a profound antiquary, and a truly worthy man. He died in 1800, aged 73,
at his chambers in the Temple, and was buried in the Temple church. The
attractive improvements in the gardens there, may be said to have
originated with him. He possibly looked on them as classic ground; for
in these gardens, the proud Somerset vowed to dye their white rose to a
bloody red, and Warwick prophesied that their brawl
----in the Temple garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.
He published,
1. Observations on the more Ancient Statutes, 4to. To the 5th
edition of which, in 1796, is prefixed his portrait.
2. The Naturalist's Calendar, 8vo.
3. A translation of Orosius, ascribed to Alfred, with notes, 8vo.
4. Tracts on the probability of reaching the North Pole, 4to.
5. In vol. vii. of the Archaeologia, is his paper On the Progress of
Gardening. It was printed as a separate tract by Mr. Nichols, price
1s. 6d.
6. Miscellanies on various subjects, 4to.
Mr. Nichols, in his Life of Bowyer, calls him "a man of amiable
character, polite, communicative and liberal;" and in the fifth volume
of his Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century,
he gives a neatly engraved portrait of Mr. Barrington, and some
memorials or letters of his. Mr. Boswell ("the cheerful, the pleasant,
the inimitable biographer of his illustrious friend"), thus relates Dr.
Johnson's wish to become acquainted with Mr. Barrington:--"Soon after he
had published his excellent Observations on the Statutes, Johnson
waited on that worthy and learned gentleman, and having told him his
name, courteously said, 'I have read your book, Sir, with great
pleasure, and wish to be better known to you.' Thus began an
acquaintance which was continued with mutual regard as long as Johnson
lived." John Harris, Esq. the learned author of Philological Enquiries,
thus speaks of Mr. Barrington's Observations on the Statutes:--"a
valuable work, concerning which it is difficult to decide, whether it is
more entertaining or more instructive."
JOSEPH CRADOCK, Esq. whose "Village Memoirs" display his fine taste in
landscape gardening. This feeling and generous-minded man, whose gentle
manners, polite learning, and excellent talents, entitled him to an
acquaintance with the first characters of the age, died in 1826, at the
great age of eighty-five. This classical scholar and polished gentleman,
who had (as a correspondent observes in the Gentleman's Magazine for
January, 1827) "the habit of enlivening and embellishing every thing
which he said with a certain lightning of eye and honied tone of voice,"
shone in the first literary circles, and ranked as his intimate and
valued friends (among many other enlightened persons), David Garrick,
and Warburton, Hurd, Johnson, Goldsmith, Percy, and Parr. Dr. Johnson
called him "a very pleasing gentleman." Indeed, he appears from every
account to have been in all respects an amiable and accomplished person.
He had the honour of being selected to dance a minuet with the most
graceful of all dancers, Mrs. Garrick, at the Stratford Jubilee. It was
to Mr. Cradock, that Dr. Farmer addressed his unanswerable Essay on the
Learning of Shakspeare. In acts of humanity and kindness, he was
surpassed by few. Pope's line of _the gay conscience of a life well
spent_, might well have been applied to Mr. Cradock. When in
Leicestershire, "he was respected by people of all parties for his
worth, and idolized by the poor for his benevolence." This honest and
honourable man, depicted his own mind in the concluding part of his
inscription, for the banks of the lake he formed in his romantic and
picturesque grounds, in that county:--
_Here on the bank Pomona's blossoms glow,
And finny myriads sparkle from below;
Here let the mind at peaceful anchor rest,
And heaven's own sunshine cheer the guiltless breast._[97]
In 1773 he partly took his "Zobeide" from an unfinished tragedy by
Voltaire. On sending a copy to Ferney, the enlightened veteran thus
concluded his answer: "You have done too much honour to an old sick man
of eighty. I am, with the most sincere esteem and gratitude,
"Sir, your obedient servant,
"VOLTAIRE."[98]
I cannot refrain from adding a short extract from the above quoted
magazine, as it brings to one's memory another much esteemed and worthy
man:--"Here, perhaps, it may be allowable to allude to the sincere
attachment between Mr. Cradock, and his old friend Mr. Nichols. For
very many years Mr. Nichols had been accustomed to pay Mr. Cradock an
annual visit at Gumley Hall; but on Mr. Cradock settling in London, the
intercourse became incessant, and we doubt not that the daily
correspondence which took place between them, contributed to cheer the
latter days of these two veterans in literature. They had both of them
in early life enjoyed the flattering distinction of an intimacy with the
same eminent characters; and to hear the different anecdotes elicited in
their animated conversations respecting Johnson and others, was indeed
an intellectual treat of no ordinary description. Mr. Cradock and Mr.
Nichols possessed a similarity in taste and judgment. They were both
endowed with peculiar quickness of comprehension, and with powers and
accuracy of memory rarely equalled." One may say of the liberal minded
Mr. Nichols, what Mr. Murphy said of Dr. Johnson, that his love of
literature was a passion that stuck to his last stand. The works of Mr.
Cradock have, since his decease, been published by Mr. J. B. Nichols, in
4 vols. 8vo. They contain his Essay on Gardening and Village Memoirs.
They are enriched by a miniature portrait of him, by Hone, in 1764, when
Mr. Cradock was in his prime of life, in his twenty-second year, and
when his piercing eyes and intelligent countenance, were thought to have
resembled those of Mr. Garrick. There is also a profile shade of Mr.
Cradock, taken of him only a month before his decease. In the above
quoted magazine, is a copy of this profile, with a memoir.
SIR JOSEPH BANKS. There is a fine portrait of him by Russel, engraved by
Collyer. In Mr. Cadell's Contemporary Portraits is another fine one,
from the pencil of Lawrence. His portrait is preserved by the
Horticultural Society of London, and in the British Museum is his bust,
chiselled and presented by the Hon. Mrs. Damer. A good copy of the
engraving by Collyer is in the European Magazine for Feb. 1795, and
from the memoir there given I select the following:
"If to support the dignity of the first literary society in the world,
and by firmness and candour to conciliate the regard of its members; if
rejecting the allurements of dissipation, to explore sciences unknown,
and to cultivate the most manly qualities of the human heart; if to
dispense a princely fortune in the enlargement of science, the
encouragement of genius, and the alleviation of distress, be
circumstances which entitle any one to a more than ordinary share of
respect, few will dispute the claim of the person whose portrait
ornaments the present magazine.... In short, he is entitled to every
praise that science, liberality, and intelligence can bestow on their
most distinguished favourites."
Dr. Pulteney, in his handsome dedication of his Sketches on the progress
of Botany, to Sir Joseph, thus alludes to his voyage with Cook:--"To
whom could a work of this nature with so much propriety be addressed, as
to him who had not only relinquished, for a series of years, all the
allurements that a polished nation could display to opulence; but had
exposed himself to numberless perils, and the repeated risk of life
itself, that he might attain higher degrees of that knowledge, which
these sketches are intended to communicate."
The Academy of Sciences at Dijon, in their "Notice sur Sir Jos. Banks,"
thus apostrophizes his memory:--"Ombre de Banks! apparois en ce lieu
consacre au culte des sciences et des lettres; viens occuper la place
que t'y conservent les muses, accepter les couronnes qu'elles-memes
t'ont tressees! viens recevoir le tribut de nos sentimens, temoignage
sincere de notre douleur et de not regrets; et par le souvenir de tes
vertus, viens enflammer nos coeurs de cet amour pour le bien, qui fut
le mobile de toutes tes actions!"[99]
Mr. Johnson, in his History of English Gardening, justly calls him "This
universal patron of the arts and sciences. Natural history was the
favourite of his scientific studies, and every part of it was enriched
by his researches." He again hails him as "a munificent friend of
science and literature." The name of Banks will always be associated
with that of Solander, the favourite pupil of Linnaeus, and with that of
the immortal Cook. De Lille closes his _Jardins_ with a most generous
and animated invocation to the memory of this intrepid navigator.
WILLIAM FALCONER. The portrait of this eminent physician of Bath, is
engraved by Fitler, from a painting by Daniel, of Bath, in 1791. It is
prefixed to his "Influence of the Passions upon Disorders." He died in
August, 1824, at the age of eighty-one. He published,
1. Essay on the Preservation of the Health of Persons employed in
Agriculture, 1s. Bath, 1789.
2. Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Natural History; selected from
the principal writers of antiquity. 1793. 4to.
3. Remarks on the Influence of Climate, Situation, Nature of
Country, &c. The Encyclop. of Gardening calls this "a most
interesting work." A writer in the New Monthly Mag. says "it
displays an almost unlimited extent of learning and research."
4. An Historical View of the Taste for Gardening and Laying out
Grounds among the Nations of Antiquity. 8vo. 1s. 6d. 1783. _Dilly._
A list of his other works (nearly twenty in number), may be seen in the
Dictionary of Living Authors, or in vol. xii. of the New Monthly Mag.;
which last work says that the late Lord Thurlow, at whose table he was
almost a constant guest, declared that "he never saw such a man; that he
knew every thing, and knew it better than any one else." Neither this
last publication, nor Dr. Watts in his Bibl. Brit. mention Dr.
Falconer's Historical View of the Taste for Gardening.
WILLIAM CURTIS. This honest, much-esteemed, and inoffensive man, though
so deservedly eminent as a botanist, published only the following work
on horticulture:--"Directions for Cultivating the Crambe Maritima, or
Sea-kale for the Use of the Table." A new edition, enlarged, with three
engravings. 2s. 6d. Mr. Loudon says, that this pamphlet has done more to
recommend the culture of _sea-kale_ and diffuse the knowledge of it,
than all his predecessors. Nearly three pages of the Encyclopaedia are
enriched with the result of all that has appeared on the cultivation of
this vegetable by English, Scotch, or French writers.
The botanical works of Mr. Curtis have long been held in high esteem.
The first number of his Flora Londinensis appeared in 1777. He commenced
his Botanical Magazine in 1787. His Observations on British Grasses,
appeared in a second edition, with coloured plates, in 1790. His
Lectures were published after his death, to which is prefixed his
portrait. His portrait is also given in Dr. Thornton's Botany. He died
in 1799, was buried in Battersea church-yard, and on his grave-stone
these lines are inscribed:--
_While living herbs shall spring profusely wild,
Or gardens cherish all that's sweet and gay,
So long thy works shall please, dear nature's child,
So long thy memory suffer no decay._
THOMAS MARTYN, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, whose striking
portrait, from a picture by Russel, appears in Dr. Thornton's superb
work on botany. He died in June, 1825, in the ninetieth year of his age.
His edition of Miller's Gardener's Dictionary, appeared in 4 vols.
folio. Mr. Johnson observes, that this work "requires no comment. It is
a standard, practical work, never to be surpassed." Mr. Martyn also
published _Flora Rustica_, a description of plants, useful or injurious
in husbandry, _with coloured plates_, 4 vols. 8vo.
SIR W. CHAMBERS. There are portraits of him by Sir J. Reynolds, engraved
by Collyer and by Green; one by Cotes, engraved by Houston, in 1772; and
a profile by Pariset, after a drawing by Falconot. He died in 1796, aged
sixty-nine. He published,
1. Designs for Chinese Buildings.
2. Plans and Views of the Buildings and Gardens at Kew.
3. A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, second edition, with
additions. To which is annexed an Explanatory Discourse, 4to.
1773. This work gave rise to those smart satires, _An Heroic
Epistle_, and _An Heroic Postscript_.
HUMPHREY REPTON, Esq. His portrait is prefixed to his Observations on
the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, folio. 1803. He also
published on this subject:
1. Letter to U. Price, Esq. on Landscape Gardening, 8vo. 1794.
2. Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening, folio, 1795.
3. Enquiry into the Changes in Landscape Gardening, 8vo. 1806.
4. On the Introduction of Indian Architecture and Gardening, folio,
1808.
5. On the supposed Effect of Ivy upon Trees. A charming little
essay inserted in the _Linn. Trans._ vol. xi.
6. Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening,
4to. 1816. In p. 80 of the Encyclop. of Gardening, is some general
information respecting Mr. Repton.
WILLIAM FORSYTH, Esq. His portrait is prefixed to the seventh edition of
his Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees, 8vo. 1824;
also to the 4to. edition of the same work in 1802. He also published
Observations on the diseases, defects, and injuries in all kinds of
Fruit and Forest Trees, with an account of a particular method of cure,
8vo. 1791. Mr. Forsyth died in 1804.
MR. JAMES DICKSON, who established the well-known seed and herb shop in
Covent-garden, and died at the age of eighty-six, a few years ago,
appears to have been very much esteemed. His family at Croydon possess
his portrait, and there is another preserved by the Horticultural
Society. He married for his second wife a sister of the intrepid
traveller Mungo Park. Mr. Dickson, when searching for plants in the
Hebrides, in 1789, was accompanied by him. Handsome mention is made of
Mr. Dickson in the Life of Mungo Park, prefixed to the "Journal of a
Mission to the Interior of Africa." In the above life, the friendly and
generous assistance which Sir Joseph Banks shewed both to Mr. Dickson,
and to Mungo Park, is very pleasingly recorded. A memoir of Mr. Dickson
is given in the 5th vol. of the Hort. Transactions. He published,
Fasciculus Plantarum Cryptog. Brit. 4 parts 4to. 1785-1801.
RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT, Esq. author of The Landscape, a didactic poem,
4to. 1794. A second edition, _with a preface_, appeared in 4to. in 1795.
This poem is the only production of Mr. Knight, on the subject of
landscape scenery, except his occasional allusions thereto, in his
Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste, the second edition of
which appeared in 8vo. in 1805. This latter work embraces a variety of
subjects, and contains many energetic pages, particularly those on
Homer, and on the English drama. His philosophical survey of human life
"in its last stages," (at p. 461), and where he alludes to "the hooks
and links which hold the affections of age," is worthy of all praise; it
is deep, solemn, and affecting. The other publications of this gentleman
are enumerated in Dr. Watts's Bibl. Brit. Mr. Knight, in his Landscape,
after invoking the genius of Virgil, in reference to his
_----O qui me gelidis in vallibus Hoemi
Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat unbra,_
thus proceeds, after severely censuring Mr. _Browne_, who
----bade the stream 'twixt banks close shaved to glide;
Banish'd the thickets of high-bowering wood,
Which hung, reflected o'er the glassy flood:
Where screen'd and shelter'd from the heats of day,
Oft on the moss-grown stone reposed I lay,
And tranquil view'd the limpid stream below,
Brown with o'er hanging shade, in circling eddies flow.
Dear peaceful scenes, that now prevail no more,
Your loss shall every weeping muse deplore!
Your poet, too, in one dear favour'd spot,
Shall shew your beauties are not quite forgot:
Protect from all the sacrilegious waste
Of false improvement, and pretended taste,
_One tranquil vale!_[100] where oft, from care retir'd
He courts the muse, and thinks himself inspired;
Lulls busy thought, and rising hope to rest,
And checks each wish that dares his peace molest.
After scorning "wisdom's solemn empty toys," he proceeds:
Let me, retir'd from business, toil, and strife,
Close amidst books and solitude my life;
Beneath yon high-brow'd rocks in thickets rove,
Or, meditating, wander through the grove;
Or, from the cavern, view the noontide beam
Dance on the rippling of the lucid stream,
While the wild woodbine dangles o'er my head,
And various flowers around their fragrance spread.
* * * * *
Then homeward as I sauntering move along,
The nightingale begins his evening song;
Chanting a requiem to departed light,
That smooths the raven down of sable night.
After an animated tribute to _Homer_, he reviews the rising and the
slumbering, or drooping of the arts, midst storms of war, and gloomy
bigotry.
Hail, arts divine!--still may your solace sweet
Cheer the recesses of my calm retreat;
And banish every mean pursuit, that dares
Cloud life's serene with low ambitious cares.
Vain is the pomp of wealth: its splendid halls,
And vaulted roofs, sustain'd by marble walls.--
In beds of state pale sorrow often sighs,
Nor gets relief from gilded canopies:
But arts can still new recreation find,
To soothe the troubles of th' afflicted mind;
Recall the ideal work of ancient days,
And man in his own estimation raise;
Visions of glory to his eyes impart,
And cheer with conscious pride his drooping heart.
After a review of our several timber trees, and a tribute to our native
streams, and woods; and after describing in happy lines _Kamtschatka's_
dreary coast, he concludes his poem with reflections on the ill-fated
_Queen of France_, whose
Waning beauty, in the dungeon's gloom,
Feels, yet alive, the horrors of the tomb!
Mr. Knight's portrait, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is preserved at
Downton Castle, near Ludlow; and is engraved among Cadell's Contemporary
Portraits. It is also engraved by Bromley, from the same painter.
Another portrait was in the library of the late Mr. Johnes, at Havod.
DR. ANDREW DUNCAN. He died at Edinburgh in June 1828, at the great age
of eighty-four. His portrait was drawn by Raiburn, and engraved by
Mitchell. He was a contemporary of several eminent persons, whose
society and friendship formed one of the chief pleasures of his life.
There was scarcely an institution proposed for the benefit of his native
city, Edinburgh, to which his name will not be found a contributor. He
was, in fact, the patron and benefactor of all public charities. In 1809
he projected, and by his exertions, succeeded in establishing, the
Horticultural Society of Edinburgh. His animated and scientific
discourses, delivered at the meetings of the Caledonian Horticultural
Society, will always be perused with eager pleasure by every
horticulturist. In that delivered in December, 1814, and inserted in the
fifth number of their Memoirs, this zealous well-wisher of his native
city, thus exults:--"I am now, gentlemen, past the seventieth year of my
age, and I have been a steady admirer both of Flora and Pomona from the
very earliest period of my youth. During a pretty long life, it has been
my lot to have had opportunities of visiting gardens in three different
quarters of the globe, in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa; and from what
I have seen, I am decidedly of opinion, that at the present day, there
is not a large city in the world, which enjoys a supply of vegetable
food in more abundance, in greater variety, or in higher excellence,
than the city of Edinburgh. From the potatoe to the pine-apple,--from
the most useful to the most delicious productions of the vegetable
kingdom, we are not at present outdone, as far as my observation goes,
by any large city on the face of the earth." His medical talents may
well be believed not to have been small, when it is told, that he was
the rival in practice, and by no means an unsuccessful one, of the
illustrious Cullen, of the Monros, and of Gregory. In private life, Dr.
Duncan was eminently distinguished for his sociality, and the desire to
benefit all mankind. He was a member of several social clubs. His
favourite amusement was _gardening_. He possessed a garden in the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh, which he cultivated entirely with his own
hands, and on the door of which was placed, in conspicuous letters,
'_hinc salus_.' He was particularly kind to the students attending his
lectures, and gave a tea-drinking every Sunday evening to about a dozen
of them, by rotation, who assembled at six o'clock and went away at
eight. When old, he used sometimes to forget the lapse of time, and in
his lectures, frequently spoke about the _late_ Mr. Haller, who lived a
century before. To the last year of his life he never omitted going up,
on the morning of the 1st of May, to wash his face in the dew of the
summit of a mountain near Edinburgh, called Arthur's Seat. He had the
merit of being the father of the present Dr. Duncan, the celebrated
author of the Edinburgh Dispensatory, and professor of materia medica.
Dr. Duncan's funeral was properly made a public one, at which the
professors, magistrates, and medical bodies of Edinburgh attended, to
testify their sorrow and respect.
SIR UVEDALE PRICE. His portrait was taken by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and is
now at Foxley.[101] The Hereford Journal of Wednesday, September 16,
1829, thus relates his decease:--"On Monday last died, at Foxley, in
this county, Sir Uvedale Price, Bart. in the eighty-third year of his
age. The obituary of 1829 will not record a name more gifted or more
dear! In a county where he was one of the oldest, as well as one of the
most constant of its inhabitants, it were superfluous to enumerate his
many claims to distinction and regret. His learning, his sagacity, his
exquisite taste, his indefatigable ardour, would have raised to eminence
a man much less conspicuous by his station in life, by his
correspondence with the principal literati of Europe, and by the
attraction and polish of his conversation and manners. Possessing his
admirable faculties to so venerable an age, we must deplore that a
gentleman who conferred such honour on our county is removed from that
learned retirement in which he delighted, and from that enchanting scene
which, in every sense, he so greatly adorned. He is succeeded in his
title by his only son, now Sir Robert Price, one of our
representatives."
Sir Uvedale published the following:
1. An Essay on the Picturesque, as compared with the Sublime and
Beautiful, and on the use of studying pictures for the purpose of
improving real landscape, 8vo. 1794. This volume was afterwards
published in 1796, in 8vo. with _considerable additions_, and in
1798 was published at _Hereford_ a second volume, being an Essay on
Artificial Water, an Essay on Decorations near the House, and an
Essay on Architecture and Buildings as connected with Scenery.