Flowers And Flower-Gardens Part 8

Thomson had no objection to strike off a brief compliment in verse, but he was too indolent to keep up _in propria persona_ an incessant fire of compliments, like the _bon bons_ at a Carnival. It was easier to write her praises than listen to her verses. Shenstone seems to have been more pliable. He was personally obsequious, lent her recitations an attentive ear, and was ever ready with the expected commendation. It is not likely that her ladyship found much, difficulty in collecting around her a crowd of critics more docile than Thomson and quite as complaisant as Shenstone. Let but a _Countess_

Once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens, how the style refines!

Though Thomson's first want on his arrival in London from the North was a pair of shoes, and he lived for a time in great indigence, he was comfortable enough at last. Lord Lyttleton introduced him to the Prince of Wales (who professed himself the patron of literature) and when his Highness questioned him about the state of his affairs, Thomson a.s.sured him that they "were in a more poetical posture than formerly." The prince bestowed upon the poet a pension of a hundred pounds a year, and when his friend Lord Lyttleton was in power his Lordship obtained for him the office of Surveyor General of the Leeward Islands. He sent a deputy there who was more trustworthy than Thomas Moore's at Bermuda.

Thomson's deputy after deducting his own salary remitted his princ.i.p.al three hundred pounds per annum, so that the bard 'more fat than bard beseems' was not in a condition to grow thinner, and could afford to make his cottage a Castle of Indolence. Leigh Hunt has versified an anecdote ill.u.s.trative of Thomson's luxurious idleness. He who could describe "_Indolence_" so well, and so often appeared in the part himself,

Slippered, and with hands, Each in a waistcoat pocket, (so that all Might yet repose that could) was seen one morn Eating a wondering peach from off the tree.

A little summer-house at Richmond which Thomson made his study is still preserved, and even some articles of furniture, just as he left them.[025] Over the entrance is erected a tablet on which is the following inscription:

HERE THOMSON SANG THE SEASONS AND THEIR CHANGE.

Thomson was buried in Richmond Church. Collins's lines to his memory, beginning

In yonder grave a Druid lies,

are familiar to all readers of English poetry.

Richmond Hill has always been the delight not of poets only but of painters. Sir Joshua Reynolds built a house there, and one of the only three landscapes which seem to have survived him, is a view from the window of his drawing-room. Gainsborough was also a resident in Richmond. Richmond gardens laid out or rather altered by Brown, are now united with those of Kew.

Savage resided for some time at Richmond. It was the favorite haunt of Collins, one of the most poetical of poets, who, as Dr. Johnson says, "delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens." Wordsworth composed a poem upon the Thames near Richmond in remembrance of Collins. Here is a stanza of it.

Glide gently, thus for ever glide, O Thames, that other bards may see As lovely visions by thy side As now fair river! come to me; O glide, fair stream for ever so, Thy quiet soul on all bestowing, Till all our minds for ever flow As thy deep waters now are flowing.

Thomson's description of the scenery of Richmond Hill perhaps hardly does it justice, but the lines are too interesting to be omitted.

Say, shall we wind Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead?

Or court the forest-glades? or wander wild Among the waving harvests? or ascend, While radiant Summer opens all its pride, Thy hill, delightful Shene[026]? Here let us sweep The boundless landscape now the raptur'd eye, Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send, Now to the sister hills[027] that skirt her plain, To lofty Harrow now, and now to where Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow In lovely contrast to this glorious view Calmly magnificent, then will we turn To where the silver Thames first rural grows There let the feasted eye unwearied stray, Luxurious, there, rove through the pendent woods That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat, And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks, Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retir'd, With her the pleasing partner of his heart, The worthy Queensbury yet laments his Gay, And polish'd Cornbury woos the willing Muse Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames Fair winding up to where the Muses haunt In Twit nam's bowers, and for their Pope implore The healing G.o.d[028], to loyal Hampton's pile, To Clermont's terra.s.s'd height, and Esher's groves; Where in the sweetest solitude, embrac'd By the soft windings of the silent Mole, From courts and senates Pelham finds repose Enchanting vale! beyond whate'er the Muse Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung!

O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills!

On which the _Power of Cultivation_ lies, And joys to see the wonders of his toil.

The Revd. Thomas Maurice wrote a poem ent.i.tled _Richmond Hill_, but it contains nothing deserving of quotation after the above pa.s.sage from Thomson. In the _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ the labors of Maurice are compared to those of Sisyphus

So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heaves Dull Maurice, all his granite weight of leaves.

Towards the latter part of the last century the Empress of Russia (Catherine the Second) expressed in a French letter to Voltaire her admiration of the style of English Gardening.[029] "I love to distraction," she writes, "the present English taste in gardening. Their curved lines, their gentle slopes, their pieces of water in the shape of lakes, their picturesque little islands. I have a great contempt for straight lines and parallel walks. I hate those fountains which torture water into forms unknown to nature. I have banished all the statues to the vestibules and to the galleries. In a word English taste predominates in my _plantomanie_."[030]

I omitted when alluding to those Englishmen in past times who antic.i.p.ated the taste of the present day in respect to laying out grounds, to mention the ever respected name of John Evelyn, and as all other writers before me, I believe, who have treated upon gardening, have been guilty of the same oversight, I eagerly make his memory some slight amends by quoting the following pa.s.sage from one of his letters to his friend Sir Thomas Browne.

"I might likewise hope to refine upon some particulars, especially concerning the ornaments of gardens, which I shall endeavor so to handle as that they may become useful and practicable, as well as magnificent, and that persons of all conditions and faculties, which delight in gardens, may therein encounter something for their owne advantage. The modell, which I perceive you have seene, will aboundantly testifie my abhorrency of those painted and formal projections of our c.o.c.kney gardens and plotts, which appeare like gardens of past-board and marchpane, and smell more of paynt then of flowers and verdure; our drift is a n.o.ble, princely, and universal Elysium, capable of all the amoenities that can naturally be introduced into gardens of pleasure, and such as may stand in compet.i.tion with all the august designes and stories of this nature, either of antient or moderne tymes; yet so as to become useful and significant to the least pretences and faculties. We will endeavour to shew how the air and genious of gardens operat upon humane spirits towards virtue and sanct.i.tie: I mean in a remote, preparatory and instrumentall working. How caves, grotts, mounts, and irregular ornaments of gardens do contribute to contemplative and philosophicall enthusiasme; how _elysium, antrum, nemus, paradysus, hortus, lucus_, &c., signifie all of them _rem sacram it divinam_; for these expedients do influence the soule and spirits of men, and prepare them for converse with good angells; besides which, they contribute to the lesse abstracted pleasures, phylosophy naturall; and longevitie: and I would have not onely the elogies and effigie of the antient and famous garden heroes, but a society of the _paradisi cultores_ persons of antient simplicity, Paradisean and Hortulan saints, to be a society of learned and ingenuous men, such as Dr. Browne, by whome we might hope to redeeme the tyme that has bin lost, in pursuing _Vulgar Errours_, and still propagating them, as so many bold men do yet presume to do."

The English style of landscape-gardening being founded on natural principles must be recognized by true taste in all countries. Even in Rome, when art was most allowed to predominate over nature, there were occasional instances of that correct feeling for rural beauty which the English during the last century and a half have exhibited more conspicuously than other nations. Atticus preferred Tully's villa at Arpinum to all his other villas; because at Arpinum, Nature predominated over art. Our Kents and Browns[031] never expressed a greater contempt, than was expressed by Atticus, for all formal and artificial decorations of natural scenery.

The spot where Cicero's villa stood, was, in the time of Middleton, possessed by a convent of monks and was called the Villa of St. Dominic.

It was built, observes Mr. Dunlop, in the year 1030, from the fragments of the Arpine Villa!

Art, glory, Freedom, fail--but Nature still is fair.

"Nothing," says Mr. Kelsall, "can be imagined finer than the surrounding landscape. The deep azure of the sky, unvaried by a single cloud--Sora on a rock at the foot of the precipitous Appennines--both banks of the Garigliano covered with vineyards--the _fragor aquarum_, alluded to by Atticus in his work _De Legibus_--the coolness, the rapidity and ultramarine hue of the Fibrenus--the noise of its cataracts--the rich turquoise color of the Liris--the minor Appennines round Arpino, crowned with umbrageous oaks to the very summits--present scenery hardly elsewhere to be equalled, certainly not to be surpa.s.sed, even in Italy."

This description of an Italian landscape can hardly fail to charm the imagination of the coldest reader; but after all, I cannot help confessing to so inveterate a partiality for dear old England as to be delighted with the compliment which Gray, the poet, pays to English scenery when he prefers it to the scenery of Italy. "Mr. Walpole,"

writes the poet from Italy, "says, our _memory_ sees more than our eyes in this country. This is extremely true, since for _realities_ WINDSOR or RICHMOND HILL is infinitely preferable to ALBANO or FRESCATI."

Sir Walter Scott, with all his patriotic love for his own romantic land, could not withhold his tribute to the loveliness of Richmond Hill,--its "_unrivalled landscape_" its "_sea of verdure_."

"They" (The Duke of Argyle and Jeanie Deans) "paused for a moment on the brow of a hill, to gaze on the unrivalled landscape it presented. A huge sea of verdure, with crossing and intersecting promontories of ma.s.sive and tufted groves was tenanted by numberless flocks and herds which seemed to wander unrestrained and unbounded through the rich pastures. The Thames, here turreted with villas, and there garlanded with forests, moved on slowly and placidly, like the mighty monarch of the scene, to whom all its other beauties were but accessaries, and bore on its bosom an hundred barks and skiffs whose white sails and gaily fluttering pennons gave life to the whole." _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_.

It must of course be admitted that there are grander, more sublime, more varied and extensive prospects in other countries, but it would be difficult to persuade me that the richness of English verdure could be surpa.s.sed or even equalled, or that any part of the world can exhibit landscapes more truly _lovely_ and _loveable_, than those of England, or more calculated to leave a deep and enduring impression upon the heart.

Mr. Kelsall speaks of an Italian sky "_uncovered by a single cloud_,"

but every painter and poet knows how much variety and beauty of effect are bestowed upon hill and plain and grove and river by pa.s.sing clouds; and even our over-hanging vapours remind us of the veil upon the cheek of beauty; and ever as the sun uplifts the darkness the glory of the landscape seems renewed and freshened. It would cheer the saddest heart and send the blood dancing through the veins, to behold after a dull misty dawn, the sun break out over Richmond Hill, and with one broad light make the whole landscape smile; but I have been still more interested in the prospect when on a cloudy day the whole "sea of verdure" has been swayed to and fro into fresher life by the fitful breeze, while the lights and shadows amidst the foliage and on the lawns have been almost momentarily varied by the varying sky. These changes fascinate the eye, keep the soul awake, and save the scenery from the comparatively monotonous character of landscapes in less varying climes.

And for my own part, I cordially echo the sentiment of Wordsworth, who when conversing with Mrs. Hemans about the scenery of the Lakes in the North of England, observed: "I would not give up the mists that _spiritualize_ our mountains for all the blue skies of Italy."

Though Mrs. Stowe, the American auth.o.r.ess already quoted as one of the admirers of England, duly appreciates the natural grandeur of her own land, she was struck with admiration and delight at the aspect of our English landscapes. Our trees, she observes, "are of an order of n.o.bility and they wear their crowns right kingly." "Leaving out of account," she adds, "our _mammoth arboria_, the English Parks have trees as fine and effective as ours, and when I say their trees are of an order of n.o.bility, I mean that they (the English) pay a reverence to them such as their magnificence deserves."

Walter Savage Landor, one of the most accomplished and most highly endowed both by nature and by fortune of our living men of letters, has done, or rather has tried to do, almost as much for his country in the way of enriching its collection of n.o.ble trees as Evelyn himself. He laid out 70,000 on the improvement of an estate in Monmouthshire, where he planted and fenced half a million of trees, and had a million more ready to plant, when the conduct of some of his tenants, who spitefully uprooted them and destroyed the whole plantation, so disgusted him with the place, that he razed to the ground the house which had cost him 8,000, and left the country. He then purchased a beautiful estate in Italy, which is still in possession of his family. He himself has long since returned to his native land. Landor loves Italy, but he loves England better. In one of his _Imaginary Conversations_ he tells an Italian n.o.bleman:

"The English are more zealous of introducing new fruits, shrubs and plants, than other nations; you Italians are less so than any civilized one. Better fruit is eaten in Scotland than in the most fertile and cultivated parts of your peninsula. _As for flowers, there is a greater variety in the worst of our fields than in the best of your gardens._ As for shrubs, I have rarely seen a lilac, a laburnum, a mezereon, in any of them, and yet they flourish before almost every cottage in our poorest villages."

"We wonder in England, when we hear it related by travellers, that peaches in Italy are left under the trees for swine; but, when we ourselves come into the country, our wonder is rather that the swine do not leave them for animals less nice."

Landor acknowledges that he has eaten better pears and cherries in Italy than in England, but that all the other kinds of fruitage in Italy appeared to him unfit for dessert.

The most celebrated of the private estates of the present day in England is Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire. The mansion, called the Palace of the Peak, is considered one of the most splendid residences in the land. The grounds are truly beautiful and most carefully attended to. The elaborate waterworks are perhaps not in the severest taste. Some of them are but costly puerilities. There is a water-work in the form of a tree that sends a shower from every branch on the unwary visitor, and there are snakes that spit forth jets upon him as he retires. This is silly trifling: but ill adapted to interest those who have pa.s.sed their teens; and not at all an agreeable sort of hospitality in a climate like that of England. It is in the style of the water-works at Versailles, where wooden soldiers shoot from their muskets vollies of water at the spectators.[032]

It was an old English custom on certain occasions to sprinkle water over the company at a grand entertainment. Bacon, in his Essay on Masques, seems to object to getting drenched, when he observes that "some sweet odours suddenly coming forth, _without any drops falling_, are in such a company as there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and refreshment." It was a custom also of the ancient Greeks and Romans to sprinkle their guests with fragrant waters. The Gascons had once the same taste: "At times," says Montaigne, "from the bottom of the stage, they caused sweet-scented waters to spout upwards and dart their thread to such a prodigious height, as to sprinkle and perfume the vast mult.i.tudes of spectators." The Native gentry of India always slightly sprinkle their visitors with rose-water. It is flung from a small silver utensil tapering off into a sort of upright spout with a pierced top in the fashion of that part of a watering pot which English gardeners call the _rose_.

The finest of the water-works at Chatsworth is one called the _Emperor Fountain_ which throws up a jet 267 feet high. This height exceeds that of any fountain in Europe. There is a vast Conservatory on the estate, built of gla.s.s by Sir Joseph Paxton, who designed and constructed the Crystal Palace. His experience in the building of conservatories no doubt suggested to him the idea of the splendid gla.s.s edifice in Hyde Park. The conservatory at Chatsworth required 70,000 square feet of gla.s.s. Four miles of iron tubing are used in heating the building. There is a broad carriage way running right through the centre of the conservatory.[033] This conservatory is peculiarly rich in exotic plants of all kinds, collected at an enormous cost. This most princely estate, contrasted with the little cottages and cottage-gardens in the neighbourhood, suggested to Wordsworth the following sonnet.

CHATSWORTH.

Chatsworth! thy stately mansion, and the pride Of thy domain, strange contrast do present To house and home in many a craggy tent Of the wild Peak, where new born waters glide Through fields whose thrifty occupants abide As in a dear and chosen banishment With every semblance of entire content; So kind is simple Nature, fairly tried!

Yet he whose heart in childhood gave his troth To pastoral dales, then set with modest farms, May learn, if judgment strengthen with his growth, That not for Fancy only, pomp hath charms; And, strenuous to protect from lawless harms The extremes of favored life, may honour both.

The two n.o.blest of modern public gardens in England are those at Kensington and Kew. Kensington Gardens were begun by King William the III, but were originally only twenty-six acres in extent. Queen Anne added thirty acres more. The grounds were laid out by the well-known garden-designers, London and Wise.[034] Queen Caroline, who formed the Serpentine River by connecting several detached pieces of water into one, and set the example of a picturesque deviation from the straight line,[035] added from Hyde Park no less than three hundred acres which were laid out by Bridgeman. This was a great boon to the Londoners.

Horace Walpole says that Queen Caroline at first proposed to shut up St.

James's Park and convert it into a private garden for herself, but when she asked Sir Robert Walpole what it would cost, he answered--"Only three Crowns." This changed her intentions.

The reader of Pope will remember an allusion to the famous Ring in Hyde Park. The fair Belinda was sometimes attended there by her guardian Sylphs:

The light militia of the lower sky.

They guarded her from 'the white-gloved beaux,'

These though unseen are ever on the wing, Hang o'er the box, _and hover o'er the Ring_.

It was here that the gallantries of the "Merry Monarch" were but too often exhibited to his people. "After dinner," says the right garrulous Pepys in his journal, "to Hyde Parke; at the Parke was the King, and in another Coach, Lady Castlemaine, they greeting one another at every turn."

The Gardens at Kew "Imperial Kew," as Darwin styles it, are the richest in the world. They consist of one hundred and seventy acres. They were once private gardens, and were long in the possession of Royalty, until the accession of Queen Victoria, who opened the gardens to the public and placed them under the control of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Woods and Forests, "with a view of rendering them available to the general good."