FOOTNOTES:


[1] Few persons have shewn more attachment to family portraits than Miss Seward. This is strongly exemplified in several bequests in her will; not only in her bequest to Emma Sneyd, and in that to Mrs. Powys, but also in the following:—"The miniature picture of my late dear friend, Mr. Saville, drawn in 1770, by the late celebrated artist Smart, and which at the time it was taken, and during many successive years, was an exact resemblance of the original, I bequeath to his daughter, Mrs. Smith, who I know will value and preserve it as a jewel above all prize; and in case of her previous demise, I bequeath the said precious miniature to her daughter, Mrs. Honora Jager, exhorting the said Honora Jager, and her heirs, into whose hands soever it may fall, to guard it with sacred care from the sun and from damp, as I have guarded it, that so the posterity of my valued friend may know what, in his prime, was the form of him whose mind through life, by the acknowledgment of all who knew him, and could discern the superior powers of talent and virtue, was the seat of liberal endowment, warm piety, and energetic benevolence."

Being thus on the subject of portraits, let me remark, that it is not always that we meet with a faithful likeness. A review of Mad. de Genlis's Petrarch et Laure, justly observes, that "it is doubtful if any of the portraits of Petrarch, which still remain, were painted during his life-time. However that may be, it is impossible to trace in them, either the elevation of his mind, the fire of his imagination, or the pensive melancholy of his soul." In the Essays on Petrarch, by Ugo Foscolo, he informs us, that "Petrarch's person, if we trust his biographers, was so striking with beauties, as to attract universal admiration. They represent him with large and manly features, eyes full of fire, a blooming complexion, and a countenance that bespoke all the genius and fancy that shone forth in his works." Do we yet know one really good likeness of Mary Queen of Scots?

[2] It has often struck me (perhaps erroneously), that the attachment which the great Sully evinced for gardens, even to the last period of his long-protracted life, (eighty-two), might in some degree have been cherished or increased from the writings of the great Lord Bacon. When this illustrious duke retired to his country seats, wounded to the heart by the baseness of those who had flattered him when Henry was alive, his noble and honest mind indulged in the embellishment of his gardens. I will very briefly quote what history relates:—"The life he led in his retreat at Villebon, was accompanied with grandeur and even majesty, such as might be expected from a character so grave and full of dignity as his. His table was served with taste and magnificence; he admitted to it none but the nobility in his neighbourhood, some of the principal gentlemen, and the ladies and maids of honour, who belonged to the duchess of Sully. He often went into his gardens, and passing through a little covered alley, which separated the flower from the kitchen garden, ascended by a stone staircase (which the present duke of Sully has caused to be destroyed), into a large walk of linden trees, upon a terrace on the other side of the garden. It was then the taste to have a great many narrow walks, very closely shaded with four or five rows of trees, or palisadoes. Here he used to sit upon a settee painted green, amused himself by beholding on the one side an agreeable landscape, and on the other a second alley on a terrace extremely beautiful, which surrounded a large piece of water, and terminated by a wood of lofty trees. There was scarce one of his estates, those especially which had castles on them, where he did not leave marks of his magnificence, to which he was chiefly incited by a principle of charity, and regard to the public good. At Rosny, he raised that fine terrace, which runs along the Seine, to a prodigious extent, and those great gardens, filled with groves, arbours, and grottos, with water-works. He embellished Sully with gardens, of which the plants were the finest in the world, and with a canal, supplied with fresh water by the little river Sangle, which he turned that way, and which is afterwards lost in the Loire. He erected a machine to convey the water to all the basons and fountains, of which the gardens are full. He enlarged the castle of La Chapelle d'Angillon, and embellished it with gardens and terraces."

These gardens somewhat remind one of these lines, quoted by Barnaby Gooche:

Have fountaines sweet at hand, or mossie waters,
Or pleasaunt brooke, that passing through the meads, is sweetly seene.

That fine gardens delighted Sully, is evident even from his own statement of his visit to the Duke d'Aumale's, at Anet, near Ivry, (where Henry and Sully fought in that famous battle), for he says,—"Joy animated the countenance of Madame d'Aumale the moment she perceived me. She gave me a most kind and friendly reception, took me by the hand, and led me through those fine galleries and beautiful gardens, which make Anet a most enchanting place." One may justly apply to Sully, what he himself applies to the Bishop of Evreaux: "A man for whom eloquence and great sentiments had powerful charms."