in the interesting "Lettres de Madame la Comtesse de la Riviere;" Linant, to whom Voltaire was a warm protector and friend, and who, in 1745, wrote his poem Sur la Perfection des Jardins, sous la regne de Louis XIV.; and of whom it was said that "les qualites du coeur ne le caracterisoient pas moins que celles de l'esprit;" Le Pere Rapin;[4] D'Argenville; Le Maistre, curate of Joinville, who in 1719 added to his "Fruitier de la France," "Une Dissertation historique sur l'origine et les progres des Jardins; Vaniere, who wrote the Praedium Rustic.u.m;[5] Arnauld d'Andilli, in so many respects rendered ill.u.s.trious, who retired to the convent of Port Royal, (that divine solitude, where the whole country for a league round breathed the air of virtue and holiness, to quote Mad. de Sevigne's words), and who sent each year to the queen some of that choice fruit which he there with such zeal cultivated, and which Mazarin "appelloit en riant des fruits benis." This good man died at the age of eighty-six, and the letter of Mad. de Sevigne, of the date of Sept. 23, 1671, will alone consign him to the respect of future ages;[6] Jean Paul de Ardenne, superior of the congregation of the oratory of Ma.r.s.eilles, one of the most famous florists of the period in which he lived, and who devoted great part of his time in deeds of charity; Francis Bertrand, who, in 1757, published Ruris delicae, being poems from Tibullus, Claudian, Horace, and from many French writers, on the pleasures of the country; Mons. de Chabanon; Morel, who a.s.sisted in laying out Ermenonville, and who wrote, among other works, Theorie des Jardins, ou l'art des Jardins de la Nature; the animated Prevost; Gouges de Cessieres, who wrote Les Jardins d'Ornament, ou les Georgiques Francoises; he, too, whom the Prince de Ligne calls

----_enchanteur_ De Lille!

_O_ Virgile _moderne_!

and whose generous invocation to the memory of Captain Cook must endear his name to every Englishman;[7] the Viscount Girardin, who wrote De la Composition des Paysages, who buried Rousseau in his garden at Ermenonville, and who kept a band of musicians to perambulate those charming grounds, performing concerts sometimes in the woods, and at other times on the water, and at night in a room adjoining his hall of company;[8] the venerable Malherbes, the undaunted defender of the oppressed, who throughout his life lost no opportunity of drying up the tears of the afflicted, and never caused one to flow; whose whole life had been consecrated to the happiness of his fellow-creatures and the dignity of his country, but whose spotless reputation could not save him from the guillotine at his age of seventy-two;[9] Schabol; Latapie, who translated Whately's Observations on Modern Gardening, to which he added a discourse on the origin of the art, &c.; Watelet, who wrote Essai sur les Jardins, and whose name has given rise to some most charming lines in De Lille's poem, and whose biography is interestingly drawn in the Biog. Univers.; Lezay de Marnesia, whose poems de la Nature Champetre, and le Bonheur dans les Campagnes, have pa.s.sed through many editions, and of whom pleasing mention is made in the above Biog.

Univers.; M. de Fontaine, author of Le Verger; Ma.s.son de Blamont, the translator of Mason's Garden, and Whately's Observations; Francois Rosier; Bertholan, the friend of Franklin.

I am indebted, in a great measure, for the above list of French authors, to that immense body of diffuse and elaborate information, the Encyclopaedia of Gardening, by Mr. Loudon.

Those who are more conversant with the literature of France, than my very limited researches have extended to, can, no doubt, easily enumerate many very distinguished persons of that country, many talented men, who though they may not have written on the subject of gardens, yet evinced an ardent attachment to them, and became their munificent patrons. Let us not then omit the name of Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, in one of whose Capitulaires are _Directions concerning Gardens, and what plants are best to set in them_. He died in 814, after reigning forty-seven years over France: "Quoiqu'il ne sut pas ecriere (says the Nouv. Diet. Hist.), il fit fleurer les sciences. Aussi grand par ses conquetes, que par l'amour des lettres, et en fut le protecteur et la restaurateur. Son palais fut l'asyle des sciences. Le nom de ce conquerant et de cet legislateur remplit la terre. Tout fut uni par le force de son genie." De Sismondi calls him "a brilliant star in that dark firmament." Mr. Loudon, in p. 40 of his Encyclopaedia, says, that "The Abbe Schmidt informs us (_Mag. Encyc._) that this monarch, who had domains in every part of France, gave the greatest encouragement to the eradication of forests, and the subst.i.tution of orchards and vineyards.

He was on terms of friends.h.i.+p with the Saracenic prince Haroun al Raschid, and by that means procured for France the best sorts of pulse, melons, peaches, figs, and other fruits."

Francis I. when he built his palace at Fontainbleau, introduced into its gardens, much of what he had seen in those of Italy, and when he completed St. Germains, its style of grandeur may be guessed at from its rocks, cascades, terraces and subterraneous grots.

Henry IV.'s attachment to agriculture and to gardens, is well known. The magnificent improvements he made at St. Germains, and the attention he paid to his gardens at la Fleche, Vendome, and the Thuilleries, shew this. Indeed, his employing Claude Mollet, and Jean Robin, are sufficient proofs.[10]

Louis XIV. magnificently rewarded La Quintinye, that original writer, who conducted the fine gardens of Tambourneau, and whose precepts Mons.

de Voltaire tells us were followed by all Europe. The zeal of Louis for the decorations of gardens, met with an able a.s.sistant when he patronized Le Notre, to do justice to whose name, I can only refer my reader to the concise but rich review of the grand efforts of this singular genius, as they are noticed in p. 35 of Mr. Loudon's Encyclopaedia, and which "dazzled and enchanted every cla.s.s of observers."[11]

Madame de Sevigne's delight in gardens pervades many of her letters: that of July 1677, paints the charms which one in Paris gave her: "I was invited in the kindest manner possible to sup at Gourville's with Mad.

de s...o...b..rg, Mad. de Frontenac, Mad. de Coulanges, the Duke, M. de la Rochefoucault, Barillon, Briole, Coulanges, Sevigne, in a garden of the hotel de Conde; there were water-works, bowers, terraces, six hautboys, six violins, and the most melodious flutes; a supper which seemed to be prepared by enchantment, an admirable ba.s.s-viol, and a resplendent moon, which witnessed all our pleasures." Of her own garden, formed by her own pure taste, M. de Coulanges thus speaks: "I have spent a most delightful fortnight here. It is impossible sufficiently to praise the gardens of the _Rocks_; they would have their beauties even at Versailles, which is saying every thing." And that she delighted in what she well knew how to describe, is evident from her letter from _Chaulnes_: "This is a very handsome house, which carries with it an air of grandeur, though it is partly unfurnished, and the gardens neglected. There is scarcely any verdure to be seen, and not a nightingale to be heard; in short, it is still winter, on the seventeenth of April. But it is easy to imagine the beauties of these walks; every thing is regular and magnificent; a s.p.a.cious parterre in front, bowling-greens opposite the wings, a large playing fountain in the parterre, two in the bowling-greens, and another at a distance in the middle of a field, which is well named _the solitary_; a fine country, beautiful apartments, and a pleasant prospect, though flat." She in another letter from _Chaulnes_ says; "I was walking alone the other day, in these beautiful alleys." And in a subsequent one she says: "It is a pity to be obliged to quit so beautiful and so charming a place." Her frequent mention in her letters of _my pretty walks_ at the _Rocks_, sufficiently paints her delight in her own garden. In compliment to this lady, I cannot help applying to her the exact words which Petrarch applies to Laura: _une haute intelligence, un coeur pure, qui a la sagesse de l'age avance, ait le brilliant de la belle jeunesse_.

Few pa.s.sed more happy hours in their garden at _Baville_, than the ill.u.s.trious Lamoignon, of whom it was said, that "Son ame egaloit son genie; simple dans ses moeurs, austere dans sa conduite, il etoit le plus doux des hommes, quand la veuve et l'orphein etoient a ses pieds, _Boileau_, _Racine_, _Bourdaloue_, _Rapin_, composoit sa pet.i.te cour,"--and whom Rapin invokes, not only in his poem on gardens,

_My flowers aspiring round your brows shall twine, And in immortal wreaths, shall all their beauties join;_

but in his letters, preserved with those of Rabutin de Bussy, he paints in high terms the name of Lamoignon, and frequently dwells on his retreat at _Baville_. Mons. Rab. de Bussy, in a letter to Rapin, says: "Que Je vous trouve heureux d'avoir deux mois a pa.s.ser a _Baville_, avec Mons. le presidant! Il est admirable a Paris; mais il est aimable a sa maison de campagne, et vous savez qu'on a plus de plaisir a aimer qu'a admirer." On his death, Rapin thus speaks of him: "Il n'y eut jamais une plus belle ame jointe a un plus bel esprit. Le plus grand de tous les eloges est, que le peuple l'a pleure; et chacun s'est plaint de sa mort comme de la perte d'un ami, ou de celle d'un bienfacteur."

The name of Boileau is too interesting to be overlooked. Many of his letters and pages discover the delight he took in his garden at _Auteuil_. In his epistle to _Lamoignon_, he describes his seat there as his "bless'd abode," his "dear delicious shades," and he then paints the pleasures of his country seat:

_Give me these shades, these forests, and these fields, And the soft sweets that rural quiet yields; Oh, leave me to the fresh, the fragrant breeze, And let me here awhile enjoy my ease.

Let me Pomona's plenteous blessings crop, And see rich autumn's ripen'd burden drop, Till Bacchus with full cl.u.s.ters crowns the year, And gladdens with his load the vintager._

His celebrated epistle to _Anthony_, his old gardener, not only shews the kind master, but his own love to his garden. I cannot refrain from quoting a few lines from Lempriere: "As a poet, Boilieu has deservedly obtained the applauses of every man of genius and taste. Not only his countrymen boast of the superior effusions of his muse, but foreigners feel and admire the graces, the strength and harmony of his verse, and that delicacy of satire, and energy of style, by which he raised himself to immortality." Another of his biographers says: "La religion, qui eclaira ses derniers momens, avoit anime toute sa vie." The author of the Pursuits of Literature thus speaks of him: "The most perfect of all modern writers, in true taste and judgment. His sagacity was unerring; he combined every ancient excellence, and appears original even in the adoption of acknowledged thoughts and allusions. He is the just and adequate representative of Horace, Juvenal, and Perseus, united, without one indecent blemish; and for my own part, I have always considered him as the most finished gentleman that ever wrote." In his Life, translated by Ozell, we are told, that "he was full of sentiments of humanity, mildness, and justice. He censured vice, and sharply attacked the bad taste of his time, without one spark of envy, or calumny. Whatever shocked truth, raised in him an indignation which he could not master, and which accounts for that energy and fire which pervades his satires.

The sight of any learned man in want, made him so uneasy, that he could not forbear lending money. His good nature and justice did farther appear in his manner of recompensing his domestics, and by his liberality to the poor. He gave by his will fifty thousand livres to the small parishes adjoining the church of Notre Dame; ten thousand livres to his valet de chambre, and five thousand to an old woman who had served him a long time. But he was not contented to bestow his benevolence at his death, and when he was no longer in a condition of enjoying his estate himself, he was, all his life long, studious in seeking opportunities of doing good offices." Part of this is confirmed by another biographer: "Une piete sincere, une foi vive et une charite si grande, qu'elle ne lui a presque fait reconnoitre d'autres heritiers que les pauvres." The Lettres of Mad. la Comtesse de la Riviere, and those of de Sevigne, frequently mention the charm which attended the visits of Boileau.[12] Rabutin du Bussy thus speaks of him, in a letter to the Pere Rapin, after eulogizing Moliere: "Despreaux est encore merveilleuse; personne ne'crit avec plus de purete; ses pensees sont fortes, et ce qui m'en plait, toujours vraies."

The above is a very cursory and brief allusion to what might be gathered respecting those superb gardens in France, whose costly and magnificent decorations so charmed many of our English n.o.bility and gentry, when travelling there, during the periods of Charles II., James II., William, Anne, and during subsequent reigns. One need recur only to a very few, as to Rose, who was sent there by Lord Ess.e.x, to view Versailles; to George London, who was commissioned to go there, not only by the same Rose, but who afterwards accompanied the Earl of Portland, King William's amba.s.sador; but to Evelyn, Addison, Dr. Lister, Kent, when he accompanied Lord Burlington through France to Italy; to the Earl of Cork and Orrery (the translator of Pliny's Letters), whose gardens at _Marston_, and at _Caledon_, and whose letters from Italy, all shew the eagerness with which he must have viewed the gardens of France, when pa.s.sing through the provinces towards Florence; to Ray, Lady M. W.

Montague, Bolingbroke, Peterborough, Smollet, John Wilks, John Horne (when he met Mr. Sterne, or designed to meet him, at _Toulouse_), to Gray, Walpole, R. P. Knight, who must have pa.s.sed through the rich provinces of France, as, in his work on Taste, he speaks of "terraces and borders intermixed with vines and flowers, (_as I have seen them in Italian villas_, and in some old English gardens in the same style), where the mixture of splendour, richness, and neatness, was beautiful and pleasing in the highest degree;" and to the lately deceased Sir U.

Price, who must also have pa.s.sed through France, to view (with the eagerness with which he did view) the rich and magnificently decorated gardens of Italy, "aided with the splendour and magnificence of art,"

their ball.u.s.trades, their fountains, basons, vases and statues, and which he dwells on in his Essays with the same enthusiasm as when he there contemplated the works of t.i.tian, Paul Veronese, and other great masters. Indeed, those pages where he regrets the demolition of many of our old English gardens, and when he dwells on the probability that even Raphael, Giulio Romano, and M. Angelo, (which last planted the famous cypresses in the garden of the Villa d'Este) were consulted on the decorations of some of the old Italian ones; these pages at once shew the fascinating charms of his cla.s.sic pen.[13]

England can boast too of very great names, who have been attached to this art, and most zealously patronized it, though they have not written on the subject:--Lord Burleigh, Lord Hudson, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Capell, who honoured himself by several years correspondence with La Quintinye; William the Third,--for Switzer tells us, that "in the least interval of ease, gardening took up a greater part of his time, in which he was not only a delighter, but likewise a great judge,"--the Earl of Ess.e.x, whom the mild and benevolent Lord William Russell said "was the worthiest, the justest, the sincerest, and the most concerned for the public, of any man he ever knew;" Lord William Russell himself, too, on whom Thomson says,

_Bring every sweetest flower, and let me strew The grave where Russell lies_,

whose fall Switzer feelingly laments, as one of the best of masters, and encouragers of arts and sciences, particularly gardening, that that age produced, and who "made _Stratton_, about seven miles from Winchester, his seat, and his gardens there some of the best that were made in those early days, such indeed as have mocked some that have been done since; and the gardens of Southampton House, in Bloomsbury Square, were also of his making;" the generous friend of this Lord William Russell, the manly and patriotic Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, who erected _Chatsworth_, that n.o.ble specimen of a magnificent spirit;[14] Henry Earl of Danby, the Duke of Argyle, beheaded in 1685, for having supported the rebellion of Monmouth; the Earl of Halifax, the friend of Addison, Swift, Pope, and Steele, and on whom a funeral poem thus speaks,

_In the rich furniture of whose fair mind, Those dazzling intellectual graces s.h.i.+n'd, That drew the love and homage of mankind._[15]

Lord Weymouth; Dr. Sherard of Eltham; Collinson, "to whose name is attached all that respect which is due to benevolence and virtue;"

Grindal, Bishop of London, who cultivated with great success the vine and other productions of his garden at Fulham; Compton, Bishop of London, eminent, as Mr. Falconer in his Fulham observes, for his unbounded charity and beneficence, and who was so struck with the genius, the learning, and probity of Mr. Ray, that he was almost at the entire charge of erecting the monument to him; the Earl of Scarborough, an accomplished n.o.bleman, immortalized by the enchanting pen of Pope, and the fine pen of Chesterfield; the Earl of Gainsborough; the great Chatham, whose taste in the embellishment of rural nature has been exultingly acknowledged by Mr. Walpole, and by George Mason;[16] with numerous other men of rank and science.[17] These have highly a.s.sisted in elevating gardening to the rank it has long since held, and has allured mult.i.tudes to this delightful science:--no wonder, when _Homer_ =writeth how= _Laertes_ =the olde man, was wont with his travaile in his Orchards, to drive from his minde the sorrow hee tooke for the absence of his sonne=. When old Gerarde asks his _courteous and well-willing readers_--"whither do all men walk for their honest recreation, but where the earth hath most beneficially painted her face with flouris.h.i.+ng colours? and what season of the year more longed for than the spring, whose gentle breath enticeth forth the kindly sweets, and makes them yield their fragrant smells?" When the Lord Chancellor Bacon declares a garden "is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man:" and when this wonderfully gifted man thus fondly dwells on part of its allurements;--"the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music), 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 flower, which above all others yields the sweetest smell in the air, is the violet;[18] next to that is the musk rose, then the strawberry-leaves, dying with a most-excellent cordial smell; then sweet briar, then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set under a parlour, or lower chamber window; but those which perfume the air most delightfully, not pa.s.sed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three--that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread."[19] Or when Mr. Evelyn, in the joy of his enthusiasm, exultingly transposed from Virgil:--

O fortunatos nimium, bona si sua norint _Horticulas_!

and who declared, that the employ and felicity of an excellent gardener was preferable to all other diversions. When Mr. Addison says that a garden "fills the mind with calmness and tranquillity, and lays all its turbulent pa.s.sions at rest." When Sir William Temple (who infused into his writings the graces of some of the best writers of ancient times), thus allures his readers: "_Epicurus_, whose admirable wit, felicity of expression, excellence of nature, sweetness of conversation, temperance of life, and constancy of death, made him so beloved by his friends, admired by his scholars, and honoured by the Athenians, pa.s.sed his time wholly in his garden; there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and indeed no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind, and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of air, the pleasantness of smells, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercises of working or walking; but above all, the exemption from cares and solitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body and mind."

When the industrious Switzer says:--"'Tis in the quiet enjoyment of rural delights, the refres.h.i.+ng and odoriferous breezes of garden air, that the deluge of vapours, and those terrors of hypochondraism, which crowd and oppress the head are dispelled." When the industrious and philosophic Bradley observes, that "though the trouble of the mind wears and destroys the const.i.tution even of the most healthful body, all kinds of gardens contribute to health." When Pope,[20] who loved to breathe the sweet and fragrant air of gardens, in one of his letters says, "I am in my garden, amused and easy; this is a scene where one finds no disappointment." When that "universally esteemed and beloved man," the Prince de Ligne, declares, "Je voudrois echauffer tout l'univers de mon gout pour les jardins. Il me semble qu'il est impossible, qu'un mechant puisse l'avoir. Il n'est point de vertus que Je ne suppose a celui qui aime a parler et a faire des jardins. Peres de famille, inspirez la jardinomanie a vos enfans.[21] When a taste for gardening (as Mr. Cobbet observes) "is much more innocent, more pleasant, more free from temptation to cost, than any other; so pleasant in itself! It is conducive to health, by means of the irresistible temptation which it offers to early rising; it tends to turn the minds of youth from amus.e.m.e.nts and attachments of a frivolous or vicious nature; it is a taste which is indulged at home; it tends to make home pleasant, and to endear us to the spot on which it is our lot to live." When Mr. Johnson forcibly paints the allurements to a love for this art, when concluding his energetic volume on gardening, by quoting from Socrates, that "it is the source of health, strength, plenty, riches, and of a thousand sober delights and honest pleasures."--And from Lord Verulam, that amid its scenes and pursuits, "life flows pure, and the heart more calmly beats."

And when M. le V. H. de Thury, president de la Societe d'Horticulture de Paris, in his Discours d'Installation says: "Dans tous les temps et dans tous les pays, les hommes les plus celebres, les plus grands capitaines, les princes, et les rois, se sont livres avec delices, et souvent avec pa.s.sion, a la culture des plantes et des jardins." And among other instances he cites "Descartes, qui se livrait avec une egale ardeur a la science des astres et a la culture des fleurs de son jardin, et qui souvent, la nuit, quittait ses observations celestes pour etudier le sommeil et la floraison de ses plantes avant le lever du soliel."[22]

Petrarch, too, who has enchanted every nation and every age, from his endeared Vaucluse, thus speaks of his garden: "I have formed two; I do not imagine they are to be equalled in all the world: I should feel myself inclined to be angry with fortune, if there were any so beautiful out of Italy. I have store of pleasant green walks, with trees shadowing them most sweetly." Indeed, what Cicero applies to another science, may well apply to horticulture: "nihil est _agriculturae_ melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine, nihil libero dignius." Let me close with a most brilliant name;--the last resource in the _Candide_ of Voltaire is,--_cultivate your garden_.

In my transient review of the gardens of ancient times, at the commencement of the following work, I have not even glanced at those of the _Saxons_, in this island; when one should have thought that the majestic name of ALFRED alone, would have made a search of this nature interesting, even if such search were unavailing. I have also inadvertently omitted any allusion to those of the _Danes_ and the _Normans_. I have only then now to say, that Mr. Johnson's researches, as to these gardens, in pp. 31, 37, 38, 39 and 40 of his lately published History of English Gardening, with his elegant language and the flow of sentiment that pervades those pages, would make any search or review of mine presumptuous. In those pages, he dwells on the tendency which the then introduction of the christian religion had to soften the manners of the people, and by thus rendering them more domestic, gardening became an art congenial to their feelings; and whilst the country at large was devastated by war, the property of the religious establishments was held sacred, and varieties of vegetables preserved, which otherwise would soon have become extinct, if cultivated in less hallowed ground. He then traces the existence of many gardens, orchards, and vineyards, belonging to our monasteries, proving, that even in the time of the _Danes_, horticulture continued "silently to advance," and that at the time of the arrival of the _Normans_, gardens were generally in the possession of the laity, as well as of the ecclesiastics; and he refers to Doomsday Book for his a.s.sertion, that "there is no reason to doubt, that at this period, every house, from the palace to the cottage, was possessed of a garden of some size." He concludes with interesting references to the gardens, vineyards, and orchards, of the Abbot of Ely and other monks.

The above work of Mr. Johnson's is the result of original thought, and of an ardent and extended scientific research. Mine is a compilation, "made with a pair of scissors," to copy the words of Mr. Mathias, which he applies to a certain edition of Pope. I content myself, however, with the reflection of Mr. Walpole, that "they who cannot perform great things themselves, may yet have a satisfaction in doing justice to those who can."

Having alluded at pp. 71 and 120 to Dr. Alison, and having given at p.

211 Dr. Dibdin's tribute to him, I cannot omit reminding my reader, that the graceful language, the sublime and solemn thoughts, which this admirable divine has transfused into many of his Sermons on the Seasons, make one doubly feel the truth and propriety with which he has so liberally reviewed Mr. Whately's _Observations on Modern Gardening_.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

ON THE PORTRAITS OF ENGLISH AUTHORS ON GARDENING.

The earliest accounts we have of gardens, are those recorded in Holy Writ; their antiquity, therefore, appears coeval with that of time itself. The Garden in Eden had every tree good for food, or pleasant to the sight. Noah planted a Vineyard. Solomon, in the true spirit of horticultural zeal, says, _I planted me Vineyards, I made me Gardens and Orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit_. We have all heard of the grandeur of Nebuchadnezzar's Gardens.

Whether that of Alcinous was fabulous or not, it gave rise to Homer's lofty strains:--

The balmy spirit of the western gale Eternal breathes on flowers untaught to fail; The same mild season gives the blooms to blow, The buds to harden, and the fruit to grow.[23]