On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening Part 23

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Few persons have shewn more attachment to family portraits than Miss Seward. This is strongly exemplified in several bequests in her will; not only in her bequest to Emma Sneyd, and in that to Mrs. Powys, but also in the following:--"The miniature picture of my late dear friend, Mr. Saville, drawn in 1770, by the late celebrated artist Smart, and which at the time it was taken, and during many successive years, was an exact resemblance of the original, I bequeath to his daughter, Mrs.

Smith, who I know will value and preserve it as a jewel above all prize; and in case of her previous demise, I bequeath the said precious miniature to her daughter, Mrs. Honora Jager, exhorting the said Honora Jager, and her heirs, into whose hands soever it may fall, to guard it with sacred care from the sun and from damp, as I have guarded it, that so the posterity of my valued friend may know what, in his prime, was the form of him whose mind through life, by the acknowledgment of all who knew him, and could discern the superior powers of talent and virtue, was the seat of liberal endowment, warm piety, and energetic benevolence."

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

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

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

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

That fine gardens delighted Sully, is evident even from his own statement of his visit to the Duke d'Aumale's, at Anet, near Ivry, (where Henry and Sully fought in that famous battle), for he says,--"Joy animated the countenance of Madame d'Aumale the moment she perceived me.

She gave me a most kind and friendly reception, took me by the hand, and led me through those fine galleries and beautiful gardens, which make Anet a most enchanting place." One may justly apply to Sully, what he himself applies to the Bishop of Evreaux: "A man for whom eloquence and great sentiments had powerful charms."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[4] The Nouveau Dict. Hist. thus speaks of the Pere Rapin:--"A un genie heureux, a un gout sur, il joignoit une probite exacte, un coeur droit, un caractere aimable et des moeurs douces. Il etoit naturellement honnete, et il s'etoit encore poli dans le commerce des grands. Parmi ses differentes Poesies Latines, on distingue le Poeme des Jardins.

C'est son chef d'oeuvre; il est digne du siecle d'Auguste, dit l'Abbe Des Fontaines, pour l'elegance et la purete du langage, pour l'esprit et les graces qui y regnent." Among the letters of Rabutin de Bussy, are many most interesting ones from this worthy father.

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

Dict. Hist.

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

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

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

Say, is thy honest heart to virtue warm?

Can genius animate thy feeling breast?

Approach, behold this venerable form; 'Tis Rousseau! let thy bosom speak the rest.

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

[9] He was enthusiastically devoted to the cultivation of his gardens, which exhibited enchanting scenery, umbrageous walks, and magnificent water-falls. When thus breathing the pure air of rural life, the blood-stained monsters of 1793 seized him in his garden, and led him to the scaffold. "He heard unmoved his own sentence, but the condemnation of his daughter and grand-daughter, tore his heart: the thought of seeing two weak and helpless creatures perish, shook his fort.i.tude.

Being taken back to the _Conciergerie_, his courage returned, and he exhorted his children to prepare for death. When the fatal bell rung, he recovered all his wonted cheerfulness; having paid to nature the tribute of feeling, he desired to give his children an example of magnanimity; his looks exhibited the sublime serenity of virtue, and taught them to view death undismayed. When he ascended the cart, he conversed with his children, unaffected by the clamours of the ferocious populace; and on arriving at the foot of the scaffold, took a last and solemn farewell of his children; immediately after he was dismissed into eternity."

Sir Walter Scott, after noticing "the wild and squalid features" of Marat, who "lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar, among his cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his death-screech was again heard," thus states the death of another of the murderers of the Malherbes:--"Robespierre, in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot himself, had only inflicted a horrible _fracture on his under-jaw_. In this situation they were found like wolves in their lair, foul with blood, mutilated, despairing, and yet not able to die.

Robespierre lay on a table in an anti-room, his head supported by a deal box, and his hideous countenance half-hidden by a b.l.o.o.d.y and dirty cloth bound round his shattered chin. As the fatal cars pa.s.sed to the guillotine, those who filled them, but especially Robespierre, were overwhelmed with execrations. The nature of his previous wound, from which the cloth had never been removed till the executioner _tore_ it off, added to the torture of the sufferer. The shattered jaw dropped, and the wretch yelled aloud, to the horror of the spectators. A mask taken from that dreadful head was long exhibited in different nations of Europe, and appalled the spectator by its ugliness, and the mixture of fiendish expression with that of bodily agony."

Mons. Malherbes loved to relate an answer made to him by a common fellow, during his stay at Paris, when he was obliged to go four times every day to the prison of the Temple, to attend the king: his extreme age did not allow him to walk, and he was compelled to take a carriage.

One day, particularly, when the weather was intensely severe, he perceived, on coming out of the vehicle, that the driver was benumbed with cold. "My friend," said Malherbes to him, in his naturally tender manner, "you must be penetrated by the cold, and I am really sorry to take you abroad in this bitter season."--"That's nothing, M. de Malherbes; in such a cause as this, I'd travel to the world's end without complaining."--"Yes, but your poor horses could not."--"Sir,"

replied the honest coachman, "_my horses think as I do_."

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

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

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

[13] Mr. Worlidge, who wrote during part of the reigns of Charles II.

and James II. judiciously observes, that "the glory of the French palaces, often represented to our English eyes in sculpture, are adorned _with their beauteous gardens before them_; which wanting, they would seem without l.u.s.tre or grandeur."

[14] He was fined 30,000 for having taken a favourite of the king's, in the very presence chamber, by the nose, for having insulted him, and afterwards dragging him out of the room.

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

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

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

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

[18] So thought Sir W. Raleigh;

Sweet violets, love's paradise, that spread Your gracious odours ...

Upon the gentle wing of some calm-breathing wind, That plays amidst the plain.

The lines in Twelfth Night we all recollect:

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

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

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

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

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