He discovered that it was more profitable to solicit nature than to flatter the great.
For Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.
People of a poetical temperament--all true lovers of nature--can afford, far better than more essentially worldly beings, to exclaim with Thomson.
I care not Fortune what you me deny,
You cannot bar me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face:
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns and living streams at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:--
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
The pride in a garden laid out under one's own directions and partly cultivated by one's own hand has been alluded to as in some degree unworthy of the dignity of manhood, not only by mere men of the world, or silly coxcombs, but by people who should have known better. Even Sir William Temple, though so enthusiastic about his fruit-trees, tells us that he will not enter upon any account of flowers, having only pleased himself with seeing or smelling them, and not troubled himself with the care of them, which he observes "is more the ladies part than the men's." Sir William makes some amends for this almost contemptuous allusion to flowers in particular by his ardent appreciation of the use of gardens and gardening in general. He thus speaks of their attractions and advantages: "The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of the smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking, but above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favor and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease of the body and mind." Again: "As gardening has been the inclination of kings and the choice of philosophers, so it has been the common favorite of public and private men, a pleasure of the greatest and the care of the meanest; and indeed an employment and a possession for which no man is too high or too low." This is just and liberal; though I can hardly help still feeling a little sore at Sir William's having implied in the passage previously quoted, that the care of flowers is but a feminine occupation. As an elegant amusement, it is surely equally well fitted for all lovers of the beautiful, without reference to their sex.
It is not women and children only who delight in flower-gardens. Lord Bacon and William Pitt and the Earl of Chatham and Fox and Burke and Warren Hastings--all lovers of flowers--were assuredly not men of frivolous minds or of feminine habits. They were always eager to exhibit to visitors the beauty of their parterres. In his declining years the stately John Kemble left the stage for his garden. That sturdy English yeoman, William Cobbett, was almost as proud of his beds of flowers as of the pages of his Political Register. He thus speaks of gardening:
"Gardening is a source of much greater profit than is generally imagined; but, merely as an amusement or recreation it is a thing of very great value. It is not only compatible with but favorable to the study of any art or science; it is conducive to health by means of the irresistible temptation which it offers to early rising; to the stirring abroad upon one's legs, for a man may really ride till he cannot walk, sit till he cannot stand, and lie abed till he cannot get up. It tends to turn the minds of youth from amusements and attachments of a frivolous and vicious nature, it is a taste which is indulged at home; it tends to make home pleasant, and to endear to us the spot on which it is our lot to live,--and as to the expenses attending it, what are all these expenses compared with those of the short, the unsatisfactory, the injurious enjoyment of the card-table, and the rest of those amusements which are sought from the town." Cobbett's English Gardener.
"Other fine arts," observes Lord Kames, "may be perverted to excite irregular and even vicious emotions: but gardening, which inspires the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot fail to promote every good affection. The gaiety and harmony of mind it produceth, inclining the spectator to communicate his satisfaction to others, and to make them happy as he is himself, tend naturally to establish in him a habit of humanity and benevolence."
Every thoughtful mind knows how much the face of nature has to do with human happiness. In the open air and in the midst of summer-flowers, we often feel the truth of the observation that "a fair day is a kind of sensual pleasure, and of all others the most innocent." But it is also something more, and better. It kindles a spiritual delight. At such a time and in such a scene every observer capable of a religious emotion is ready to exclaim--
Oh! there is joy and happiness in every thing I see,
Which bids my soul rise up and bless the God that blesses me