his Flora, says of him, "Mr. Rickets, of Hogsden, often remembered, the
best and most faithful florist now about London." Rea describes, in his
Flora, one hundred and ninety different kinds of tulips, and says, "All
these tulips, and _many others_, may be had of Mr. Rickets." Worlidge
thus speaks of him:--"he hath the greatest variety of the choicest
apples, pears, cherries, plums, apricots, peaches, malacolones,
noctorines, figgs, vines, currans, gooseberries, rasberries, mulberries,
medlars, walnuts, nuts, filberts, chesnuts, &c. that any man hath, and
can give the best account of their natures and excellencies." And again
he says, "the whole nation is obliged to the industry of the ingenious
Mr. George Rickets, gardner at Hoxton or Hogsden without Bishopsgate,
near London, at the sign of the Hand there; who can furnish any planter
with all or most of the fruit trees before mentioned, having been for
many years a most laborious and industrious collector of the best
species of all sorts of fruit from foreign parts. And hath also the
richest and most complete collection of all the great variety of
flower-bearing trees and shrubs in the kingdom. That there is not a day
in the year, but the trees, as well as the most humble plants, do there
yield ornaments for Flora; with all sorts of curious and pleasant
winter-greens, that seemed to perpetuate the spring and summer, from the
most humble myrtle, to the very true cedar of Libanus. Not without
infinite variety of tulips, auriculaes, anemones, gillyflowers, and
all other sorts of pleasant, and delicate flowers, that he may be truly
said to be the master-flowrist of England; and is ready to furnish any
ingenious person with any of his choicest plants."
JOHN COWEL appears to have been a noted gardener at Hoxton, about 1729.
He was the author of the "Curious and Profitable Gardener."
HUGH STAFFORD, ESQ. of Pynes, in Devonshire, who published, in 1729, "A
Treatise on Cyder Making, with a Catalogue of Cyder Apples of Character;
to which is prefixed, a Dissertation on Cyder, and Cyder-Fruit." Another
edition in 1753.
BENJAMIN WHITMILL, Sen. and Jun. Gardeners at Hoxton, published the
sixth edition, in small 8vo. of their "Kalendarium Universale: or, the
Gardener's Universal Calendar." The following is part of their
Preface:--"The greatest persons, in all ages, have been desirous of a
country retirement, where every thing appears in its native simplicity.
The inhabitants are religious, the fair sex modest, and every
countenance bears a picture of the heart. What, therefore, can be a more
elegant amusement, to a good and great man, than to inspect the
beautiful product of fields and gardens, when every month hath its
pleasing variety of plants and flowers. And if innocence be our greatest
happiness, where can we find it but in a country life? In fields and
gardens we have pleasures unenvied, and beauties unsought for; and any
discovery for the improvement of them, is highly praiseworthy. In the
growth of a plant, or a tree, we view the progress of nature, and ever
observe that all her works yield beauty and entertainment. To cultivate
this beauty, is a task becoming the wealthy, the polite, and the
learned; this is so generally understood, that there are few gentlemen
of late, who are not themselves their chief gardeners. And it certainly
redounds more to the honour and satisfaction of a gardener, that he is a
preserver and pruner of all sorts of fruit trees, than it does to the
happiness of the greatest general that he has been successful in killing
mankind."
SAMUEL TROWEL, of Poplar, published, in 1739, A New Treatise of
Husbandry and Gardening; 12mo. 2s. 6d. This was translated in Germain,
at Leipsig, 1750, in 8vo.
REV. FRANCIS COVENTRY, who wrote an admirable paper in the _World_, (No.
15,) on the absurd novelties introduced in gardens. He wrote Penshurst,
in Dodsley's Poems.
JAMES JUSTICE, ESQ. published the "Scot's Gardener's Director," 8vo. A
new edition, entitled "The _British_ Gardener's Director, chiefly
adapted to the Climate of the Northern Counties," was published at
_Edinburgh_, 1764, 8vo. The Encyclopaedia of Gardening calls his book
"an original and truly valuable work;" and in page 87, 846, and 1104,
gives some interesting particulars of this gentleman's passion for
gardening.
JOHN GIBSON, M.D. author of "The Fruit Gardener," to which he has
prefixed an interesting Preface on the Fruit Gardens of the Ancients. In
this Preface he also relates the origin of fruit gardens, by the
hermits, and monastic orders. In his Introduction, he says, that "every
kind of fruit tree seems to contend in spring, who shall best entertain
the possessor with the beauty of their blossoms. Mankind are always
happy with the prospect of plenty; in no other scene is it exhibited
with such charming variety, as in the fruit garden and orchard. Are
gentlemen fond of indulging their tastes? Nature, from the plentiful
productions of the above, regales them with a variety of the finest
flavours and exalted relishes. To cool us in the heat of summer, she
copiously unites the acid to an agreeable sweetness. Flowering shrubs
and trees are often purchased by gentlemen at a high price; yet not one
of them can compare in beauty with an _apple tree_, when beginning to
expand its blossoms."[52] Speaking of the greengage, he says, "its taste
is so exquisitely sweet and delicious, that nothing can exceed it." He
enlivens many of his sections on the cultivation of various fruits, by
frequent allusions to Theophrastus, Virgil, Pliny, and other _Rei
rustica scriptores_. His chapter on Pears, (the various kinds of which
possess "a profusion of sweets, heightened by an endless variety of
delicious flavours,") is particularly profuse. So is that on Apples.
JAMES RUTTER published, in 1767, Modern Eden, or the Gardener's
Universal Guide; 8vo.
JOHN DICKS published, in 1769, The New Gardener's Dictionary; in sixty
numbers, small folio, 30s. Blyth.
JAMES GARTON published, in 1769, The Practical Gardener; 8vo. 3s. Dilly.
---- WILDMAN published, in 1768, a Treatise on the Culture of Pear
Trees: to which is added, a Treatise on the Management of Bees; 12mo.
Dublin.
ANTHONY POWEL, ESQ. Gardener to George II. published The Royal Gardener;
12mo. 1769.
---- OCKENDEN, ESQ. published, in 1770, Letters, describing the Lake of
Killarney, and Rueness's Gardens; 8vo. Dublin.
THOMAS HITT published his Treatise on Fruit Trees, 8vo. 1775. A third
edition in 1768. Mr. Loudon calls it "an original work, valuable for its
mode of training trees." He also published, in 1760, a Treatise on
Husbandry; 8vo. 3s.
ADAM TAYLOR, Gardener to J. Sutton, Esq. at New Park, near Devizes,
published a Treatise on the Ananas, or Pine Apple: containing Plain and
Easy Directions for Raising this most excellent Fruit without Fire, and
in much higher perfection than from the Stove; to which are added, Full
Directions for Raising Melons. Devizes, 8vo. 1769.
JAMES MEADER, Gardener at Sion House, and afterwards to the Empress
Catharine. He published, in 1771, in 12mo. The Modern Gardener, &c. in a
manner never before published; selected from the Diary MSS. of the late
Mr. Hitt. Also, The Planter's Guide, or Pleasure Gardener's Companion;
with plates, 1779, oblong 4to.
RICHARD WESTON, ESQ. an amateur gardener, who has given, at the end of
his "Tracts on Practical Agriculture, and Gardening," 1762, 8vo. a
Catalogue of English Authors on Agriculture, Gardening, &c. There is
another edition in 1773, with additions. His intelligent Catalogue is
brought down to the end of the year 1772. This volume of Tracts contains
an infinity of ingenious and curious articles. One of the chapters
contains "A Plan for Planting all the Turnpike Roads in England with
Timber Trees."[53] He most zealously wishes to encourage planting. "I
believe (says this candid writer) that one of the principal reasons why
few persons plant, springs from a fearful conjecture that their days
will have been passed, before the forest can have risen. But let not the
parent harbour so selfish an idea; it should be his delight, to look
forward to the advantage which his children would receive from the
timber which he planted, contented if it flourished every year beneath
his inspection; surely there is much more pleasure in planting of trees,
than in cutting of them down. View but the place where a fine tree
stands, what an emblem does it afford of present beauty and of future
use; examine the spot after the noble ornament shall have been felled,
and see how desolate it will appear. Perhaps there is not a better
method of inducing youth to have an early inclination for planting,
than for fathers, who have a landed estate, to persuade those children
who are to inherit it, as soon as they come to years of discretion, to
make a small nursery, and to let them have the management of it
themselves; they will then see the trees yearly thriving under their
hands: as an encouragement to them, they should, when the trees are at a
fit growth to plant out, let them have the value of them for their
pocket money. This will, in their tender years, fix so strong an idea of
the value, and the great consequence of planting, as will never be
eradicated afterwards; and many youths, of the age of twenty-five,
having planted quick growing trees, may see the industry of their
juvenile years amply rewarded at that early age, a time when most young
men begin to know the value of money."[54] Mr. Pope, in one of his
letters to Mr. Allen, thus discovers his own generous mind:--"I am now
as busy in planting for myself as I was lately in planting for another.
I am pleased to think my trees will afford shade and fruit to others,
when I shall want them no more." Mr. Addison's admirable recommendation
of planting, forms No. 583 of the Spectator. He therein says, "When a
man considers that the putting a few twigs in the ground, is doing good
to one who will make his appearance in the world about fifty years
hence, or that he is perhaps making one of his own descendants easy or
rich, by so inconsiderable an expence; if he finds himself averse to it,
he must conclude that he has a poor and base heart. Most people are of
the humour of an old fellow of a college, who, when he was pressed by
the society to come into something that might redound to the good of
their successors, grew very peevish. _We are always doing_, says he,
_something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something
for us._"[55] Mr. Weston also published The Universal Botanist and
Nursery; 1770, 1774, 4 vols. 8vo. The Gardener and Planter's Calendar,
containing the Method of Raising Timber Trees, Fruit Trees, and Quicks
for Hedges; with Directions for Forming and Managing a Garden every
Month in the Year; also many New Improvements in the Art of Gardening;
8vo. 1773. Mr. Weston then appears to have lived at Kensington Gore. The
Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1806, says, that he died at
Leicester, in 1806, aged seventy-four. He was formerly a thread hosier
there. It gives an amusing and full list of his various publications,
particularly of his intended "Natural History of Strawberries."
GEORGE MASON. The best edition of his "Essay on Design in Gardening,"
appears to have been that of 1795, in 8vo. Two Appendixes were published
in 1798, which are said to have been written by Mr. U. Price. In Mr.
Nichols's fourth volume of Illustrations of the Literary History of the
Eighteenth Century, are some particulars of Mr. Mason. He published
Hoccleve's Poems, with a Glossary; an Answer to Thomas Paine; the Life
of Lord Howe; a Supplement to Johnson's Dictionary: in the ill-tempered
preface to which, he thus strangely speaks of that Dictionary:--"this
muddiness of intellect sadly besmears and defaces almost every page of
the composition." This is only a small instance of his virulence against
Johnson in this preface. One would have thought that Mr. Mason's
sarcasms would have been softened, or even subdued, by its glowing and
eloquent preface, which informs us that this great work was composed
"without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile
of favour." I am sorry to say, that Mr. Mason, even in the above Essay,
discovers, in three instances, his animosity to our "Dictionary writer,"
for so he calls Dr. Johnson. Mr. Boswell, speaking of Johnson's preface,
says, "We cannot contemplate without wonder, the vigorous and splendid
thoughts which so highly distinguish that performance;" and on the
Dictionary he observes, that "the world contemplated with wonder, so
stupendous a work, achieved by one man, while other countries had
thought such undertakings fit only for whole academies." Linnaeus and
Haller styled Ray's History of Plants, _opus immensi laboris_. One may
justly apply the same words to this Dictionary. It was well for Mr.
Mason that he escaped (what Miss Seward called) "the dead-doing
broadside of Dr. Johnson's satire." George Mason omits no opportunity of
censuring Mr. Whateley's Observations on Modern Gardening. In the above
Essay, he censures him in seven different pages, and in his distinct
chapter or division on this book of Mr. Whateley's, (consisting of
thirteen pages) there are no less than thirty-three additional sneers,
or faults, found with his opinions. He does not acknowledge in him one
single solitary merit, except at page 191. In page 160, he nearly, if
not quite, calls him a _fool_, and declares that _vanity_ is the passion
to which he is constantly sacrificing.[56] It would be an insult to any
one who has read Mr. Whateley's work, to endeavour to clear him from
such a virulent and ill-founded attack. Neither Dr. Johnson, with all
his deep learning, nor Mr. Whateley, with all the cultivated fancy of a
rich scholastic mind, would either of them have been able to comprehend,
or to understand, or even to make head or tail of the first half of Mr.
George Mason's poem, with which he closes the above edition of his
Essay. As he has been so caustically severe against Dr. Johnson, it
cannot be ungenerous if one applies to the above part of his own poem,
the language of a French critic on another subject:--"Le style en est
dur, et scabreux. Il semble que l'auteur a ramasse les termes les plus
extraordinaires pour se rendre inintelligible." Percy, Bishop of
Dromore, in vol. x. page 602, of the British Critic, has given a
critique of Mr. Mason's edition of Hoccleve, in which he chastises its
injustice, arrogance, and ignorance. Mr. Mason has been more liberal in
warmly praising Kent, and Shenstone, in acknowledging the great taste
and elegance of Mr. Thomas Warton, when the latter notices Milton's line
of
_Bosom'd high in tufted trees,_
which picturesque remark of Mr. Warton's could not have been excelled
even by the nice and critical pen of the late Sir U. Price; and when he
informs us, in more than one instance, of the great Earl of Chatham's
"turning his mind to the embellishment of rural nature."
THOMAS WHATELEY, on whose "Observations on Modern Gardening," the
Encyclopaedia of Gardening (that most comprehensive assemblage of every
thing delightful and curious in this art,) observes, "It is remarkable,
that so little is known of a writer, the beauty of whose style, and the
justness of whose taste, are universally acknowledged." The same work
further says, "his excellent book, so frequently referred to by all
succeeding writers on garden scenery, ought to be in the hands of every
man of taste." And the same work still further observes, that "its style
has been pronounced by Ensor, inimitable, and the descriptions with
which his investigations are accompanied, have been largely copied, and
amply praised by Alison, in his work On Taste. The book was soon
translated into the continental languages, and is judiciously praised in
the _Mercure de France_, _Journal Encyclopedique_, and Weiland's
_Journal_. G. Mason alone dissents from the general opinion, enlarging
on the very few faults or peculiarities which are to be found in the
book. Wheatley, or Whately (for so little is known of this eminent man,
that we have never been able to ascertain satisfactorily the orthography
of his name,) was proprietor of Nonsuch Park, in Surrey; and was
secretary to the Earl of Suffolk. He published only this work, soon
after which he died. After his death, some remarks on Shakspeare, from
his pen, were published in a small 12mo." A second edition of this
elegant little work was published in 1808, by Parson, Oxford; or
Rivington, St. Paul's; in which, the advertisement to the reader informs
us, that "the respectable author intended to have gone through eight or
ten of the principal characters of Shakspeare, but suspended his design,
in order to finish his Observations on Modern Gardening, first published
in the year 1770; immediately after which time, _he was engaged in such
an active scene of public life_, as left him but little leisure to
attend to the Belles Lettres; and in the year 1772 he died."[57]
His remarks on some of the characters of Shakspeare (whom, in his
_Observations_, he calls _the great master of nature_) breathe in many
of his pages, that fire, which he could have caught only from those of
the great poet. Such was his eagerness to complete his _Observations_,
that he for a short while "suspended his design" of examining other
characters of the poet, when the bright effusions of his genius "fled up
to the stars from whence they came." This elegant little work is merely
a fragment, nay, even an unfinished fragment. It must, then, cause deep
regret, that death should so prematurely have deprived us of that rich
treasure of animated thoughts, which, no doubt, would have sprung from
his further tracing the poet's deep and piercing knowledge of the human
heart. One may safely apply to Mr. Whateley, what he himself applies to
the poet:--"He had a genius to express all that his penetration could
discover." The Journal Encyclopedique, Juilliet, 1771, when speaking of
the French translation of Whateley's Observations, says, "On ne peut
gueres se faire une idee de ces jardins, si l'on n'a ete a Londres.
Accoutumes a la symetrie des notres, nous n'imaginons pas qu'on puisse
etablir une forme irreguliere, comme une regle principale: cependant
ceux qui sentent combien la noble simplicite de la nature est superieure
a tous les rafinemens symetriques de l'art, donneront peuetetre la
preference aux jardins Anglois. C'est l'effet que doit produire la
lecture de cet ouvrage, qui quoique destine aux amateurs et aux
compositeurs des jardins, offre aux gens de gout, aux artistes et
sur-tout aux peintres, des observations fines et singulieres sur
plusieurs effets de perspective et sur les arts en general; aux
philosophes, des reflections justes sur les affections de notre ame; aux
poetes, des descriptions exactes, quoique vives, des plus beaux jardins
d'Angleterre dans tous les genres, qui decelent dans l'Auteur un oeil
infiment exerce, une grande connoissance des beaux arts, une belle
imagination et un esprit accoutume a penser."
The "bloom of an orchard, the festivity of a hay field, and the carols
of harvest home," could not have met with a more cheerful and benevolent
pen than Mr. Whateley's; a love of country pervades many of his pages;
nor could any one have traced the placid scenery, or rich magnificence
of nature, with a happier pen than when he records the walk to the
cottage at Claremont, the grandeur and majesty of the scene at
_Blenheim_, or _Stowe_, _Persfield_, _Wotton_ in the vale of
Aylesbury--the rugged, savage, and craggy points of _Middleton Dale_, "a
chasm rent in the mountain by some convulsion of nature, beyond the
memory of man, or perhaps before the island was peopled," with its many
rills, springs, rivulets, and water-falls--the vast cliffs of rocks at
_Matlock_, _Bath_, that "scene of romantic magnificence; from such
scenes, probably, was conceived the wild imagination, in ancient
mythology, of the giants piling _Pelion_ upon _Ossa_; the loftiness of
the rocks, and the character of the _Derwent_, a torrent in which force
and fury prevail; the cascades in it are innumerable; before the water
is recovered from one fall, it is hurried down another; and its
agitation being thus increased by repeated shocks, it pushes on with
restless violence to the next, where it dashes against fragments of
rocks, or foams among heaps of stones which the stream has driven
together"--the dusky gloom at the iron forge, "close to the cascade of
the Weir, (between _Ross_ and _Monmouth_) where the agitation of the
current is increased by large fragments of rocks, which have been swept
down by floods from the banks, or shivered by tempests from the brow;
and the sullen sound, at stated intervals, from the strokes of the great
hammers in the forge, deadens the roar of the water-fall"--the solitude,
the loveliness, and the stillness of _Dovedale_, "the whole of which has
the air of enchantment; grotesque as chance can cast, wild as nature can
produce"--the monkish tomb-stones, and the monuments of benefactors long
since forgotten, which appear above the green sward, at _Tintern Abbey_,
with its maimed effigies, and sculpture worn with age and weather--his
view to the approach to Lord _Cadogan's_, near _Reading_--his feeling
and enchanting description of the _Leasowes_--"the wonderful efforts
which art has made at _Painshill_ to rival nature;" where the massy
richness of its hanging wood "gives an air of grandeur to the
whole"--the _Tinian_, and other lawns, and noble and magnificent views
in that vast sylvan scene _Hagley_, where, in a spot which once
delighted Mr. Pope, is inscribed an urn to his memory, "which, when
shewn by a gleam of moonlight through the trees, fixes that
thoughtfulness and composure to which the mind is insensibly led by the
rest of this elegant scene."
His section "Of the Seasons," where he descants on the _spirit_ of the
morning, the _excess_ of noon, or the _temperance_ of evening," must
strike every one by its felicity of style; and the reader may judge of
the rich pages which this book contains, even from what he says of
water:--"It accommodates itself to every situation; is the most
interesting object in a landscape, and the happiest circumstance in a
retired recess; captivates the eye at a distance, invites approach, and
is delightful when near; it refreshes an open exposure; it animates a
shade; cheers the dreariness of a waste, and enriches the most crowded
view; in form, in style, and in extent, may be made equal to the
greatest compositions, or adapted to the least; it may spread in a calm
expanse to soothe the tranquillity of a peaceful scene; or hurrying
along a devious course, add splendour to a gay, and extravagance to a
romantic, situation. So various are the characters which water can
assume, that there is scarcely an idea in which it may not concur, or an
impression which it cannot enforce; a deep stagnated pool, dank and dark
with shades which it dimly reflects, befits the seat of melancholy; even
a river, if it be sunk between two dismal banks, and dull both in motion
and colour, is like a hollow eye which deadens the countenance; and over
a sluggard, silent stream, creeping heavily along all together, hangs a
gloom, which no art can dissipate, nor even the sunshine disperse. A
gently murmuring rill, clear and shallow, just gurgling, just dimpling,
imposing silence, suits with solitude, and leads to meditation; a
brisker current, which wantons in little eddies over a bright sandy
bottom, or babbles among pebbles, spreads cheerfulness all around; a
greater rapidity, and more agitation, to a certain degree are animating;
but in excess, instead of wakening, they alarm the senses; the roar and
the rage of a torrent, its force, its violence, its impetuosity, tend to
inspire terror; that terror, which, whether as cause or effect, is so
nearly allied to sublimity."[58]