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 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;[16] with numerous other men of rank and science.[17] 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;—"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;[18] 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 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."[19] 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 expression, excellence of nature, sweetness of conversation, temperance of life, and constancy of death, made him so beloved by his friends, admired by his scholars, and honoured by the Athenians, passed his time wholly in his garden; there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and indeed no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind, and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of air, the pleasantness of smells, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercises of working or walking; but above all, the exemption from cares and solitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body and mind." When the industrious Switzer says:—"'Tis in the quiet enjoyment of rural delights, the refreshing and odoriferous breezes of garden air, that the deluge of vapours, and those terrors of hypochondraism, which crowd and oppress the head are dispelled." When the industrious and philosophic Bradley observes, that "though the trouble of the mind wears and destroys the constitution even of the most healthful body, all kinds of gardens contribute to health." When Pope,[20] who loved to breathe the sweet and fragrant air of gardens, in one of his letters says, "I am in my garden, amused and easy; this is a scene where one finds no disappointment." When that "universally esteemed and beloved man," the Prince de Ligne, declares, "Je voudrois échauffer tout l'univers de mon gôut pour les jardins. Il me semble qu'il est impossible, qu'un mechant puisse l'avoir. Il n'est point de vertus que Je ne suppose à celui qui aime à parler et à faire des jardins. Péres de famille, inspirez la jardinomanie à vos enfans.[21] When a taste for gardening (as Mr. Cobbet observes) "is much more innocent, more pleasant, more free from temptation to cost, than any other; so pleasant in itself! It is conducive to health, by means of the irresistible temptation which it offers to early rising; it tends to turn the minds of youth from amusements and attachments of a frivolous or vicious nature; it is a taste which is indulged at home; it tends to make home pleasant, and to endear us to the spot on which it is our lot to live." When Mr. Johnson forcibly paints the allurements to a love for this art, when concluding his energetic volume on gardening, by quoting from Socrates, that "it is the source of health, strength, plenty, riches, and of a thousand sober delights and honest pleasures."—And from Lord Verulam, that amid its scenes and pursuits, "life flows pure, and the heart more calmly beats." And when M. le V. H. de Thury, président de la Société d'Horticulture de Paris, in his Discours d'Installation says: "Dans tous les temps et dans tous les pays, les hommes les plus célèbres, les plus grands capitaines, les princes, et les rois, se sont livrés avec délices, et souvent avec passion, à la culture des plantes et des jardins." And among other instances he cites "Descartes, qui se livrait avec une égale ardeur à la science des astres et à la culture des fleurs de son jardin, et qui souvent, la nuit, quittait ses observations célestes pour étudier le sommeil et la floraison de ses plantes avant le lever du soliel."[22] Petrarch, too, who has enchanted every nation and every age, from his endeared Vaucluse, thus speaks of his garden: "I have formed two; I do not imagine they are to be equalled in all the world: I should feel myself inclined to be angry with fortune, if there were any so beautiful out of Italy. I have store of pleasant green walks, with trees shadowing them most sweetly." Indeed, what Cicero applies to another science, may well apply to horticulture: "nihil est agriculturæ melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine, nihil libero dignius." Let me close with a most brilliant name;—the last resource in the Candide of Voltaire is,—cultivate your garden.
In my transient review of the gardens of ancient times, at the commencement of the following work, I have not even glanced at those of the Saxons, in this island; when one should have thought that the majestic name of Alfred alone, would have made a search of this nature interesting, even if such search were unavailing. I have also inadvertently omitted any allusion to those of the Danes and the Normans. I have only then now to say, that Mr. Johnson's researches, as to these gardens, in pp. 31, 37, 38, 39 and 40 of his lately published History of English Gardening, with his elegant language and the flow of sentiment that pervades those pages, would make any search or review of mine presumptuous. In those pages, he dwells on the tendency which the then introduction of the christian religion had to soften the manners of the people, and by thus rendering them more domestic, gardening became an art congenial to their feelings; and whilst the country at large was devastated by war, the property of the religious establishments was held sacred, and varieties of vegetables preserved, which otherwise would soon have become extinct, if cultivated in less hallowed ground. He then traces the existence of many gardens, orchards, and vineyards, belonging to our monasteries, proving, that even in the time of the Danes, horticulture continued "silently to advance," and that at the time of the arrival of the Normans, gardens were generally in the possession of the laity, as well as of the ecclesiastics; and he refers to Doomsday Book for his assertion, that "there is no reason to doubt, that at this period, every house, from the palace to the cottage, was possessed of a garden of some size." He concludes with interesting references to the gardens, vineyards, and orchards, of the Abbot of Ely and other monks.
The above work of Mr. Johnson's is the result of original thought, and of an ardent and extended scientific research. Mine is a compilation, "made with a pair of scissors," to copy the words of Mr. Mathias, which he applies to a certain edition of Pope. I content myself, however, with the reflection of Mr. Walpole, that "they who cannot perform great things themselves, may yet have a satisfaction in doing justice to those who can."
Having alluded at pp. 71 and 120 to Dr. Alison, and having given at p. 211 Dr. Dibdin's tribute to him, I cannot omit reminding my reader, that the graceful language, the sublime and solemn thoughts, which this admirable divine has transfused into many of his Sermons on the Seasons, make one doubly feel the truth and propriety with which he has so liberally reviewed Mr. Whately's Observations on Modern Gardening.
