On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening Part 8

Whilst from the most tempestuous nooks The chillest blasts our peace invade, And by great rains our smallest brooks Are almost navigable made;

Whilst all the ills are so improved, Of this dead quarter of the year, That even you, so much beloved, We would not now wish with us here;

In this estate, I say, it is Some comfort to us to suppose, That, in a better clime than this, You, our dear friend, have more repose;

And some delight to me the while, Though nature now does weep in rain, To think that I have seen her smile, And haply may I do again.

If the all-ruling Power please We live to see another May, We'll recompense an age of these Foul days in one fine fishing day.

We then shall have a day or two, Perhaps a week, wherein to try What the best master's hand can do With the most deadly killing fly:

A day with not too bright a beam, A warm, but not a scorching sun, A southern gale to curl the stream, and, master, half our work is done.

There, whilst behind some bush we wait The scaly people to betray,-- We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait To make the preying _Trout_ our prey.

And think ourselves, in such an hour, Happier than those, though not so high, Who, like _Leviathans_, devour Of meaner men the smaller fry.

This, my best friend, at my poor home Shall be our pastime and our theme; But then--should you not deign to come, You make all this a flattering dream.

In wandering over the lovely scenes, the pleasant brooks, the flower-bespangled meadows, which the moral pages of Isaac Walton so unaffectedly delineate, it is impossible not to recur to the name of the late author of _Salmonia_, and to reflect, that on these pages he oft unbended his vigorous mind from his severe and brilliant discoveries. We can now only lament the (almost) premature death of this high-ranked philosopher, this great benefactor to the arts, and deep promoter of science, whose mortal remains were consigned to his unostentatious tomb, at Geneva, in one of the finest evenings of summer, followed by the eloquent and amiable historian, De Sismondi, and by other learned and ill.u.s.trious men. One may apply to his last moments at Geneva, (where he had arrived only one day before) these lines of his own favourite Herbert:--

_Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die!_[69]

SAMUEL GILBERT'S portrait is prefixed to his "Florist's Vade Mec.u.m;"

12mo. In his "Gardener's Almanack," is a particular description of the roses cultivated in the English gardens at that period. He was the author of "Fons Sanitatis, or the Healing Spring at Willowbridge Wells."

He was son-in-law to John Rea, the author of Flora, and who planned the gardens at Gerard's Bromley. Willowbridge Wells are at a little distance from where these once superb gardens were.

JACOB BOBART, the elder, is an admirable portrait, by D. Loggan, taken at his age of eighty-one, and engraved by Burghers. Granger says it is extremely scarce. Beneath the head, which is dated 1675, is this distich:--

_Thou Germane prince of plants, each year to thee, Thousands of subjects grant a subsidy._

It is a venerable countenance, of deep thought. Richardson re-engraved this among his Ill.u.s.trations to Granger. Granger mentions also a whole-length of Bobart in a garden, dog, goat, &c. 4to. The Encycl. of Gardening says, "Bobart's descendants are still in Oxford, and known as coach proprietors." Do none of them possess the original painting? The munificence of the Earl of Danby placed Bobart in the physic garden at Oxford, in 1632, as supervisor; and this garden flourished many years under his care, and that of his son Jacob, whose zeal and diligence Dr.

Pulteney records. The elder Bobart was the author of the _Hortus Oxoniensis_, 1648. Wood, in his Athenae, informs us, that "Jacob Bobart died in his garden-house, in February, 1679, whereupon his body was buried in the church of St. Peter, Oxon." He left two sons, _Jacob_ and _Tillemant_. Tillemant became a master coachman between Oxford and London, but having had the misfortune to break his leg, became one of the beadles of the university. In the preface to Mr. Nicholls's late curious work on autographs, among other _alb.u.ms_, in the British Museum, it mentions that of David Krein, in which is the autograph of Jacob Bobart, with these verses;--

----"virtus sua gloria.

Think that day lost whose descending sun Views from thy hand no n.o.ble action done.

Yr success and happyness is sincerely wished by Ja. Bobart, Oxford."

It appears from Ray's History of Plants, that Jacob Bobart, the son, was a frequent communicator to him of scarce plants. It was this son who published the second volume of Morrison's Oxford History of Plants, who wrote its excellent preface, and who engaged _Burghers_ to engrave many of the new plants; which engravings are highly commended by Pulteney.

Mr. Johnson, in page 148 of his History of Gardening, thus pays Bobart a high compliment:--"a phalanx of botanists were then contemporaries, which previous ages never equalled, nor succeeding ones surpa.s.sed. Ray, Tournefort, Plumier, Plukenet, Commelin, Rivinus, _Bobart_, Petiver, Sherard, Boccone, Linnaeus, may be said to have lived in the same age."

JAMES GARDINER. His portrait is engraved by Vertue, from after Verelst, and prefixed to his translation of _Rapin on Gardens_, 8vo. second edition; no date. A third edition, 8vo. 1728. I believe he also wrote "On the Beat.i.tudes;" 2 vols. 8vo. Switzer says, that this "incomparable Latin poem was translated by an ingenious and worthily dignified clergyman, and a great lover of gardening, Mr. Gardiner, Sub-Dean of Lincoln." He became afterwards (I believe) Bishop of Lincoln; and a Latin epitaph on this bishop is in Peck's _Desid. Curiosa._ There is a print of "Jacobus Gardiner, Episc. Lincoln," engraved by George White, from after Dahl.

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. The portraits of this worthy man are numerous.

Vanderbane's engraving, from Sir Peter Lely's, is particularly fine.

Vertue's engravings, from Sir Peter, in the folio editions of 1720 and 1740, are also fine. This same portrait is neatly engraved in the late Mr. Nichol's Collection of Poems. Houbraken has also engraved the same for Birch's Lives. Sir William Temple, after spending twenty years in negociations with foreign powers, retired in 1680 from public life, and employed his time in literary pursuits. He was amba.s.sador for many years at the court of Holland, and there acquired his knowledge and taste in gardening. He had a garden at Sheen, and afterwards, another at Moor Park, where he died in 1700; and though his body was buried in Westminster Abbey, his heart was enclosed in a silver urn under a sun-dial in the latter garden. His Essay "Upon the Gardens of Epicurus, or of Gardening in the year 1685," is printed in all the editions of his works.[70] These works are published in 2 vols. folio, and 4 vols. 8vo.

Switzer, in his History of Gardening, first published in 1715, says, "That he was a great lover of gardening, appears by his own writings, and several kinds of fruit brought over by him out of Holland, &c. as well as by the testimony of his neighbours _yet living_, the greatest consolation of his life being, in the lucid intervals he had from public employs, in his beloved gardens at _Sheen_." And, in his Fruit Gardener he says, that "the magnificence and generosity of this great lover of planting, distributed vast numbers of the finest grapes among the nurserymen about London, as well as amongst the n.o.bility and gentry."

Lord Mountmorris thus speaks of him:--"The retirement of this great man has bequeathed the most invaluable legacy to posterity. Of the taste and elegance of his writings too much can never be said, illuminated as they are by that probity and candour which pervade them, and those charms which render truth irresistible. Though other writers may be more the objects of imitation to the scholar, yet his style is certainly the best adapted to the politician and the man of fashion; nor would such an opinion be given, were it not for an anecdote of Swift, which I had from the late Mr. Sheridan, who told me the dean always recommended him as the best model, and had repeatedly said that the style of Sir William Temple was the easiest, the most liberal, and the most brilliant in our language. In a word, when we consider his probity, his disinterestedness, his contempt of wealth, the genuine beauty of his style, which was as brilliant, as harmonious, and as pure as his life and manners; when we reflect upon the treasures which he has bequeathed by his example and by his works to his country, which no man ever loved better, or esteemed more; we cannot avoid considering Sir William Temple as one of the greatest characters which has appeared upon the political stage; and he may be justly cla.s.sed with the greatest names of antiquity, and with the most brilliant characters which adorn and ill.u.s.trate the Grecian or Roman annals." Mr. Mason, in his English Garden, contrasts Sir William's idea of "a perfect garden," with those of Lord Bacon, and Milton; but he candidly says,

----and yet full oft O'er Temple's studious hour did truth preside, Sprinkling her l.u.s.tre o'er his cla.s.sic page; There hear his candour own, in fashion's spite, In spite of courtly dulness hear it own, _There is a grace in wild variety Surpa.s.sing rule and order._ Temple, yes, There is a grace; and let eternal wreaths Adorn their brows who fixt its empire here."

He then, in glowing lines, pays an animated tribute to Addison, Pope, and Kent. Hume records that "he was full of honour and humanity." Sir William thus concludes one of his philosophic essays:--"When this is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over." His garden was one of his last delights. He knew what kind of life was best fitted to make a man's last days happy. Mr. Walpole, though he censures Sir William's warm panegyric on the garden at Moor Park, yet scruples not doing him full justice, in styling him an excellent man, and an admired writer, whose style, as to his garden, is animated with the colouring and glow of poetry. Mr. Cobbett, in his _English Gardener_, thus deplores the fate of Moor Park:--"This really wise and excellent man, Sir W. Temple, who, while he possessed the soundest judgment, and was employed in some of the greatest concerns of his country, so ardently, yet so rationally and unaffectedly, praises the pursuits of gardening, in which he delighted from his youth to his old age; and of his taste in which, he gave such delightful proofs in those gardens and grounds at Moor Park, beneath the turf of one spot of which, he caused by his will, his heart to be buried, and which spot, together with all the rest of the beautiful arrangement, has been torn about and disfigured within the last fifty years, by a succession of wine merchants, spirit merchants, West Indians, and G.o.d knows what besides." And, in his _Woodlands_, he says, "I have stood for hours, when a little boy, looking at this object (the ca.n.a.l and borders of beautiful flowers at Moor Park); I have travelled far since, and have seen a great deal; but I have never seen any thing of the gardening kind so beautiful in the whole course of my life." Mr. Johnson, in his History of English Gardening, after noticing many general particulars of Sir William, devotes an interesting page to Sir William's attachment to gardening; and every line in this generous page, betrays his own delight in this art. He thus concludes this page:--"Nothing can demonstrate more fully the delight he took in gardening, than the direction left in his will, that his heart should be buried beneath the sun-dial of his garden, at Moor Park, near Farnham, in Surrey. In accordance with which, it was deposited there in a silver box, affording another instance of the ruling pa.s.sion unweakened even in death. Nor was this an unphilosophical clinging to that which it was impossible to retain; but rather that grateful feeling, common to our nature, of desiring finally to repose where in life we have been happy.

In his garden, Sir William Temple had spent the calmest hours of a well-spent life, and where his heart had been most peaceful, he wished its dust to mingle, and thus, at the same time, offering his last testimony to the sentiment, that in a garden

_Hic secura quies, et nescia fallere vita._"

JOHN LOCKE wrote "Observations upon the Growth of Vines and Olives; the Production of Silk, the Preservation of Fruits. Written at the request of the Earl of Shaftesbury; now first printed from the original ma.n.u.script in the possession of the present Earl of Shaftesbury, 1s. 6d.

Sandby, 1766." Among the many portraits we have of this learned man, the public are indebted to Lord King, for having prefixed to his Life of Mr.

Locke, a very fine portrait of him, from after Greenhill. This great and good man possessed, in the highest degree, those virtues that have given him a claim to the highest rank in the admiration of posterity. In Rutter's delineations of a part of Somersetshire, he gives a neat wood-cut of the cottage at Wrington, wherein Locke was born, and he informs us, that in the garden belonging to Mrs. Hannah More, near that village, she has placed an urn commemorative of Locke, which was a gift to her from the justly celebrated Mrs. Montague. He was drawn also by Kneller. Bromley gives a list of many of his engraved portraits.

Houbraken engraved one for Birch's Lives. Vertue gave two engravings from Kneller.

WILLIAM FLEETWOOD, successively Bishop of St. Asaph and Ely, and who died in 1723, was author of "Curiosities of Nature and Art in Husbandry and Gardening," 8vo. 1707. His portrait is prefixed to his "Sermons on the Relative Duties," 8vo. 1716; and also to his "Essay on the Miracles." His works were published in a collected form in 1 vol. folio, 1737. He was incontestibly the best preacher in his time. Dr. Doddridge calls him "silver tongued." Pope's line of

_The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence_,

might, no doubt, have been justly applied to him. Dr. Drake, in the third volume of his Essays, to ill.u.s.trate the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, has some interesting pages respecting him. His benevolent heart and exemplary life, added great effect to his persuasive eloquence in the pulpit. "His sermons (says Lempriere), and divinity tracts, were widely circulated; but the firmness of his opinions drew upon him the censure of the House of Commons. His preface to his sermons on the deaths of Mary, the Duke of Gloucester, and of William, and on the accession of Anne, gave such offence to the ministry, that the book was publicly burnt in 1712; but it was more universally read, and even appeared in the Spectator, No. 384." As to this burning, Dr. Johnson remarked, that fire is a conclusive, but not a convincing argument; it will certainly destroy any book, but it refutes none.[71] In an _Obituary_, preserved in Peck's Desid. Curiosa, it thus mentions the death of a Jeffery Fleetwood, "leaving a wife and six little children behind him. G.o.d bless them. One of these little children was the famous William Fleetwood, Bishop of Ely."

JOSEPH ADDISON, Esq. There is an original portrait of this eminent man, at Holland House. Another at Oxford. n.o.ble's continuation of Granger enumerates several engravings of him, from Kneller's portraits. Dayl, the painter, also drew him. His portrait appears in the Kit Cat Club. In Ireland's "Picturesque Views on the River Avon," he gives an interesting description of Mr. Addison's house at Bilton, near Rugby, two miles from Dunchurch; with a view of the same. The house "remains precisely in the state it was at the decease of its former possessor, nor has the interior suffered much change in its former decoration. The furniture and pictures hold their places with an apparent sacred attention to his memory. Among the latter, are three of himself, at different periods of his life; in each of which is strongly marked with the pencil, the ease of the gentleman, and the open and ingenuous character of the friend to humanity." From Dr. Drake's Biographical Sketch of Addison, it appears, that these portraits were still remaining in his house in 1797. A copy of the above view is given in the Monthly Magazine for February, 1822, and it there says, that "the s.p.a.cious gardens retain the fashion of the age of the Spectator." The origin of the modern style of landscape gardening, or the first writers on that subject, were unquestionably Mr.

Addison, in Nos. 414 and 477 of the _Spectator_, and Mr. Pope in his celebrated _Guardian_. The first artists who practised in this style, were Bridgman and Kent.[72] Mr. Addison's pure taste on these subjects is visible even where he prefers Fontainebleau to the magnificent Versailles, in his paper in the _Guardian_, No. 101:--"It is situated among rocks and woods, that give you a fine variety of savage prospects.

The king has humoured the genius of the place, and only made use of so much art as is necessary to help and regulate nature, without reforming her too much. The cascades seem to break through the clefts and cracks of rocks that are covered over with moss, and look as if they were piled upon one another by accident. There is an artificial wildness in the meadows, walks, and ca.n.a.ls; and the garden, instead of a wall, is fenced on the lower end by a natural mound of rock-work that strikes the eye very agreeably. For my part, I think there is something more charming in these rude heaps of stone than in so many statues, and would as soon see a river winding through woods and meadows, as when it is tossed up in so many whimsical figures at Versailles." In No. 414 of his Spectator, he says, "English gardens are not so entertaining to the fancy as those in France, and Italy, where we see a large extent of ground covered over with an agreeable mixture of garden, and forest, which represent every where an artificial rudeness, much more charming than that neatness and elegancy which we meet with in those of our own country." Mr. Murphy thus compares Addison with Johnson:--"Addison lends grace and ornament to truth; Johnson gives it force and energy. Addison makes virtue amiable; Johnson represents it as an awful duty." Addison has been called the English Fenelon. Johnson calls him the Raphael of essay writers. The imposing and commanding att.i.tude of the statue erected a few years since in the Poets' Corner, seems to have arisen, and to have been devoted to his memory, from his _Reflections on the Tombs in the Abbey_. Those reflections I here subjoin; and I am sure my reader will agree with me, that I could not offer a purer honour to his genius and memory:--"No.26, Friday, March 30.

_Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres, O beate s.e.xti.

Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inch.o.a.re longam, Jam te premet nox, fabulaeque manes, Et domus exilis Plutonia._--HOR.

With equal foot, rich friend, impartial fate Knocks at the cottage, and the palace gate: Life's span forbids thee to extend thy cares, And stretch thy hopes beyond thy tender years: Night soon will seize, and you must quickly go To storied ghosts, and _Pluto's_ house below.--CREECH.

"When I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable.

I yesterday pa.s.sed a whole afternoon in the church-yard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tomb-stones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day and died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circ.u.mstances, that are common to all mankind.

I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of bra.s.s or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died.

They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head.

_Glauc.u.mque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque._--VIRG.

"The life of these men is finely described in holy writ by _the path of an arrow_, which is immediately closed up and lost. Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixed with a kind of fresh mouldering earth that some time or other had a place in the composition of an human body. Upon this I began to consider with myself what innumerable mult.i.tudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common ma.s.s; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter. After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortality, as it were in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabrick. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in _Greek_ or _Hebrew_, and by that means are not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed indeed that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were buried in the plains of _Blenheim_, or in the bosom of the ocean. I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius before they are put in execution. Sir_Cloudesly Shovel's_ monument has very often given me great offence: instead of the brave rough _English_ admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument; for, instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The _Dutch_, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, shew an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea-weed, sh.e.l.ls, and coral. But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amus.e.m.e.nt. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but, for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compa.s.sion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little compet.i.tions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together."[73]

REV. JOHN LAWRENCE published "The Clergyman's Recreation, shewing the Pleasure and Profit of the Art of Gardening;" 8vo. 1714. Also a poem, called "Paradise Regained, or the Art of Gardening;" 8vo. 1728. The sixth edition of "The Clergyman's Recreation" has "the effigies of the author, engraved by Vertue." I have seen eight copies of this sixth edition, and in neither of them has this portrait been. No doubt the collecting to form Granger's, has deprived each copy of its portrait.

This is an expressive portrait, ornamented with a vine wreath, and with a rich cornucopia or cl.u.s.ters of ripe fruit. The original picture from which Vertue's print was taken, was at Pallion, near Durham, the seat of his grandson, John Goodchild, Esq. In Rodd's catalogue of engraved portraits, printed a few years ago, was "John Lawrence, prebend of Salisbury, _original drawing by Vertue_, price 5s." Mr. Lawrence published also, in folio, in 1726, his System of Agriculture and Gardening. Mr. Nichols, in vol. iv. of his Literary Anecdotes, has given a list of all his works, has preserved a few particulars respecting him, and pays a just tribute to him. A list of his works may also be seen in Watts's Bibl. Brit., and in Mr. Johnson's work. The Encycl. of Gardening informs us that he was "of a hospitable and benevolent disposition, taking great pleasure in presenting a rich dessert of fruit to his friends." He was presented to the rectory of Yelvertoft, Northamptonshire, in 1703, "by the extraordinary uncommon bounty of a generous patron." In 1721, he was presented to that of Bishop's Wearmouth, Durham, where he died in 1732. He was also a prebend of Salisbury.[74]

Mr. Lawrence thus enforces the pleasures of a garden, to his own order:--"to make them happy by loving an innocent diversion, the amus.e.m.e.nts of a garden being not only most delightful to those that love them, but most wholesome to those that use them. A good man knows how to recapitulate all his pleasures in a devout lifting up of his hands, his eyes and his heart, to the great and bountiful author of nature, who gives beauty, relish, and success to all our honest labours." His pen likewise paints with "soft and tempting colours," the extreme beauty of our fruit-trees, when clothed with their different coloured blossoms, (what Lord Byron calls _the sweet and blooming fruits of earth_):--"What a pleasing entertainment is it to the eye, to behold the apricot in its full blossom, white as snow, and at the same time the peach with its crimson-coloured blooms; both beginning to be interspersed with green leaves! These are succeeded by the pear, the cherry, and the plum, whose blossoms and leaves make a very beautiful mixture in the spring; and it cannot be a less pleasant sight to see cl.u.s.ters of swelling fruit all the summer, as the earnest of the full gratification of another sense in autumn. And now we have come hither, what painter can draw a landskip more charming and beautiful to the eye, than an old Newington peach-tree laden with fruit in August, when the sun has first begun to paint one side of the fruit with such soft and tempting colours? The apricot, the pear, the cherry and plum, when they appear in plenty as they ought, present themselves to the eye at the time of ripening in very inviting blushes. In short, all the several sorts of fruit trees have such pleasing varieties, that were there no other sense to be gratified but the sight, they may vie with a parterre even of the finest flowers." He thus mentions the month of _July_:--"How beautiful and refreshing are the mornings and evenings of such days, when the very air is perfumed with pleasant odours, and every thing that presents itself to the eye gives fresh occasion to the devout admirer to praise and adore the Great Creator, who hath given such wisdom and power to man to diversify nature in such various instances, and (for his own use, pleasure, and profit,) to a.s.sist her in all her operations." This worthy clergyman might have applied to the delights of a garden, the sacred words of scripture:--"her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."[75]

ALEXANDER POPE. Numerous are the engraved portraits of this graceful and harmonious poet. n.o.ble's continuation of Granger, gives all, or the greater part of the engravings from his portraits, from which it will be seen, that he was drawn by Kneller, by Richardson, by many others, and particularly by his friend Jervas. As a portrait painter, Mr. Jervas was far from eminent. Pope's attachment to him, however, has enshrined his name in glowing lines to future generations. The portraits of Pope which Jervas drew, were done _con amore_. Mr. Jennings, of Cheapside, has prefixed to his elegant folio edition of the "Essay on Man," a _whole-length_ of Mr. Pope, from after Jervas. In Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. iii. is a very striking bust of Mr. Pope, as an accompaniment to Mr. Dodsley's affecting poem to his memory, which he ent.i.tles _The Cave of Pope_. Surely this bust must have strongly resembled Pope, or Mr. Dodsley would not have inserted it. The profile to Ruffhead's Life, in 4to. 1769, _must_ have been a likeness, or Bishop Warburton would not have permitted its insertion. His age was then twenty-four. It is finely engraved by Ravenet, from Kneller. It is a striking portrait. A copy of this is admirably engraved in Bell's Poets, richly ornamented. A copy from that by Richardson is prefixed to Warton's edition. Among the portraits at _Hagley_, is that of Pope, and his dog Bounce, by Richardson.[76] Lord Chesterfield thus speaks of Pope:--"His poor, crazy, deformed body, was a mere Pandora's box, containing all the physical ills that ever afflicted humanity. This, perhaps, whetted the edge of his satire, and may, in some degree, excuse it. I will say nothing of his works; they speak sufficiently for themselves; they will live as long as taste and letters shall remain in this country, and be more and more admired, as envy and resentment shall subside. But I will venture this piece of cla.s.sical blasphemy: which is, that however he may be supposed to be obliged to Horace, Horace is more obliged to him." Mr. Ruffhead (generally supposed to have had his information from Dr. Warburton) thus states:--"Mr. Pope was low in stature, and of a diminutive and misshapen figure, which no one ridiculed more pleasantly than himself. His const.i.tution was naturally tender and delicate, and in his temper he was naturally mild and gentle, yet sometimes betrayed that exquisite sensibility which is the concomitant of genius. His lively perception and delicate feeling, irritated by wretched ill health, made him too quickly take fire, but his good sense and humanity soon rendered him placable. With regard to the extent of his genius, it was so wide and various, that perhaps it may not be too much to say, that he excelled in every species of composition; and, beside his excellence as a poet, he was both an antiquarian and an architect, and neither in an inferior degree.[77] No man ever entertained more exalted notions of friendship, or was ever more sincere, steady, warm, and disinterested, in all his attachments.

Every inch of his heart was let out in lodgings for his friends." Lord Orrery thus speaks of him:--"His prose writings are little less harmonious than his verse; and his voice, in common conversation, was so naturally musical, that I remember honest Tom Southern used to call him the Little Nightingale; his manners were delicate, easy, and engaging; he treated his friends with a politeness that charmed, and a generosity that was much to his honour. Every guest was made happy within his doors; pleasure dwelt under his roof, and elegance presided at his table." One may trace Mr. Pope's hospitality throughout his letters. I will merely select one or two instances. In a letter to _Swift_, he says, "My house is too large; my gardens furnish too much wood and provision for _my_ use. My servants are sensible and tender of me. They have intermarried, and are become rather low friends than servants.

Would to G.o.d you would come over with Lord Orrery, whose care of you in the voyage I could so certainly depend on; and bring with you your old housekeeper, and two or three servants. I have room for all, a heart for all, and (think what you will) a fortune for all." In another letter to Swift, he says, "I wish you had any motive to see this kingdom. I could keep you; for I am rich, that is, I have more than I want. I can afford room for yourself and two servants. I have, indeed, room enough, nothing but myself at home: the kind and hearty housewife is dead! the agreeable and instructive neighbour is gone! yet my house is enlarged, and the gardens extend and flourish, as knowing nothing of the guests they have lost. I have more fruit trees and kitchen garden than you have any thought of; nay, I have good melons and pineapples of my own growth." In a letter to _Mr. Allen_, he says, "Let me know your day for coming, and I will have every room in my house as warm for you as the owner always would be." Mr. Mathias, in his Pursuits of Literature, (besides expatiating with fond delight, in numerous pages, on the genius of Pope,) thus speaks of him:--"Familiar with the great, intimate with the polite, graced by the attentions of the fair, admired by the learned, a favourite with the nation, independent in an acquired opulence, the honourable product of his genius, and of his industry; the companion of persons distinguished for their virtue, birth, high fashion, rank, or wit, and resident in the centre of all public information and intelligence; every avenue to knowledge, and every mode of observation were open to his curious, prying, piercing, and unwearied intellect."[78]

One may with truth further apply to Mr. Pope what was said of Buchanan, that his mind was stored with all the fire, and all the graces of ancient literature. Mr. Pope's attachment to _gardens_, appears not only in his letter to Martha Blount, describing Sir W. Raleigh's seat--but in his own garden at Twickenham, (where, as Mr. Loudon feelingly observes, _only the soil of which now remains_)--and in his letter to Mr. Blount, describing his grotto--but it also bursts forth in many pa.s.sages throughout his works--and in his celebrated _Guardian_ (No. 173), which attacks, with the keenest wit, "our study to recede from nature," in our giants made out of yews, and lavender pigs with sage growing in their bellies. His epistle to Lord Burlington confirms the charms he felt in studying nature. Mr. Mason, in a note to his English Garden, says, "I had before called Bacon the prophet, and Milton, the herald of true taste in gardening. The former, because, in developing the const.i.tuent properties of a princely garden, he had largely expatiated upon that adorned natural wildness which we now deem the essence of the art. The latter, on account of his having made this natural wildness the leading idea in his exquisite description of Paradise. I here call Addison, _Pope_, Kent, &c. the champions of this true taste." As Mr. Mason has added an _&c._, may we not add to these respected names, that of honest old Bridgman? It was the determination of Lord Byron (had his life been longer spared), to have erected, at his own expence, a monument to Pope.[79] We can gather even from his rapid and hurried "Letter on the Rev. W. L. Bowles's Strictures," his attachment to the high name of Pope:--"If Lucretius had not been spoiled by the Epicurean system, we should have had a far superior poem to any now in existence. As mere poetry, it is the first of Latin poems. What then has ruined it? His ethics. Pope has not this defect; his moral is as pure as his poetry is glorious."--"Pope's charities were his own, and they were n.o.ble and extensive, far beyond his fortune's warrant."--"I have loved and honoured the fame and name of that ill.u.s.trious and unrivalled man, far more than my own paltry renown, and the trashy jingle of the crowd of schools and upstarts, who pretend to rival, or even surpa.s.s him. Sooner than a single leaf should be torn from _his_ laurel, it were better that all which these men, and that I, as one of their set, have ever written, should