that his mind was stored with all the fire, and all the graces of
ancient literature. Mr. Pope's attachment to _gardens_, appears not only
in his letter to Martha Blount, describing Sir W. Raleigh's seat--but in
his own garden at Twickenham, (where, as Mr. Loudon feelingly observes,
_only the soil of which now remains_)--and in his letter to Mr. Blount,
describing his grotto--but it also bursts forth in many passages
throughout his works--and in his celebrated _Guardian_ (No. 173), which
attacks, with the keenest wit, "our study to recede from nature," in our
giants made out of yews, and lavender pigs with sage growing in their
bellies. His epistle to Lord Burlington confirms the charms he felt in
studying nature. Mr. Mason, in a note to his English Garden, says, "I
had before called Bacon the prophet, and Milton, the herald of true
taste in gardening. The former, because, in developing the constituent
properties of a princely garden, he had largely expatiated upon that
adorned natural wildness which we now deem the essence of the art. The
latter, on account of his having made this natural wildness the leading
idea in his exquisite description of Paradise. I here call Addison,
_Pope_, Kent, &c. the champions of this true taste." As Mr. Mason has
added an _&c._, may we not add to these respected names, that of honest
old Bridgman? It was the determination of Lord Byron (had his life been
longer spared), to have erected, at his own expence, a monument to
Pope.[79] We can gather even from his rapid and hurried "Letter on the
Rev. W. L. Bowles's Strictures," his attachment to the high name of
Pope:--"If Lucretius had not been spoiled by the Epicurean system, we
should have had a far superior poem to any now in existence. As mere
poetry, it is the first of Latin poems. What then has ruined it? His
ethics. Pope has not this defect; his moral is as pure as his poetry is
glorious."--"Pope's charities were his own, and they were noble and
extensive, far beyond his fortune's warrant."--"I have loved and
honoured the fame and name of that illustrious and unrivalled man, far
more than my own paltry renown, and the trashy jingle of the crowd of
schools and upstarts, who pretend to rival, or even surpass him. Sooner
than a single leaf should be torn from _his_ laurel, it were better that
all which these men, and that I, as one of their set, have ever
written, should
Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam, or Soho."
"The most _perfect_ of our poets, and the purest of our moralists."--"He
is the _moral_ poet of all civilization; and, as such, let us hope that
he will one day be the national poet of mankind. He is the only poet
that never shocks; the only poet whose _faultlessness_ has been made his
reproach. Cast your eye over his productions; consider their extent, and
contemplate their variety:--pastoral, passion, mock-heroic, translation,
satire, ethics,--all excellent, and often perfect. If his great charm be
his _melody_, how comes it that foreigners adore him even in their
diluted translations?"[80]
Mr. Mason has also farther recorded the resplendent fame of this
celebrated man; for in his _Musaeus_, a monody to the memory of Pope, he
invokes the shades of Chaucer, Spencer, and Milton, to do homage to his
departing spirit:--
----to cheer thee at this rueful time
While black death doth on thy heart-strings prey.
So may we greet thee with a nobler strain,
When soon we meet for aye in yon star-sprinkled plain.
Milton thus begins _his_ homage:--
Thrice hail, thou heaven-taught warbler, last and best
Of all the train! Poet, in whom conjoin'd
All that to ear, or heart, or head, could yield
Rapture; harmonious, manly, clear, sublime!
Accept this gratulation: may it cheer
Thy sinking soul; or these corporeal ills
Ought daunt thee, nor appal. Know, in high heav'n
Fame blooms eternal on that spirit divine,
Who builds immortal verse."[81]
Sir E. Brydges, in his "Letters on the Genius of Lord Byron," thus
characterizes the grace and sweetness of his pathetic powers, in his
_Eloisa_:--"When either his passions or imaginations _were_ roused, they
were deep, strong, and splendid. Notwithstanding _Eloisa_ was an
historical subject, his invention of circumstances of detail, his
imagery, the changes and turns of passion, the brilliancy of hues thrown
upon the whole, the eloquence, the tenderness, the fire, the inimitable
grace and felicity of language, were all the fruits of creative genius.
This poem stands alone in its kind; never anticipated, and never likely
to be approached hereafter."
Young uttered this sublime apostrophe when the death of Pope was first
announced to him:--
_Thou, who couldst make immortals_, art thou dead?
Of his _Essay on Man_, the Nouveau Dict. Hist. Portatif thus
speaks:--"Une metaphysique lumineuse, ornee des charmes de la poesie,
une morale touchante, dont les lecons penetrent le coeur et
convainquent l'esprit, des peintures vives, ou l'homme apprend a se
connoitre, pour apprendre a deviner meilleur; tels sont les principaux
caracteres qui distinguent le poeme Anglois. Son imagination est
egalement sage et feconde, elle prodigue les pensees neunes, et donne le
piquant de la nouveante, aux pensees anciennes; il embelloit les
matieres les plus seches, par la coloris d'une elocution noble, facile,
energeque, variee avec un art infini."
In the gardens of Stowe is the following inscription to
ALEXANDER POPE,
Who, uniting the correctness of judgment
To the fire of genius,
By the melody and power of his numbers,
Gave sweetness to sense, and grace to philosophy.
He employed the pointed brilliancy of his wit
To chastise the vices,
And the eloquence of poetry
To exalt the virtues of human nature;
And, being without a rival in his own age,
Imitated and translated with a spirit equal to the originals,
The best Poets of antiquity.
WILLIAM KENT, whose portrait appears in Mr. Dallaway's rich edition of
the Anecdotes of Painting. Kent, with Bridgman, Pope, and Addison, have
been termed the fathers of landscape gardening.[82] Mr. Walpole, after
reviewing the old formal style of our gardens, in language which it is
painful to me thus only to advert to, instead of copying at length, (for
I am fully "aware of the mischiefs which generally ensue in _meddling_
with the productions of genius"); and after stating that when _nature_
was taken into the plan, every step pointed out new beauties, and
inspired new ideas: "at that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to
taste the charms of landscape, bold and opiniative enough to dare and to
dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the
twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence, and saw that all
nature was a garden. Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the
arts of landscape on the scenes he handled. But of all the beauties he
added to the face of this beautiful country, none surpassed his
management of water. Thus, dealing in none but the colours of nature,
and catching its most favourable features, men saw a new creation
opening before their eyes." And again he calls him "the inventor of an
art that realizes painting, and improves nature: Mahomet imagined an
elysium, but Kent created many." The greatest of all authorities tells
us, that in Esher's peaceful grove, both
Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love.
Mr. Mason, in his English Garden, thus panegyrises his elysian scenes:--
---- Kent, who felt
The pencil's power; but fix'd by higher hopes
Of beauty than that pencil knew to paint,
Work'd with the living lives that _nature_ lent,
And realized his landscapes.
Mr. Pope, as well as Kent, would, and Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Mason, must
each of them have read with high approbation the following remark of the
late Sir Uvedale Price:--"the noble and varied works of the eminent
painters of every age and every country, and those of their supreme
mistress, Nature, should be the great models of imitation."
Mr. Whateley paints in glowing language, the genius of Kent, both at
Stowe, and at Claremont. Mr. George Mason thus honestly and finely
pleads for him:--"According to my own ideas, all that has since been
done by the most deservedly admired designers, as Southcote, Hamilton,
Lyttleton, Pitt, Shenstone, Morris, for themselves, and by Wright for
others, all that has been written on the subject, even the gardening
didactic poem, and the didactic essay on the picturesque, have proceeded
from Kent. Had Kent never exterminated the bounds of regularity, never
actually traversed the way to freedom of manner, would any of these
celebrated artists have found it of themselves? Theoretic hints from the
highest authorities, had evidently long existed without sufficient
effect. And had not these great masters actually executed what Kent's
example first inspired, them with, the design of executing, would the
subsequent writers on gardening have been enabled to collect materials
for precepts, or stores for their imaginations? Mr. Price acknowledges
himself an admirer of the water-scene at Blenheim. Would it ever have
appeared in its present shape, if no Kent had previously abolished the
stiffness of canals! If this original artist had barely rescued the
liquid element from the constraint of right lines and angles, that
service alone would have given him an indubitable claim to the respect
of posterity." The Rev. Mr. Coventry, in his admirable exposure of the
grotesque absurdities in gardening, (being No. 15 of the World) thus
speaks of Kent:--"The great Kent at length appeared in behalf of nature,
declared war against the taste in fashion, and laid the axe to the root
of artificial evergreens. Gardens were no longer filled with yews in the
shape of giants, Noah's ark cut in holly, St. George and the Dragon in
box, cypress lovers, laurustine bears, and all that race of root-born
monsters which flourished so long, and looked so tremendous round the
edges of every grass-plat. The great master above mentioned, truly the
disciple of nature, imitated her in the agreeable wildness and beautiful
irregularity of her plans, of which there are some noble examples still
remaining, that abundantly show the power of his creative genius." Mr.
Dallaway, when treating on architecture, in his Anecdotes of the Arts,
says, "Kent designed the noble hall at Holkham, terminated by a vast
staircase, producing, in the whole, an imposing effect of grandeur not
to be equalled in England." Kent died in 1748. He was a contemporary
therefore of Horace Walpole. He was buried in the vault at Chiswick,
belonging to his friend and patron, Lord Burlington.
BRIDGMAN'S portrait was a private plate. It exhibited a kind-hearted,
hale old countenance. As he has the honour of being classed with Mr.
_Addison_, and with _Pope_, and _Kent_, as one of the champions who
established the picturesque scenery of landscape gardening, (which
_Bacon_, and _Spencer_, and _Milton_, as hath been observed, foresaw)
his portrait must surely be interesting. The engraved portrait which I
saw of him more than fifty years ago, made then a strong impression on
me. I think it was an etching. It marked a venerable healthy man. I
neither recollect its painter nor engraver; and it is so scarce, that
neither Mr. Smith, of Lisle Street, nor Mr. Evans, of Great Queen
Street, the intelligent collectors and illustrators of Granger, have
been able to obtain it. Perhaps it will be discovered that it was a
private plate, done at the expence of his generous and noble employer,
Lord Cobham. Of this once able and esteemed man, I can procure little
information. The Encycl. of Gardening says, "Lord Cobham seems to have
been occupied in re-modelling the grounds at _Stowe_, about the same
time that Pope was laying out his gardens at Twickenham. His lordship
began these improvements in 1714, _employing Bridgman_, whose plans and
views for altering old Stowe from the most rigid character of the
ancient style to a more open and irregular design, are still in
existence. Kent was employed a few years afterwards, first to paint the
hall, and afterwards in the double capacity of architect and
landscape-gardener; and the finest scenes there are his creation." The
finest views of Stowe gardens were drawn by Rigaud, and published by
_Sarah Bridgman_, in 1739. The fine and magnificent amphitheatre at the
Duke of Newcastle's, at Claremont, was designed, I believe, by Bridgman.
When Queen Caroline added nearly three hundred acres from Hyde Park to
the gardens at Kensington, they were laid out by him. He also laid out
the gardens at Shardeloes, near Amersham. Mr. Walpole thus mentions
Bridgman, after alluding to the shears having been applied to the lovely
wildness of nature: "Improvements had gone on, till _London_ and _Wise_
had stocked our gardens with giants, animals, monsters, coats of arms,
and mottos, in yew, box and holly. Absurdity could go no farther, and
the tide turned. _Bridgman_, the next fashionable designer of gardens,
was far more chaste; and whether from good sense, or that the nation had
been struck and reformed by the admirable paper in the Guardian, No.
173, he banished verdant sculpture, and did not even revert to the
square precision of the foregoing age. He enlarged his plans, disdained
to make every division tally to its opposite; and though he still
adhered much to straight walks with high clipped hedges, they were only
his great lines, the rest he diversified by wilderness and with loose
groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges. I have observed
in the garden at Gubbins, in Hertfordshire, many detached thoughts, that
strongly indicate the dawn of modern taste. As his reformation gained
footing, he ventured farther, and in the royal garden at Richmond, dared
to introduce cultivated fields, and even morsels of a forest appearance,
by the sides of those endless and tiresome walks that stretched out of
one into another without intermission. But this was not till other
innovators had broke loose too from rigid symmetry. But the capital
stroke, the leading step to all that has followed, was (_I believe the
first thought was Bridgman's_) the destruction of walls for boundaries,
and the invention of fosses,--an attempt then deemed so astonishing,
that the common people called them ha! ha's! to express their surprise
at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk.[83] One of the
first gardens planted in this simple though still formal style, was my
father's at Houghton. It was laid out by Mr. Eyre, an imitator of
Bridgman."
PHILIP MILLER died at the age of eighty, and was emphatically styled by
foreigners _hortulanorum princeps_. Switzer bears testimony to his
"usual generosity, openness and freedom." Professor Martyn says, "he
accumulated no wealth from his respectable connection with the great, or
from the numerous editions of his works. He was of a disposition too
generous, and too careless of money, to become rich, and in all his
transactions observed more attention to integrity and honest fame, than
to any pecuniary advantages." There is a finely engraved portrait of Mr.
Miller, by Maillet, prefixed to the "Dictionnaire des Jardiniers, de
Philipe Miller, traduit de l'Anglois," en 8 tom. 4to. Paris, 1785.
Dr. Pulteney says of him, "He raised himself by his merit from a state
of obscurity to a degree of eminence, but rarely, if ever before,
equalled in the character of a gardener." Mr. Loudon (in that "varied
and voluminous mass of knowledge," his Encyclopaedia), thus
remarks:--"Miller, during his long career, had no considerable
competitor, until he approached the end of it, when several writers took
the advantage of his unwearied labours of near half a century, and fixed
themselves upon him, as various marine insects do upon a decaying
shell-fish. I except Hitt and Justice, who are both originals, as is
also Hill, after his fashion, but his gardening is not much founded in
experience." The sister of Mr. Miller married Ehret, whose fine taste
and botanical accuracy, and whose splendid drawings of plants, are the
finest ornaments of a botanical library.
Mr. Miller fixed his residence adjoining that part of Chelsea
church-yard where he lies interred. He died December 18, 1771. Mr.
Johnson gives a list of his writings, and of the different editions of
his celebrated Dictionary, which he terms "this great record of our
art." He farther does full justice to him, by associating his name, at
p. 147 and p. 151, with that of "the immortal Swede, whose master mind
reduced the confusion and discord of botany to harmony." He calls Miller
"the perfect botanist and horticulturist."[84] The following spirited
tribute to Mr. Miller, appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for June,
1828:--
"_Chelsea, June 5._
"MR. URBAN,--In the first volume, page 250, of the second edition of
_Faulkner's History of Chelsea_, just published, which contains a very
copious fund of historical, antiquarian, and biographical information, I
find inserted the monument and epitaph of Philip Miller, who was so
justly styled 'the prince of horticulture' by contemporary botanists,
and whose well-earned fame will last as long as the sciences of botany
and horticulture shall endure. The epitaph of this distinguished man is
correctly given; but the historian appears not to have duly appreciated,
if he was even aware of, the circumstances which induced the Fellows of
the Linnaean and Horticultural Societies of London to erect this grateful
tribute of respectful esteem to him, who in his life-time, had done more
than any individual, ancient or modern, towards enlarging the boundaries
of the science of horticulture, and very extensively the far more
difficult one of botany likewise. These he accomplished in the numerous
editions of his unrivalled Dictionary, and in his elaborate
introductions to botanical knowledge.
"The reasons which induced the above-mentioned societies to erect the
monument in question, were, chiefly, because neither monument, nor tomb,
nor even any recording public notice whatever (the 'monumentum aere
perennius' of his own immortal works excepted) had previously been
provided by any one.
"The relatives of Miller were very few; he had no family, save two sons,
one of whom died early, and the other, Charles Miller, at the age of 78,
who spent the greater part of his long life in India, and returned not
until after his father's funeral; and over his grave, in the old
church-yard of Chelsea, a stone and sculptured brass record his name and
age and parentage, together with that of his aged and more distinguished
sire. This stone, too, was placed by the above-mentioned public-spirited
societies, (unto both which the writer has the honour to belong) at the
same time as the monument, stated by Faulkner, to the never-dying fame
of the father.
"But it is even now scarcely known, that when those meritorious
testimonials of public gratitude were showered over the memory of Philip
Miller, who had laboured so long and so successfully in the sciences
which he loved, there was only one individual in existence, and that a
very aged person, who had seen and attended the funeral of Miller, and
who alone could point out the very spot where the 'Prince of
Horticulture' was inhumed. This venerable person's name was Goodyer; he
was the parish clerk of Chelsea church for half a century, and died as
such in 1818, at the great age of ninety-four.
"Nevertheless, though last, it should not be concealed that I myself had
actually stated and published, in the winter of 1794-5, the neglectful
and opprobrious fact of Miller's having no single grave-stone, much less
a monument, nor even one funeral line, to designate the spot where
rested in its 'narrow house' the mortal relics of so great a man; see my
Observations on the Genus Mesembryanthemum, p. 311-14; and, as every
reader may not possess that publication, the following extract from it
is added:--
"'So much for Miller; he, alas! who pleased so well, or, rather let me
say, he who instructed and edified so much, and was even caressed by the
great while living, now lies, forgotten by his friends, inhumed amongst
the common undistinguished dead, in the bleak cold yard of Chelsea
church, the very theatre of his best actions, the physic gardens of the
Worshipful Company of Apothecaries, at Chelsea, not half a mile distant,
without a tomb! without a stone! nay, destitute of a single line to mark
the spot where rests, retired from all its cares and useful toils, the
time-worn frame of the 'Prince of Horticulture!' How are those
discerning foreigners, who so meritoriously rendered the language of his
Dictionary into their own, to judge of this? by what measure are they to
estimate the fact? Miller was the author of several publications,
besides the very numerous editions of his Dictionary and Kalendar.'
Yours, &c.
"A. H. HAWORTH."
SIR JOHN HILL. His works are many of them enumerated in the Encyclo. of
Gardening. The most full list is in Weston's Catalogue. His portrait is
engraved in metz by Houston, from after Coates. It is an oval, with a
_solitaire_. A short account of his life and writings was published at
Edinburgh in 1779. The most general account of him is in Hutchinson's
Biog. Medica. 2 vols. 8vo. See also the Biog. Dramatica, 2nd edit.
1782.
BATTY LANGLEY was born at Twickenham, where he resided. He was the
author of,
1. Practical Geometry, 1726.
2. New Principles of Gardening, or the laying out and planting
parterres, groves, wildernesses, labyrinths, avenues, parks, &c. cuts,
1728, 4to.
3. The sure Method of Improving Estates by Trees, 8vo. One of his
chapters is "On the magnitude and prodigious Growth of Trees."
4. Pomona, or the Fruit Gardener, _with plates_, fol. 1729. At the end
is a letter to Mr. Langley, on Cyder, from Hugh Stafford, Esq. of Pynes.
There is a 4to. metz portrait of Mr. Langley, with the name of
Carwirtham, as the engraver or print-seller, 1741.
SIR WILLIAM WATSON, an eminent physician, who died in 1787, wrote
1. On the Culture of Mushrooms. In vol. 42 and 43 of the Phil. Trans.
2. Account of the Remains of Tradescant's Garden. In vol. 46 of the
Phil. Trans.
3. Account of the Bishop of London's Garden, at Fulham. In vol. 47 of
the Phil. Trans. besides many valuable papers in several volumes of
these Transactions.
He had the pleasure of introducing _Kalm_, as well as _Pallas_, to most
of the curious gardens in the environs of London. On the first
establishment of the British Museum, he was most active in furnishing
its garden, with no fewer than six hundred plants. His house (as Dr.
Pulteney observes) "became the resort of the most ingenious and
illustrious experimental philosophers that England could boast." Dr.
Pulteney has closed a very liberal memoir of him, by inserting Dr.
Garthshore's testimony to the humane feeling, the social politeness, and
benignity of Sir William. His portrait is painted by Abbot, and engraved
by Ryder, 1791. There is a full account of him in Chalmers.
The Rev. WILLIAM HANBURY, the intimate friend of Churchill, and of
Lloyd, in his singular "History of the Charitable Foundations at Church
Langton," (and which exhibits his own benevolent heart, and great love
for planting and gardening) mentions, at page 185, a full-length
portrait of himself, by Penny. Had there been any other portrait of him,
it is likely Mr. Nicholls would have mentioned it in his Leicestershire,
for that gentleman, as well as Joseph Cradock, Esq. (both of whom are
lately deceased), would have been most likely to have known, if any
other portrait of this zealous planter did exist; so would Dr. Thomas
Warton, who always spoke of Mr. Hanbury as a generous, disinterested,
and benevolent man. Earlom engraved, in 1775, a three-quarter
metzotinto, from the above portrait by Penny. Mr. Hanbury also published
"A Complete Body of Planting and Gardening;" 2 vols. folio. Also, "An
Essay on Planting, and a Scheme to make it conducive to the Glory of
God, and the Advantage of Society;" Oxford, 8vo. 1s. 1758. And "The
Gardener's New Calendar;" 8vo. 1758.