[88] Sir Uvedale thus expresses his own sensations when viewing some of these plantations:—"The inside fully answers to the dreary appearance of the outside; of all dismal scenes it seems to me the most likely for a man to hang himself in; he would, however, find some difficulty in the execution, for amidst the endless multitude of stems, there is rarely a single side branch to which a rope could be fastened. The whole wood is a collection of tall naked poles.... Even its gloom is without solemnity; it is only dull and dismal; and what light there is, like that of hell,
Serves only to discover scenes of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades."
[89] This observation confirms what Sir U. Price so pointedly enforces throughout the whole of his causticly sportive letter to Mr. Repton: "that the best landscape painters would be the best landscape gardeners, were they to turn their minds to the practical part; consequently, a study of their works, the most useful study to an improver."—And that "Van Huysum would be a much better judge of the merits and defects of the most dressed scene—of a mere flower garden,—than a gardener."
[90] Mr. Browne was not an author; yet the title of the present volume is "On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening." Neither was old Bridgman nor Kent authors on this subject; still I could not prevail on myself to pass over such names in total silence.
[91] Mr. Clive resided at Moreton-Say, near Market-Drayton. He was a prebend of Westminster. Integrity marked every action of his life. In his village, scarcely a poor man existed. His kindness and benevolence to the poor, could only be equalled by his friendly hospitality and kind feeling to the more affluent in his neighbourhood:
Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour,
Follow thee up to joy and bliss for ever.
Miss Seward thus concludes one of her letters to him:—"I wish none were permitted to enter the lists of criticism but those who feel poetic beauty as keenly as yourself, and who have the same generous desire that others should feel it." I mention Mr. Clive with gratitude, from a recollection of kindnesses received from him at a very early period of my life, and which were of such a nature, as could not fail to animate the mind of a young man to studious exertions. Archdeacon Plimley (now the truly venerable Archdeacon Corbet, and who has been so long an honour to his native county), in his Agricultural Survey of Shropshire, respectfully introduces Mr. Clive's name; and when he addressed his charge to the diocese of Hereford, in 1793, one really cannot but apply to Mr. Clive, what he so eloquently enforces in that charge to each clergyman:—"to cultivate a pure spirit within their own bosoms; to be in every instance the right-hand neighbour to each parishioner; their private adviser, their public monitor, their example in christian conduct, their joy in health, their consolation in sickness." In the same vault with Mr. Archdeacon Clive, lies buried Robert Lord Clive, conqueror of Plassy: on whose death appeared these extempore lines, by a man of distinction, a friend to Lord Clive:—
Life's a surface, slippery, glassy,
Whereon tumbled Clive of Plassy;
All the wealth the east could give,
Brib'd not death to let him live:
There's no distinction in the grave
'Twixt the nabob and the slave.
His lordship's death, in 1774, was owing to the same cause which hastened that of the most worthy of men, Sir Samuel Romilly—from shattered and worn out nerves;—from severe study in the latter, and from the burning climate of the east in the former. Had Lord Clive lived a few years longer, he would have enriched the whole neighbourhood round his native spot. His vigorous, ardently-gifted, and penetrating mind, projected plantations and other improvements, that could only have been conceived by such minds as Olivier de Serres, or by Sully, or by our own Evelyn. He was in private life beloved. He was generous, social and friendly; and if ever charity to the poor warmed the breast of any mortal, it warmed that of Lord Clive. Few men had more kind affections than Lord Clive.
[92] The following passage from a favourite book of Dr. Darwin's, (the System of Nature, by Linnæus) will well apply to that searching and penetrating mind, which so strongly possessed him through life.—"How small a part of the great works of nature is laid open to our eyes, and how many things are going on in secret which we know nothing of! How many things are there which this age first was acquainted with! How many things that we are ignorant of will come to light when all memory of us shall be no more! for nature does not at once reveal all her secrets. We are apt to look on ourselves as already admitted into the sanctuary of her temple; we are still only in the porch." How full of grace, of tenderness, and passion, is that elegy, which he composed the night he feared a life he so passionately loved (Mrs. Pole, of Radburn,) was in imminent danger, and when he dreamed she was dead: