particularly gardening, that that age produced, and who "made Stratton, about seven miles from Winchester, his seat, and his gardens there some of the best that were made in those early days, such indeed as have mocked some that have been done since; and the gardens of Southampton House, in Bloomsbury Square, were also of his making;" the generous friend of this Lord William Russell, the manly and patriotic Duke of Devonshire, who erected Chatsworth, that noble specimen of a magnificent spirit;* Henry Earl of Danby, the Duke of Argyle, beheaded in 1685, for having supported the rebellion of Monmouth; the Earl of Halifax, the friend of Addison, Swift, Pope, and Steele, and on whom a funeral poem thus speaks,

In the rich furniture of whose fair mind,
Those dazzling intellectual graces shin'd,
That drew the love and homage of mankind.†

Lord Weymouth; Dr. Sherard of Eltham; Collinson, "to whose name is attached all that respect which is due to benevolence and virtue;" Grindal, Bishop of London, who cultivated with great success the vine and other productions of his garden at Fulham; Compton, Bishop of London, eminent, as Mr. Falconer in his Fulham observes, for his unbounded charity

* 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.

+ It was to this nobleman, that Addison addressed his elegant and sublime epistle, after he had surveyed with the eyes and genius of a classical poet, the monuments and heroic deeds of ancient Rome.

and beneficence," and who was so struck with the genius, the learning, and probity of Mr. Ray, that he was almost at the entire charge of erecting the monument to him; the Earl of Scarborough, an accomplished nobleman, immortalized by the enchanting pen of Pope, and the fine pen of Chesterfield; the Earl of Gainsborough; the great Chatham, whose taste in the embellishment of rural nature has been exultingly acknowledged by Mr. Walpole, and by George Mason;* with numerous other men of rank

* 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

and science.* These have highly assisted in elevating gardening to the rank it has long since held, and has allured multitudes to this delightful science:-no wonder, when Homer writeth how Laertes the olde man, was wont with his travaile in his Orchards, to drive from his minde the sorrow hee tooke for the absence of his sonne. When old Gerarde asks his courteous and well-willing readers-" whither do all men walk for their honest recreation, but where the earth hath most beneficially painted her face with flourishing colours? and what season of the year more longed for than the spring, whose gentle breath enticeth forth the kindly sweets, and makes them yield their fragrant smells?" When the Lord Chancellor Bacon declares a garden "is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man" and when this wonderfully gifted man thus fondly dwells on part of its allurements;—

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 compass 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."

* 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.

"the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music), than in the hand; therefore, nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air; the flower, which above all others yields the sweetest smell in the air, is the violet;* next to that is the musk rose, then the strawberry-leaves, dying with a most excellent cordial smell; then sweet briar, then wall-flowers, which are

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 avait une robe verte, sa coleur favorite, parsemée 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.

very delightful to be set under a parlour, or lower chamber window; but those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three-that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread."* Or when Mr. Evelyn, in the joy of his enthusiasm, exultingly transposed from Virgil :

O fortunatos nimium, bona si sua norint
Horticulas!

and who declared, that the employ and felicity of an excellent gardener was preferable to all other diversions. When Mr. Addison says that a garden "fills the mind with calmness and tranquillity, and lays all its turbulent passions at rest." When Sir William Temple (who infused into his writings the graces of some of the best writers of ancient times), thus allures his readers: "Epicurus, whose admirable wit, felicity of

* One almost fancies one perceives Lord Bacon's attachment to gardens, or to rural affairs, even in the speech he made before the nobility, when first taking his seat in the High Court of Chancery; he hoped "that these same brambles that grow about justice, of needless charge and expence, and all manner of exactions, might be rooted out;" adding also, that immediate and "fresh justice was the sweetest." Mr. Mason, in a note to his English Garden, after paying a high compliment to Lord Bacon's picturesque idea of a garden, thus concludes that note :-" Such, when he descended to matters of more elegance (for, when we speak of Lord Bacon, to treat of these was to descend,) were the amazing powers of this universal genius."