John Rose, head gardener to the Lord Essex, at Essex-house, in the Strand. He sent him to study the celebrated beauties in the gardens of Versailles. He became afterwards the chief gardener to Charles II., at the royal gardens in St. James's Park. His portrait may be seen at Kensington, in an oil painting, where he is presenting a pine to his Majesty, whilst on a visit to the Duchess of Cleveland, at Downey Court, Buckinghamshire. It has lately been engraved in mezzotinto. He was the author of "The English Vineyard Vindicated, and the Way of Making Wine in France;" first printed with Evelyn's French Gardener, in 1672, 12mo. Other editions in 1675, 1676, and 1690, in 8vo. The preface is by Evelyn, as well as The Art of Making Wine. Rose brought to great perfection dwarf fruit trees, in the gardens at Hampton Court, Carlton, and Marlborough House. Switzer thus speaks of him:—"He was esteemed to be the best of his profession in those days, and ought to be remembered for the encouragement he gave to a servant of his, that has since made the greatest figure that ever yet any gardener did, I mean Mr. London. Mr. Rose may be well ranked amongst the greatest virtuosos of that time, (now dead) who were all well pleased to accept of his company while living."
Charles Cotton. He published "The Planter's Manual," 12mo. 1675. There is prefixed to it a rural frontispiece, by Van Houe. Mr. Johnson properly calls him "one of the Scriptores minores of horticulture." His "devoted attachment to Izaak Walton, forms the best evidence we have of his naturally amiable disposition." His portrait is finely engraved in Mr. Major's extensively illustrated and most attractive editions of the Angler; a delightful book, exhibiting a "matchless picture of rural nature." Mr. Cotton's portrait is also well engraved in Zouch's Life of Walton; and in the many other curious and embellished editions of Walton and Cotton's Angler. He translated with such truth and spirit, the celebrated Essays of Montaigne, that he received from that superior critic, the Marquis of Halifax, a most elegant encomium. Sir John Hawkins calls it "one of the most valuable books in the English language." A complete list of Mr. Cotton's works appears in Watts's Bibl. Britt. When describing, in his Wonders of the Peake, the Queen of Scot's Pillar, he thus breaks out:—
Illustrious Mary, it had happy been,
Had you then found a cave like this to skreen
Your sacred person from those frontier spies,
That of a sovereign princess durst make prize,
When Neptune too officiously bore
Your cred'lous innocence to this faithless shore.
Oh, England! once who hadst the only fame
Of being kind to all who hither came
For refuge and protection, how couldst thou
So strangely alter thy good nature now,
Where there was so much excellence to move,
Not only thy compassion, but thy love?
'Twas strange on earth, save Caledonian ground,
So impudent a villain could be found,
Such majesty and sweetness to accuse;
Or, after that, a judge would not refuse
Her sentence to pronounce; or that being done,
Even amongst bloody'st hangmen, to find one
Durst, though her face was veil'd, and neck laid down,
Strike off the fairest head e'er wore a crown.
And what state policy there might be here,
Which does with right too often interfere,
I 'm not to judge: yet thus far dare be bold,
A fouler act the sun did ne'er behold.[68]
Plott, in his Staffordshire, calls Mr. Cotton "his worthy, learned, and most ingenious friend." Sir John Hawkins thus speaks of him:—"He was both a wit and a scholar; of an open, cheerful, and hospitable temper; endowed with fine talents for conversation, and the courtesy and affability of a gentleman." He farther thus speaks of one of his poems:—"It is not for their courtly and elegant turn, that the verses of Charles Cotton ought to be praised; there is such a delightful flow of feeling and sentiment, so much of the best part of our nature mixed up in them, and so much fancy displayed, that one of our most distinguished living poets has adduced several passages of his Ode upon Winter, for a general illustration of the characteristics of fancy." He must have possessed many endearing qualities, for the benevolent and pious Walton thus concludes a letter to his "most honoured friend, Charles Cotton, Esq.:"—"though I be more than a hundred miles from you, and in the eighty-third year of my age, yet I will forget both, and next month begin a pilgrimage to beg your pardon: for I would die in your favour, and till then will live, Sir, your most affectionate father and friend, Isaac Walton." One cannot wonder at the good old man wishing to visit the courteous and well-bred Mr. Cotton, and to enjoy the intercourse of hospitable urbanity, near the pastoral streams of the Dove, when he had received such an invitation as the following, addressed to his "dear and most worthy friend, Mr. Isaac Walton:"—
Whilst in this cold and blustering clime,
Where bleak winds howl and tempests roar,
We pass away the roughest time
Has been of many years before;
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 illustrious 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 Mecum;" 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.