On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening Part 11

_Here scatter'd oft, the loveliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble here, And little footsteps lightly print the ground._

Mr. Mason married in 1765 a most amiable woman; she fell at length into a rapid consumption, and at Bristol hot-wells she died. Gray's letter to Mr. Mason while at that place, is full of eloquence; upon which the latter observes, "I opened it almost at the precise moment when it would be necessarily most affecting. His epitaph on the monument he erected on this lady, in the Bristol cathedral, breathes such tender feeling and chaste simplicity, that it can need no apology for being noticed here:

Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear; Take that best gift which heav'n so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form: she bow'd to taste the wave And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line?

Does sympathetic fears their b.r.e.a.s.t.s alarm?

Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine: E'en from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.

Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free; As firm in friendship, and as fond in love.

Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, ('Twas e'en to thee) yet the dread path once trod, Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high, And bids "the pure in heart behold their G.o.d."

A very short time after Mrs. Mason's death, he began his English Garden, and invokes the genius both of poetry and painting

----that at my birth Auspicious smil'd, and o'er my cradle dropp'd Those magic seeds of Fancy, which produce A Poet's feeling, and a Painter's eye.

----with lenient smiles to deign to cheer, At this sad hour, my desolated soul.

For deem not ye that I resume the lyre To court the world's applause; my years mature Have learn'd to slight the toy. No, 'tis to soothe That agony of heart, which they alone, Who best have lov'd, who best have been belov'd, Can feel, or pity: sympathy severe!

Which she too felt, when on her pallid lip The last farewell hung trembling, and bespoke A wish to linger here, and bless the arms She left for heav'n.--She died, and heav'n is her's!

Be mine, the pensive solitary balm That recollection yields. Yes, angel pure!

While memory holds her seat, thine image still Shall reign, shall triumph there; and when, as now, Imagination forms a nymph divine, To lead the fluent strain, thy modest blush, Thy mild demeanour, thy unpractis'd smile, Shall grace that nymph, and sweet Simplicity Be dress'd (ah, meek Maria!) in thy charms.

Dr. Thomas Warton thus speaks of the above poem, when reviewing Tusser's Husbandry:--"Such were the rude beginnings in the English language of didactic poetry, which, on a kindred subject, the present age has seen brought to perfection, by the happy combination of judicious precepts, with the most elegant ornaments of language and imagery, in Mr. Mason's English Garden." His Elfrida and Caractacus, are admired for boldness of conception and sublime description. Elfrida was set to Music by Arne, and again by Giardini. Caractacus was also set to music. Mr. Mason's success with both these dramatic poems was beyond his most sanguine expectation.

Dr. Darwin wrote an epitaph on Mr. Mason; these lines are its concluding part:

Weave the bright wreath, to worth departed just, And hang unfading chaplets on his bust; While pale Elfrida, bending o'er his bier, Breathes the soft sigh and sheds the graceful tear; And stern Caractacus, with brow depress'd Clasps the cold marble to his mailed breast.

In lucid troops shall choral virgins throng, With voice alternate chant their poet's song.

And, oh! in golden characters record Each firm, immutable, immortal word!

"Those last two lines from the final chorus of Elfrida, (says Miss Seward), admirably close this tribute to the memory of him who stands second to Gray, as a lyric poet; whose English Garden is one of the happiest efforts of didactic verse, containing the purest elements of horticultural taste, dignified by freedom and virtue, rendered interesting by episode, and given in those energetic and undulating measures which render blank verse excellent; whose unowned satires, yet certainly his, the heroic epistle to Sir William Chambers, and its postscript, are at once original in their style, harmonious in their numbers, and pointed in their ridicule; whose tragedies are the only pathetic tragedies which have been written in our language upon the severe Greek model. The Samson Agonistes bears marks of a stronger, but also of an heavier hand, and is unquestionably less touching than the sweet Elfrida, and the sublime Caractacus."

Mr. Mason, in 1756 published four Odes. "It would be difficult to say, (says the biographer of the annual Necrology of 1797,) which is most to be admired, the vividness of the conception, or the spirit of liberty, and the ardent love of independance throughout. The address to Milton in his Ode to Memory, and to Andrew Marvel, in that to Independance, cannot be too much admired. At the period when the Middles.e.x election was so much agitated, he united with those independant freeholders, who, by their declarations and pet.i.tions, throughout the nation, opposed corruption, and claimed a reform in parliament; and when the county of York a.s.sembled in 1779, he was of the committee, and had a great share in drawing up their spirited resolutions. The animated vindication of the conduct of the freeholders, and other papers, though printed anonimously in the newspapers, and so printed in Mr. Wyvill's collection of political tracts, in 3 vols. are well known to be Mr. Mason's production. This conduct rendered him obnoxious to the court party. He was at this time one of the king's chaplains, but when it became his turn to preach before the royal family, the queen appointed another person to supply his place. It has been observed, that his sentiments in a later period of his life, took a colour less favourable to liberty.

Whether alarmed at the march of the French revolution, or from the timidity of age, we know not. His friend Horace Walpole, charges him with flat apostacy:" The _Heroic Epistle_ to Sir W. Chambers, and the _Heroic Postscript_, are now positively said to have been written by Mr.

Mason. Mr. Thomas Warton observed, "they may have been written by Walpole, and buckramed by Mason."

The late Sir U. Price, in the generous and patriotic conclusion of his letter to Mr. Repton, pays a delicate compliment to the genius of Mr.

Mason in whatever concerns rural scenery; and his respect for Mr. Mason, and his high opinion of his talents, is farther shewn in pp. 295 and 371 of his first volume, and in p. 94 of vol. ii. Mr. Mathias, after supposing Mr. Mason to have been the author of the Heroic Epistle, and after paying a high compliment to his general poetry, thus concludes his generous tribute:

Whence is that groan? no more Britannia sleeps, But o'er her lov'd Musaeus bends and weeps.

Lo, every Grecian, every British muse Scatter the recent flowers and gracious dews Where MASON lies!

And in his breast each soft affection dwelt, That love and friendship know; each sister art, With all that colours, and that sounds impart, All that the sylvan theatre can grace, All in the soul of MASON found their place!

Low sinks the laurell'd head: in Mona's land I see them pa.s.s, 'tis Mador's drooping band, To harps of woe, in holiest obsequies, In yonder grave, they chant, our Druid lies!

ERASMUS DARWIN. In the life of this justly celebrated physician, by Miss Seward, she informs us, that in the year 1770, he sat to Mr. Wright of Derby; and that it was "a contemplative portrait, of the most perfect resemblance." Whether it has been engraved I know not. He was then in his thirty-eighth year. Dr. Thornton, in his superb work on botany, has given a fine portrait of Dr. Darwin, at a more advanced period of his life. It breathes intelligence in every feature, and is a masterly likeness. The late Mr. Archdeacon Clive preserved a highly-finished miniature portrait of him, which was ordered by Dr. Darwin for the express purpose of being presented to this worthy clergyman, whom he so much esteemed.[91]

Dr. Darwin published,

1. Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life.

2. Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening, 4to.

1800. "A vast field of treasured observation and scientific literature."

3. The Botanic Garden.

Lord Byron, and others, have been severe on this poem. The lines, however, on the soldier's wife and infants, after watching the battle of Minden--those animated ones to Mr. Howard--or when the mother, during the plague in London, commits her children to the grave,

_When o'er the friendless bier no rites were read, No dirge slow chanted, and no pall outspread;_

these make one gladly acknowledge, that pathetic powers were the gift of Darwin's muse. The sublimity of the following address to our _first_ daring aeronaut, merits insertion:

--Rise, great Mongolfier! urge thy venturous flight High o'er the moon's pale, ice-reflected light; High o'er the pearly star, whose beamy horn Hangs in the east, gay harbinger of morn; Leave the red eye of Mars on rapid wing, Jove's silver guards, and Saturn's dusky ring; Leave the fair beams, which issuing from afar Play with new l.u.s.tres round the Georgian star; Shun with strong oars the sun's attractive throne, The burning Zodiac, and the milky Zone: Where headlong comets with increasing force Through other systems bend their burning course!

For thee Ca.s.siope her chair withdraws, For thee the Bear retracts his s.h.a.ggy paws; High o'er the north thy golden orb shall roll, And blaze eternal round the wondering pole.[92]

Miss Seward, after stating that professional generosity distinguished Dr. Darwin's medical practice at Lichfield, farther says, that "diligently also did he attend to the health of the poor in that city, and afterwards at Derby, and supplied their necessities by food, and all sorts of charitable a.s.sistance. In each of those towns, _his_ was the cheerful board of almost open-housed hospitality, without extravagance or pride; deeming ever the first unjust, the latter unmanly. Generosity, wit and science, were his household G.o.ds."[93] She again states that when he removed from Lichfield to Derby, "his renown, as a physician, still increased as time rolled on, and his mortal life declined from its noon. Patients resorted to him more and more, from every part of the kingdom, and often from the continent. All ranks, all orders of society, all religions, leaned upon his power to ameliorate disease, and to prolong existence. The rigid and sternly pious, who had attempted to renounce his aid, from a superst.i.tion that no blessing would attend the prescriptions of a sceptic, sacrificed, after a time, their superst.i.tious scruples to their involuntary consciousness of his mighty skill." Mr. Mathias, though he severely criticizes some of Dr. Darwin's works, yet he justly calls him "this very ingenious man, and most excellent physician, for such he undoubtedly was."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

From scattered pa.s.sages in Miss Seward's Life of him, one can easily trace the delight he took (notwithstanding his immense professional engagements,) in the scenery of nature and gardens;--witness his frequent admiration of the tangled glen and luxuriant landscape at _Belmont_, its sombre and pathless woods, impressing us with a sense of solemn seclusion, like the solitudes of _Tinian_, or _Juan Fernandes_, with its "silent and unsullied stream," which the admirable lines he addresses to the youthful owner of that spot so purely and temperately allude to:--

O, friend to peace and virtue, ever flows For thee my silent and unsullied stream, Pure and untainted as thy blameless life!

Let no gay converse lead thy steps astray, To mix my chaste wave with immodest wine, Nor with the poisonous cup, which Chemia's hand Deals (fell enchantress!) to the sons of folly!

So shall young Health thy daily walks attend, Weave for thy h.o.a.ry brow the vernal flower Of cheerfulness, and with his nervous arm Arrest th' inexorable scythe of Time.

So early, and indeed throughout his whole life, did Dr. Darwin enforce the happy consequences of temperance and sobriety; from his conviction of the pernicious effects of all kinds of intemperance on the youthful const.i.tution. He had an absolute horror of spirits of all sorts, however diluted. Pure water was, throughout the greater part of his temperate life, his favourite beverage. He has been severely censured (no doubt very justly so), for some of his religious prejudices. Old Walter Mapes, the jovial canon of Salisbury, precentor of Lincoln, and arch-deacon of Oxford, in the eleventh century, considered _water_ as fit only for _heretics_.

One may again trace his fondness for the rich scenery of nature, when he in 1777 purchased a wild umbrageous valley near Lichfield, with its mossy fountain of the purest water. This spot he fondly cultivated. The botanic skill displayed by him on this spot, did not escape the searching eye of Mr. Loudon, for in p. 807 of his Encyclop. of Gardening, he pays a deserved compliment to him.[94] Miss Seward wrote some lines on this favoured valley, and these are part of them:

O! may no ruder step these bowers profane, No midnight wa.s.sailers deface the plain; And when the tempests of the wintry day Blow golden autumn's varied leaves away, Winds of the north, restrain your icy gales, Nor chill the bosom of these hallow'd vales.

His attachment to gardens, induced him to honour the memory of Mr.

Mason, by lines once intended for his monument; and he was suggesting improvements at the priory at Derby (and which he had just described the last morning of his life in a sprightly letter to a friend), when the fatal signal was given, and a few hours after, on the 18th of April, 1802, and in his sixty-ninth year, he sunk into his chair and expired.

"Thus in one hour (says his affectionate biographer) was extinguished that vital light, which the preceding hour had shone in flattering brightness, promising duration; (such is often _the cunning flattery of nature_), that light, which through half a century, had diffused its radiance and its warmth so widely; that light in which penury had been cheered, in which science had expanded; to whose orb poetry had brought all her images; before whose influence disease had continually retreated, and death so often "turned aside his levelled dart!"[95] That Dr. Darwin, as to his religious principles or prejudices, displayed great errors of judgment in his _Zoonomia_, there can be no doubt. An eminent champion of Christianity, truly observed, that Dr. Darwin "was acquainted with more links in the chain of _second_ causes, than had probably been known to any individual, who went before him; but that he dwelt so much, and so _exclusively_ on second causes, that he too generally seems to have forgotten that there is a first." For these errors he must long since have been called to his account, before one who can appreciate those errors better than we can. Though the _Accusing Spirit_ must have blushed when he gave them in, yet, let us hope, that the _Recording Angel_, out of mercy to his humane heart, and his many good and valuable qualities, may have blotted them out for ever.

REV. WILLIAM GILPIN, who, as Mr. Dallaway, in his Observations on the Arts, observes, "possesses unquestionably the happy faculty to paint with words;" and who farther highly compliments him in his supplementary chapter on Modern Gardening, annexed to his enriched edition of Mr.

Walpole's Anecdotes. The Topographer says he "describes with the language of a master, the artless scenes of uncultivated nature." Mr.

Walpole in his postscript to his Catalogue of Engravers, after premising, that it might, perhaps, be worth while "to melt down this volume and new cast it," pays this tribute to him: "Were I of authority sufficient to name my successor, or could prevail on him to condescend to accept an office which he could execute with more taste and ability; from whose hands could the public receive so much information and pleasure as from the author of the _Essay on Prints_, and from the _Tours_, &c.? And when was the public ever instructed by the pen and pencil at once, with equal excellence in the style of both, but by Mr.

Gilpin?"

Had Mr. Gilpin written nothing more than his "Lectures on the Catechism," that alone would have conferred on him the name of a meritorious writer. His allusion to Plato, his reflections on the Last Judgment, his animated address to youth, and his conclusion of his sixteenth lecture, must strike deep into the heart of every reader. His "Sermons preached to a Country Congregation," prove him a pious, charitable, and valuable man.[96]

The glowing imagery of his style, when viewing the beautiful scenery in many parts of England, and some of the vast and magnificent ones of Scotland, is fraught with many fervid charms. Still we are forced to join Mr. Mathias, in the remonstrance he so justly makes as to the jargonic conceit of some of his language. Mr. Gilpin's first work on picturesque beauty, was his Observations on the River Wye, made in the year 1770. He afterwards published:

Forest Scenery--Picturesque Beauties of the Highlands--Mountains of c.u.mberland and Westmoreland--Western parts of England--Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk and Ess.e.x--Hampshire, Suss.e.x and Kent. Three Essays, on Picturesque Beauty, on Picturesque Travel, and on Sketching Landscape, to which is added, a poem on Landscape Painting. A full account of his numerous works may be seen in Watts's Bibl. Brit. A complete list of them is also given by Mr. Nichols, in vol. i. of his Ill.u.s.trations, with a brief memoir. Mr. Johnson also gives a list of such of his works as relate to picturesque scenery, with their t.i.tles at large. His portrait was painted by Walton, and engraved in metz by Clint.

JAMES ANDERSON published the following works; and I have given the price of such of them as appeared in the late Mr. Harding's Agricultural Catalogue:--

1. The Bee, or Literary Intelligencer, 18 vols. 8vo. _Edinb._ 1791.

2. Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History, Arts and Miscellaneous Literature, 6 vols. 8vo. _Lond._ 3_l._ 10s.