On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening Part 27

[78] Sir Joshua Reynolds used to tell the following anecdote relative to Pope.--"When Reynolds was a young man, he was present at an auction of very scarce pictures, which attracted a great crowd of _connoisseurs_ and others; when, in the moment of a very interesting piece being put up, Mr. Pope entered the room. All was in an instant, from a scene of confusion and bustle, a dead calm. The auctioneer, as if by instinct, suspended his hammer. The audience, to an individual, as if by the same impulse, rose up to receive the poet; and did not resume their seats till he had reached the upper end of the room."

A similar honour was paid to the Abbe Raynal, whose reputation was such, that the Speaker of the House of Commons observing _him_ among the spectators, suspended the business of the house till he had seen the eloquent historian placed in a more commodious seat. It is painful to relate, that this powerful writer, and good man, who narrowly escaped the guillotine, expired in a garret, in extreme poverty, at the age of eighty-four; the only property he left being one a.s.signat of fifty livres, worth not threepence in ready money. Perhaps one might have applied the following anecdote (told by Dr. Drake in his Literary Hours) to Abbe Raynal:--"A respectable character, having long figured in the gay world at Paris, was at length compelled to live in an obscure retreat in that city, the victim of severe misfortunes. He was so indigent, that he subsisted only on an allowance from the parish. Every week bread was sent to him sufficient for his support, and yet at length, he demanded more. On this the curate sent for him. 'Do you live alone?' said the curate. 'With whom, sir, is it possible I should live?

I am wretched, since I thus solicit charity, and am abandoned by all the world.' 'But, sir, if you live alone, why do you ask for more bread than is sufficient for yourself?' The other at last, with great reluctance, confessed that he had a dog. The curate desired him to observe, that he was only the distributor of the bread that belonged to the poor, and that it was absolutely necessary that he should dispose of his dog. 'Ah, sir!' exclaimed the poor man, weeping, 'and if I lose my dog, who is there then to love me?' The good pastor took his purse, and giving it to him, 'take this, sir,' said he; 'this is mine--this I _can_ give.'"

[79] How applicable are Gray's lines to Lord Byron himself, now!

Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this _neglected_ spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire!--

[80] Mr. Bowles, in some stanzas written since the death of Byron, thus feelingly apostrophizes his n.o.ble spirit:--

But I will bid th' Arcadian cypress wave, Pluck the green laurel from Peneus' side, And pray thy spirit may such quiet have That not one thought unkind be murmur'd o'er thy grave.

[81] Perhaps one motive (no doubt there were numberless others) that _might_ have induced Mr. Mason thus to honour the memory of Pope,

----_letting cold tears bedew his silver urn_,

_might_ have been from the recollection of his attachment to what equally charmed Mr. Mason--the love of gardens.

[82] I know not whether Milton's portrait should have been here noticed.

In a note to the eloquent, the talented, and graceful "Discours d'Installation, p.r.o.nonce par M. le Vicomte H. de Thury, president de la Societe d'Horticulture de Paris," it is beautifully observed, that "Personne n'a mieux decrit ce delicieux jardin que Milton. Les Anglais regardent comme le type de tous les jardins paysagers, et pittoresques, la description que fait Milton du jardin d'Eden, et qui atteste que se sublime genie etoit egalement poete, peintre et paysagiste." As I have sought for the portraits of Mr. George Mason, and of Mr. Whateley, and have noticed those of Launcelot Brown, and Mr. Walpole, Mr. Cradock, M.

R. P. Knight and Sir U. Price, who were all _paysagists_; surely our great and severe republican was one.

The Prince de Ligne speaks thus of Milton:--"les vers enchanteurs de ce Roi des poetes, et des _jardiniers_.

I do not know that every one will agree with Switzer in the concluding part of what he says of Milton, in the History of Gardening, prefixed to his Iconologia:--"But although things were in this terrible combustion, we must not omit the famous Mr. John Milton, one of Cromwell's Secretaries; who, by his excellent and never-to-be-equalled poem of Paradise Lost, has particularly distinguished gardening, by taking that for his theme; and shows, that though his eyes deprived him of the benefit of seeing, yet his mind was wonderfully moved with the philosophy, innocence, and beauty of this employ; his books, though mixed with other subjects, being a kind of a philosophical body of gardening, as well as divinity. Happy man! _had his pen been employed on no other subject_."

It must be needless reminding my reader, that Mr. Walpole's powerful pen has taken care that our mighty poet, (who "on evil days, though fallen, and with darkness and solitude compa.s.sed round,") shall not be _defrauded of half his glory_.

It is gratifying to remark, that an edition of Paradise Lost is now announced for publication, in which the zeal of its spirited proprietors has determined, that every word shall be printed in letters of gold. The sanction of some of our most distinguished divines, and men of high rank, evince the pride with which we all acknowledge the devout zeal and mighty powers of the blind poet.

[83] Mr. Garrick's fondness for ornamental gardening, induced him finely to catch at this invention, in his inimitable performance of Lord Chalkstone.

[84] Dr. Pulteney relates this anecdote of Mr. Miller: "He was the only person I ever knew who remembered to have seen Mr. Ray. I shall not easily forget the pleasure that enlightened his countenance, it so strongly expressed the _Virgilium tantum vidi_, when, in speaking of that revered man, he related to me that incident of his youth." I regret that Mr. Ray only meditated a work to have been ent.i.tled _Horti_ Angliae.

Had he written it, I should have felt a singular pride in introducing his valued name in the present imperfect volume.

[85] The generous minded reader will be gratified by referring to the kind tribute, paid to the memory of Shenstone, by Mr. Loudon, at p. 76 of his Encyclopaedia. Of this Encyclopaedia, Mr. Johnson, in his History of Gardening, thus speaks:--"Taken as a whole, it is the most complete book of gardening ever published;"--and that, with the exception of chymistry, "every art and science, at all ill.u.s.trative of gardening, are made to contribute their a.s.sistance."

[86] In his "Unconnected Thoughts" he admires the _Oak_, for "its majestic appearance, the rough grandeur of its bark, and the wide protection of its branches: a large, branching, aged oak, is, perhaps, the most venerable of all inanimate objects."

[87] Tea was the favourite beverage of Dr. Johnson. When Hanway p.r.o.nounced his anathema against it, Johnson rose in defence of it, declaring himself "in that article a hardened sinner, having for years diluted my meals with the infusion of that fascinating plant; my tea-kettle has had no time to cool; with tea I have solaced the midnight hour, and with tea welcomed the morning." Mr. Pennant was a great lover of tea; a hardy honest Welch parson, on hearing that he usually retired in the afternoon to his summer-house to enjoy that beverage, was moved with indignation, that any thing weaker than ale or wine should be drunk there; and calling to mind the good hunting times of old, pa.s.sionately exclaimed, "his father would have scorned it."

[88] Sir Uvedale thus expresses his own sensations when viewing some of these plantations:--"The inside fully answers to the dreary appearance of the outside; of all dismal scenes it seems to me the most likely for a man to hang himself in; he would, however, find some difficulty in the execution, for amidst the endless mult.i.tude of stems, there is rarely a single side branch to which a rope could be fastened. The whole wood is a collection of tall naked poles.... Even its gloom is without solemnity; it is only dull and dismal; and what light there is, like that of h.e.l.l,

_Serves only to discover scenes of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades._"

[89] This observation confirms what Sir U. Price so pointedly enforces throughout the whole of his causticly sportive letter to Mr. Repton: "that the best landscape painters would be the best landscape gardeners, were they to turn their minds to the practical part; consequently, a study of their works, the most useful study to an improver."--And that "Van Huysum would be a much better judge of the merits and defects of the most dressed scene--of a mere flower garden,--than a gardener."

[90] Mr. Browne was not an author; yet the t.i.tle of the present volume is "On the Portraits of English _Authors_ on Gardening." Neither was old Bridgman nor Kent _authors_ on this subject; still I could not prevail on myself to pa.s.s over such names in total silence.

[91] Mr. Clive resided at Moreton-Say, near Market-Drayton. He was a prebend of Westminster. Integrity marked every action of his life. In his village, scarcely a poor man existed. His kindness and benevolence to the poor, could only be equalled by his friendly hospitality and kind feeling to the more affluent in his neighbourhood:

_Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour, Follow thee up to joy and bliss for ever._

Miss Seward thus concludes one of her letters to him:--"I wish none were permitted to enter the lists of criticism but those who feel poetic beauty as keenly as yourself, and who have the same generous desire that others should feel it." I mention Mr. Clive with grat.i.tude, from a recollection of kindnesses received from him at a very early period of my life, and which were of such a nature, as could not fail to animate the mind of a young man to studious exertions. Archdeacon Plimley (now the truly venerable Archdeacon Corbet, and who has been so long an honour to his native county), in his Agricultural Survey of Shropshire, respectfully introduces Mr. Clive's name; and when he addressed his charge to the diocese of Hereford, in 1793, one really cannot but apply to Mr. Clive, what he so eloquently enforces in that charge to each clergyman:--"to cultivate a pure spirit within their own bosoms; to be in every instance the right-hand neighbour to each parishioner; their private adviser, their public monitor, their example in christian conduct, their joy in health, their consolation in sickness." In the same vault with Mr. Archdeacon Clive, lies buried Robert Lord Clive, conqueror of _Pla.s.sy_: on whose death appeared these extempore lines, by a man of distinction, a friend to Lord Clive:--

Life's a surface, slippery, gla.s.sy, Whereon tumbled Clive of Pla.s.sy; All the wealth the east could give, Brib'd not death to let him live: There's no distinction in the grave 'Twixt the nabob and the slave.

His lordship's death, in 1774, was owing to the same cause which hastened that of the most worthy of men, Sir Samuel Romilly--from shattered and worn out nerves;--from severe study in the latter, and from the burning climate of the east in the former. Had Lord Clive lived a few years longer, he would have enriched the whole neighbourhood round his native spot. His vigorous, ardently-gifted, and penetrating mind, projected plantations and other improvements, that could only have been conceived by such minds as Olivier de Serres, or by Sully, or by our own Evelyn. He was in private life beloved. He was generous, social and friendly; and if ever charity to the poor warmed the breast of any mortal, it warmed that of Lord Clive. Few men had more kind affections than Lord Clive.

[92] The following pa.s.sage from a favourite book of Dr. Darwin's, (the System of Nature, by Linnaeus) will well apply to that searching and penetrating mind, which so strongly possessed him through life.--"How small a part of the great works of nature is laid open to our eyes, and how many things are going on in secret which we know nothing of! How many things are there which this age first was acquainted with! How many things that we are ignorant of will come to light when all memory of us shall be no more! for nature does not at once reveal all her secrets. We are apt to look on ourselves as already admitted into the sanctuary of her temple; we are still only in the porch." How full of grace, of tenderness, and pa.s.sion, is that elegy, which he composed the night he feared a life he so pa.s.sionately loved (Mrs. Pole, of Radburn,) was in imminent danger, and when he dreamed she was dead:

Stretch'd on her sable bier, the grave beside, A snow-white shroud her breathless bosom bound, O'er her white brow the _mimic lace_ was tied, And loves, and virtues, hung their garlands round.

From these cold lips did softest accents flow?

Round that pale mouth did sweetest dimples play?

On this dull cheek the rose of beauty blow, And those dim eyes diffuse celestial rays?

Did this cold hand unasking want relieve, Or wake the lyre to every rapturous sound?

How sad, for other's woes, this breast could heave!

How light this heart, for other's transport, bound!

[93] It was at this period of his residence at Lichfield, that the present writer heard him strongly enforce the cultivation of _papaver somniferum_. What he may have also enforced to others, may possibly have given rise to some of those ingenious papers on its cultivation, which are inserted not only in the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce; in other publications, but in the first and fifth volumes of the Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society. The papers of Mr. Ball and Mr. Jones, on its cultivation, in the former of these transactions, are particularly diffuse and valuable. They are fully noticed in Dr. Thornton's "Family Herbal." The subjoined plate is a copy of that in the t.i.tle page to "_Opiologia_, ou traicte concernant le naturel proprietes, vraye preparation, et seur vsage de l'opium," a favourite volume with Dr.

Darwin, printed at _la Haye_, 1614, 12mo. Dr. Darwin, in his Botanical Garden, thus speaks of opium: "the finest opium is procured by wounding the heads of large poppies with a three-edged knife, and tying muscle-sh.e.l.ls to them, to catch the drops. In small quant.i.ties it exhilirates the mind, raises the pa.s.sions, and invigorates the body; in large ones, it is succeeded by intoxication, languor, stupor, and death."

[94] _Sterne_ mentions a traveller who always set out with the spleen and jaundice,--"without one generous connection, or pleasurable anecdote to tell of,--travelling straight on, looking neither to his right hand or his left, lest love or pity should seduce him out of the road." Mr.

Loudon seems to be a very different kind of a traveller: for his horticultural spirit and benevolent views, pervade almost every page of his late tour through _Bavaria_. One envies his feelings, too, in another rural excursion, through the romantic scenery of _Bury_, at Mr.

Barclay's, and of Mr. Hope's at _Deepdene_; and particularly when he paints his own emotions on viewing the room of sculpture there. He even could not, in October last, take his rural ride from _Edgware_ to _St.

Alban's_ without thus awakening in each traveller a love of gardens, and giving this gentle hint to an honest landlord:--"A new inn, in the outskirts of _St. Alban's_, in the _Dunstable_ road, has an ample garden, not made the most of. Such a piece of ground, and a gardener of taste, would give an inn, so situated, so great a superiority, that _every one would be tempted to stop there_; but the garden of this Boniface, exhibits but the beginning of a good idea." When travelling along our English roads, his mind no doubt frequently reverts to those road-side gardens in the Netherlands, which he thus happily adverts to in p. 32 of his Encyclopaedia: "The gardens of the cottagers in these countries, are undoubtedly better managed and more productive than those of any other country; no man who has a cottage is without a garden attached; often small, but rendered useful to a poor family, by the high degree of culture given to it." Linnaeus, in his eloquent oration at Upsal, enforces the pleasure of travelling in one's own country, through its fields _and roads_. Mr. Heath, the zealous and affectionate historian of Monmouth, in his account of that town and its romantic neighbourhood, (published in 1804,) omits no opportunity of noticing the many neat gardens, which add to the other rural charms of its rich scenery, thus mentions another Boniface:--"The late Thomas Moxley, who kept the public-house at Manson Cross, was a person that took great delight in fruit-trees, and had a large piece of ground let him, for the purpose of planting it with apple-trees; but his death (which followed soon after) prevented the plan from being carried to the extent he intended, though some of the land bears evidence of his zeal and labour." Mr. Heath cannot even travel on the turnpike road, from Monmouth to Hereford, without benevolently remarking, that "a number of laborious families have erected small tenements, with a garden to each, most of which are thickly planted with apple-trees, whose produce considerably adds to the owner's support."

[95] Of this celebrated biographer of Dr. Darwin (whose Verses to the Memory of Mr. Garrick, and whose Monody on Captain Cook, will live as long as our language is spoken,) Sir W. Scott thus describes his first personal interview with:--"Miss Seward, when young, must have been exquisitely beautiful; for, in advanced age, the regularity of her features, the fire and expression of her countenance, gave her the appearance of beauty, and almost of youth. Her eyes were auburn, of the precise shade and hue of her hair, and possessed great expression. In reciting, or in speaking with animation, they appeared to become darker; and, as it were, to flash fire. I should have hesitated to state the impression which this peculiarity made upon me at the time, had not my observation been confirmed by that of the first actress of this or any other age, with whom I lately happened to converse on our deceased friend's expressive powers of countenance."

[96] From one of these pleasing sermons I extract these few lines:--"Among the most pleasing sights of a country village, is that of a father and mother, followed by their family of different ages, issuing from their little dwelling on a Sunday morning, as the bell tolls to church. The children, with their ruddy, wholesome looks, are all neat and clean. Their behaviour at church shews what an impression their parents have given them of the holiness of the place, and of the duties they have to perform. Though unregarded, as they return home, by their richer neighbours, they carry back with them to their humble cottage the blessing of G.o.d.--Pious parents! lead on your children from church to heaven. You are in the right road. Your heavenly father sees your hearts."

[97] Mr. Cradock published in 8vo. in 1777, price 2s. 6d. an account of some of the most remarkable places in North Wales.

[98] Mons. de Voltaire was so charmed with the taste and talents, and polite engaging manners of La f.a.ge, that he paid him the following compliment; which may very justly be applied to Mr. Cradock:

_Il recut deux presens des Dieux, Les plus charmans qu'ils puissent faire; L'un etoit le talent de plaire, L'autre le secret d'etre heureux._