the superb Gardens in France, during the reign of Henry IV. and during
the succeeding reigns, till the demise of Louis XV., embellished with
plates of some of the costly and magnificent decorations of those times;
with extracts from such of their eminent writers whose letters or works
may have occasionally dwelt on gardens.--My motto, for want of a better,
might have been these two lines from Rapin,
_----France, in all her rural pomp appears
With numerous gardens stored._
Perhaps I might have been so greedy and insolent, as to have presumed to
have monopolized our Shakspeare's line,--"I love _France_ so well, that
I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine."
Isaac Walton gives the following lines from a translation of a German
poet, which makes one equally fond of England:
We saw so many woods, and princely bowers,
Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers,
_So many gardens dress'd with curious care_,
That Thames with royal Tiber may compare.
[3] The Encyclopaedia of Gardening has a rich page (35) devoted to Le
Notre. The Nouveau Dict. Hist. thus records his genius and his grand and
magnificent efforts:--"Ce grand homme fut choisi pour decorer les
jardins du chateau de Vau-le-Vicomte. Il en fit un sejour enchanteur,
par les ornamens nouveaux, pleins de magnificence, qu'il y prodigua. On
vit alors, pour la premiere fois, des portiques, des berceaux, des
grottes, des traillages, des labyrinths, &c. embellir varier le
spectacle des jardins. Le Roi, temoin des ces merveilles, lui donna la
direction de tous ses parcs. Il embellit par son art, Versailles,
Trianon, et il fit a St. Germain cette fameuse terrasse qu'on voit
toujours avec une nouvelle admiration. Les jardins de Clagny, de
Chantilly, de St. Cloud, de Meudon, de Sceaux, le parterre du Tibre, et
les canaux qui ornent ce lieu champetre a Fontainbleau, sont encore son
ouvrage. Il demanda a faire voyage de l'Italie, dans l'esperance
d'acquerir de nouvelles connoissances; mais son genie createur l'avoit
conduit a la perfection. Il ne vit rien de comparable a ce qu'il avoit
fait en France."
Notwithstanding the above just and high tribute, I have no hesitation in
saying, that it is not superior to the magic picture which the
fascinating pen of Mad. de Sevigne has drawn of le Notre's creative
genius, in her letter of Aug. 7, 1675. Many others of this charming
woman's letters breathe her love of gardens.
[4] The Nouveau Dict. Hist. thus speaks of the Pere Rapin:--"A un genie
heureux, a un gout sur, il joignoit une probite exacte, un coeur droit,
un caractere aimable et des moeurs douces. Il etoit naturellement
honnete, et il s'etoit encore poli dans le commerce des grands. Parmi
ses differentes Poesies Latines, on distingue le Poeme des Jardins.
C'est son chef d'oeuvre; il est digne du siecle d'Auguste, dit l'Abbe
Des Fontaines, pour l'elegance et la purete du langage, pour l'esprit et
les graces qui y regnent." Among the letters of Rabutin de Bussy, are
many most interesting ones from this worthy father.
[5] "Rien n'est plus admirable que la peinture naive que la Pere Vaniere
fait des amusemens champetres; on est egalement enchante de la richesse
et de la vivacite de son imagination, de l'eclat et de l'harmonie de sa
poesie, du choix de la purete de ses expressions. Il mourut a Toulouse
en 1739, et plusiers poetes ornerent de fleurs son tombeau."--Nouv.
Dict. Hist.
[6] La Comtesse de la Riviere, thus alludes to this convent: "Madame de
Sevigne a pour ce monastere une veneration qui est audela de toute
expression; elle assure qu'on n'approche pas de ce lieu sans sentir au
dedans de soi une onction divine."
[7] The late Sir U. Price, pays a very high compliment to this exquisite
poem, in p. 31, vol. i. of his Essays, terming it full of the justest
taste, and most brilliant imagery.
[8] In the Earl of Harcourt's garden, at Nuneham, in Oxfordshire, (laid
out in some parts under the eye and fine taste of the poet Mason), on a
bust of Rousseau are these lines:
Say, is thy honest heart to virtue warm?
Can genius animate thy feeling breast?
Approach, behold this venerable form;
'Tis Rousseau! let thy bosom speak the rest.
There are attractive pages in this little volume of the Viscount's,
which would have interested either Shenstone, or Gainsborough,
particularly the pages 59, 143, 145, and 146, (of Mr. Malthus's
translation), for in these pages "we feel all the truth and energy of
nature." A short extract from p. 131, will enable the reader to judge of
the writer's style:--"When the cool evening sheds her soft and
delightful tints, and leads on the hours of pleasure and repose, then is
the universal reign of sublime harmony. It is at this happy moment that
Claude has caught the tender colouring, the enchanting calm, which
equally attaches the heart and the eyes; it is then that the fancy
wanders with tranquillity over distant scenes. Masses of trees through
which the light penetrates, and under whose foliage winds a pleasant
path; meadows, whose mild verdure is still softened by the transparent
shades of the evening; crystal waters which reflect all the near objects
in their pure surface; mellow tints, and distances of blue vapour; such
are in general the objects best suited to a western exposure. The sun,
before he leaves the horizon, seems to blend earth and sky, and it is
from sky that evening views receive their greatest beauty. The
imagination dwells with delight upon the exquisite variety of soft and
pleasing colours, which embellishes the clouds and the distant country,
in this peaceful hour of enjoyment and contemplation."
[9] He was enthusiastically devoted to the cultivation of his gardens,
which exhibited enchanting scenery, umbrageous walks, and magnificent
water-falls. When thus breathing the pure air of rural life, the
blood-stained monsters of 1793 seized him in his garden, and led him to
the scaffold. "He heard unmoved his own sentence, but the condemnation
of his daughter and grand-daughter, tore his heart: the thought of
seeing two weak and helpless creatures perish, shook his fortitude.
Being taken back to the _Conciergerie_, his courage returned, and he
exhorted his children to prepare for death. When the fatal bell rung, he
recovered all his wonted cheerfulness; having paid to nature the tribute
of feeling, he desired to give his children an example of magnanimity;
his looks exhibited the sublime serenity of virtue, and taught them to
view death undismayed. When he ascended the cart, he conversed with his
children, unaffected by the clamours of the ferocious populace; and on
arriving at the foot of the scaffold, took a last and solemn farewell of
his children; immediately after he was dismissed into eternity."
Sir Walter Scott, after noticing "the wild and squalid features" of
Marat, who "lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar, among his
cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his
death-screech was again heard," thus states the death of another of the
murderers of the Malherbes:--"Robespierre, in an unsuccessful attempt to
shoot himself, had only inflicted a horrible _fracture on his
under-jaw_. In this situation they were found like wolves in their lair,
foul with blood, mutilated, despairing, and yet not able to die.
Robespierre lay on a table in an anti-room, his head supported by a deal
box, and his hideous countenance half-hidden by a bloody and dirty cloth
bound round his shattered chin. As the fatal cars passed to the
guillotine, those who filled them, but especially Robespierre, were
overwhelmed with execrations. The nature of his previous wound, from
which the cloth had never been removed till the executioner _tore_ it
off, added to the torture of the sufferer. The shattered jaw dropped,
and the wretch yelled aloud, to the horror of the spectators. A mask
taken from that dreadful head was long exhibited in different nations of
Europe, and appalled the spectator by its ugliness, and the mixture of
fiendish expression with that of bodily agony."
Mons. Malherbes loved to relate an answer made to him by a common
fellow, during his stay at Paris, when he was obliged to go four times
every day to the prison of the Temple, to attend the king: his extreme
age did not allow him to walk, and he was compelled to take a carriage.
One day, particularly, when the weather was intensely severe, he
perceived, on coming out of the vehicle, that the driver was benumbed
with cold. "My friend," said Malherbes to him, in his naturally tender
manner, "you must be penetrated by the cold, and I am really sorry to
take you abroad in this bitter season."--"That's nothing, M. de
Malherbes; in such a cause as this, I'd travel to the world's end
without complaining."--"Yes, but your poor horses could not."--"Sir,"
replied the honest coachman, "_my horses think as I do_."
[10] I cannot pass by the name of Henry, without the recollection of
what an historian says of him: "L'Abbe Langlet du Fresnoy a publie
cinquante-neuf lettres de a bon Roi, dans sa nouvelle edition du Journal
de Henry III. on y remarque du feu de l'esprit, de l'imagination, et
sur-tout cette eloquence du coeur, qui plait tout dans un monarque.--On
l'exortoit a traiter avec rigueur quelques places de la Ligue, qu'il
avoit redites par la force: _La satisfaction qu'on tire de la vengeance
ne dure qu'un moment_ (repondit ce prince genereuse) _mais celle qu'on
tire de la clemence est eternelle_. Plus on connoitre Henri, plus on
l'aimera, plus on l'admiriroet."
[11] The king, knowing his fine taste for sculpture and painting, sent
him to Italy, and the Nouv. Dict. Hist. gives this anecdote: "La Pape
instruit de son merite, voulut le voir, et lui donna une assez longue
audience, sur la fin de laquelle le Notre s'ecria en s'adressant au
Pape: J'ai vu les plus grands hommes du monde, Votre Saintete, et le Roi
mon maitre. Il y a grande difference, dit le Pape; le Roi est un grand
prince victorieux, je suis un pauvre pretre serviteur des serviteurs de
Dieu. Le Notre, charme de cette reponse, oublia qui la lui faisoit, et
frappant sur l'epaule du Pape lui repondit a son tour: Mon Reverend
Pere, vous vous portez bien et vous enterrerez tout la Sacre College. Le
Pape, qui entendoit le Francois, rit du pronostic. Le Notre, charme de
plus en plus de sa bonte, et de l'estime particuliere qu'il temoignoit
pour le Roi, se jeta au cou du Pape et l'embrassa. C'etoit au reste sa
coutume d'embrasser tous ceux qui publioient les louanges de Louis XIV.,
et il embrassoit le Roi lui-meme, toutes les fois que ce prince revenoit
de la campagne."
[12] I will conclude by mentioning a justly celebrated man, who, it
seems was not over fond of his garden, though warmly attached both to
Boileau, and to Mad. de Sevigne,--I mean that most eloquent preacher
Bossuet, of whom a biographer, after stating that he was so absorbed in
the study of the ancient fathers of the church, "qu'il ne se permettoit
que des delassemens fort courts. Il ne se promenoit que rarement meme
dans son jardin. Son jardinier lui dit un jour: _Si je plantois des
Saint Augustins, et des Saint Chrysostomes, vous les viendriez voir;
mais pour vos arbres, vous ne vous en souciez guere_."
[13] Mr. Worlidge, who wrote during part of the reigns of Charles II.
and James II. judiciously observes, that "the glory of the French
palaces, often represented to our English eyes in sculpture, are adorned
_with their beauteous gardens before them_; which wanting, they would
seem without lustre or grandeur."
[14] He was fined L30,000 for having taken a favourite of the king's, in
the very presence chamber, by the nose, for having insulted him, and
afterwards dragging him out of the room.
[15] It was to this nobleman, that Addison addressed his elegant and
sublime epistle, after he had surveyed with the eyes and genius of a
classical poet, the monuments and heroic deeds of ancient Rome.
[16] Lord Chesterfield thus speaks of this distinguished man:--"His
private life was stained by no vices, nor sullied by any meanness. His
eloquence was of every kind; but his invectives were terrible, and
uttered with such energy of diction and countenance, that he intimidated
those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him." Sir
W. Chatham Trelawney used to observe of him, that it was impossible for
the members of the side opposed to him in the House of Commons to look
him in the face when he was warmed in debate: he seemed to bid them all
a haughty defiance. "For my own part," said Trelawney, "I never dared
cast my eyes towards his, for if I did, _they nailed me to the floor_."
Smollet says, that he displayed "such irresistible energy of argument,
and such power of elocution, as struck his hearers with astonishment and
admiration. It flashed like the lightning of heaven against the
ministers and sons of corruption, blasting where it smote, and withering
the nerves of opposition; but his more substantial praise was founded
upon his disinterested integrity, his incorruptible heart, his
unconquerable spirit of independance, and his invariable attachment to
the interest and liberty of his country." Another biographer thus
mentions him:--"His elevated aspect commanded the awe and mute attention
of all who beheld him, whilst a certain grace in his manner, conscious
of all the dignities of his situation, of the solemn scene he acted in,
as well as his own exalted character, seemed to acknowledge and repay
the respect he received; his venerable form, bowed with infirmity and
age, but animated by a mind which nothing could subdue; his spirit
shining through him, arming his eye with lightning, and cloathing his
lips with thunder; or, if milder topics offered, harmonizing his
countenance in smiles, and his voice in softness, for the compass of his
powers was infinite. As no idea was too vast, no imagination too
sublime, for the grandeur and majesty of his manner; so no fancy was too
playful, nor any allusion too comic, for the ease and gaiety with which
he could accommodate to the occasion. But the character of his oratory
was dignity; this presided in every respect, even to his sallies of
pleasantry."
[17] Sir Walter Scott's attachment to gardens, breaks out even in his
Life of Swift, where his fond enquiries have discovered the sequestered
and romantic garden of _Vanessa_, at Marley Abbey.
[18] So thought Sir W. Raleigh;
Sweet violets, love's paradise, that spread
Your gracious odours ...
Upon the gentle wing of some calm-breathing wind,
That plays amidst the plain.
The lines in Twelfth Night we all recollect:
That strain again;--it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south
That breathes upon a bank of _violets_,
Stealing and giving odour.
That these flowers were the most favourite ones of Shakspeare, there can
be little doubt--Perditta fondly calls them
----sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath.
When Petrarch first saw Laura: "elle avail une robe verte, sa coleur
favorite, parsemee de _violettes_, la plus humble des fleurs."--Childe
Harold thus paints this flower:
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes
(Kiss'd by the breath of heaven) seems colour'd by its skies.
[19] One almost fancies one perceives Lord Bacon's attachment to
gardens, or to rural affairs, even in the speech he made before the
nobility, when first taking his seat in the High Court of Chancery; he
hoped "that these same _brambles_ that _grow_ about justice, of needless
charge and expence, and all manner of exactions, might be rooted out;"
adding also, that immediate and "_fresh_ justice was the _sweetest_."
Mr. Mason, in a note to his English Garden, after paying a high
compliment to Lord Bacon's picturesque idea of a garden, thus concludes
that note:--"Such, when he descended to matters of more elegance (for,
when we speak of Lord Bacon, to treat of these was to descend,) were the
amazing powers of this universal genius."
[20] Mr. Pope's delight in gardens, is visible even in the condensed
allusion he makes to them, in a letter to Mr. Digby; "I have been above
a month strolling about in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, from garden
to garden, but still returning to Lord Cobham's, with fresh
satisfaction. I should be sorry to see my Lady Scudamore's, till it has
had the full advantage of Lord Bathurst's improvements."
[21] A biographer thus speaks of the Prince de Ligne: "Quand les rois se
reunirent a Vienne en 1814, ils se firent tous un devoir de l'accuellier
avec distinction, et furent enchante de la vivacite de son esprit, et de
son intarissable gaiete, qui malgre ses infirmites et son grand age, ne
l'avoit pasencore abandonne. Ses saillies, et ses bon mots etoient comme
autrefois repetes pour tous." His generous heart thus speaks of the
abused and unfortunate Marie Antoinette:--"The breath of calumny has not
even respected the memory of the loveliest and best of women, of whose
spotless heart and irreproachable conduct, no one can bear stronger
evidence than I. Her soul was as pure as her face was fair; yet neither
virtue nor beauty could save the victim of sanguinary liberty." In
relating this (says his biographer), his voice faultered, and his eyes
were suffused with tears. He thus briefly states, with his usual humour
and vivacity, his conversation with Voltaire as to the garden at Ferney:
_P. de L._--Monsieur, Monsieur, cela doit vous coupe beaucoup, quel
charmant jardin!
_Volt._--Oh! mon jardinier est un bete: c'est moi meme qui ait fait
tout.
_P. de L._--Je le croi.
[22] Monsieur Thomas, in his eulogy of Descartes says, it should have
been pronounced at the foot of Newton's statue: or rather, Newton
himself should have been his panegyrist. Of this eulogy, Voltaire, in a
most handsome letter to Mons. Thomas, thus speaks:--"votre ouvrage
m'enchante d'un bout a l'autre, et Je vais le relire des que J'aurai
dicte ma lettre." The sleep and expanding of flowers are most
interestingly reviewed by Mr. Loudon in p. 187 of his Encyclop., and by
M. V. H. de Thury, in the above discourse, a few pages preceding his
seducing description of the magnificent garden of M. de Boursault.
So late ago as the year 1804 it was proposed at Avignon, to erect an
obelisk in memory of Petrarch, at Vaucluse: "il a ete decide, qu'on
l'elevera, vis-avis _l'ancien jardin_ de Petrache, lieu ou le lit de
sorgue forme un angle."
[23] This garden (as Mr. Walpole observes) was planted by the poet,
enriched by him with the fairy gift of eternal summer.
[24] Mr. Pope thus mentions the vines round this cave:--
Depending vines the shelving cavern skreen,
With purple clusters blushing through the green.
[25] Nearly eight pages of Mr. Loudon's Encyclop. are devoted to a very
interesting research on the gardens of the Romans. Sir Joseph Banks has
a paper on the Forcing Houses of the Romans, with a list of Fruits
cultivated by them, now in our gardens, in vol. 1 of the _Hort. Trans._
[26] Dr. Pulteney gives a list of several manuscripts in the Bodleian
Library, the writers of which are unknown, and the dates not precisely
determined, but supposed to have been written, if not prior to the
invention of printing, at least before the introduction of that art into
England. I select the two following.--
No. 2543. De Arboribus, Aromatis, et _Floribus_.
No. 2562. Glossarium Latino-anglicum Arborum, _Fructuum_, Frugam, &c.
And he states the following from Bib. S. Petri Cant:--
No. 1695. Notabilia de Vegetabilibus, et Plantis.
Dr. Pulteney observes, that the above list might have been considerably
extended, but that it would have unnecessarily swelled the article he
was then writing.
The Nouv. Dict. Hist. mentions a personage whose attachment to his
garden, and one of whose motives for cultivating that garden, does not
deserve a notice:--"Attale III. Roi de Pergame, fils de Stratonice,
soulla la throne en repandant le sang de ses amis et de sea parens. Il
abandonna ensuite le soin de ses affaires _pour s'occuper entirement de
son jardin_. Il y cultivoit des poisons, tels que l'aconit et la cigue,
qu'il envoyoit quelque fois en present a ses amis. Il mourut 133 ans
avant Jesus Christ."
[27] To have completed the various contrasting vicissitudes of this poor
_Suffolk_ farmer's life, he should have added to his other employments,
those of another _Suffolk_ man, the late W. Lomax, who had been
_grave-digger_ at the pleasant town of Bury St. Edmund's, for thirty-six
years, and who, also, for a longer period than thirty-six years, had
been a _morrice-dancer_ at all the elections for that borough.
[28] Gerarde, speaking of good sorts of apples and pears, thus mentions
the above named _Pointer_:--"Master Richard Pointer has them all growing
in his ground at Twickenham, near London, who is a most cunning and
curious grafter and planter of all manner of rare fruits; and also in
the ground of an excellent grafter and painful planter, Master Henry
Bunbury, of Touthil-street, near unto Westminster; and likewise in the
ground of a diligent and most affectionate lover of plants, Master
Warner, neere Horsely Down, by London; and in divers other grounds about
London."
[29] The fate of this poor man reminds one of what is related of
Corregio:--"He received from the mean canons of Parma, for his
Assumption of the Virgin, the small pittance of two hundred livres, and
it was paid him in copper. He hastened with the money to his starving
family; but as he had six or eight miles to travel from Parma, the
weight of his burden, and the heat of the climate, added to the
oppression of his breaking heart, a pleurisy attacked him, which, in
three days, terminated his existence and his sorrows in his fortieth
year."
If one could discover a portrait of either of the authors mentioned in
the foregoing list, one might, I think, inscribe under each of such
portraits, these verses:
Ce pourtrait et maint liure
Par le peintre et l'escrit,
Feront reuoir et viure
Ta face et ton esprit.
They are inscribed under an ancient portrait, done in 1555, which Mr.
Dibdin has preserved in his account of Caen, and which he thus
introduces: "As we love to be made acquainted with the _persons_ of
those from whom we have received instruction and pleasure, so take,
gentle reader, a representation of Bourgueville."
[30] "Mr. John Parkinson, an apothecary of this city, (yet living, and
labouring for the common good,) in the year 1629, set forth a work by
the name of _Paradisus Terrestris_, wherein he gives the figures of all
such plants as are preserved in gardens, for the beauty of their
flowers, in use in meats or sauces; and also an orchard for all trees
bearing fruit, and such shrubs as for their beauty are kept in orchards
and gardens, with the ordering, planting, and preserving of all these.
In this work he hath not superficially handled these things, but
accurately descended to the very varieties in each species, wherefore I
have now and then referred my reader, addicted to these delights, to
this work, especially in flowers and fruits, wherein I was loth to spend
too much time, especially seeing I could adde nothing to what he had
done upon that subject before."
[31] "Mr. Hartlib (says Worlidge) tells you of the benefits of _orchard
fruits_, that they afford curious walks for pleasure, food for cattle in
the spring, summer, and winter, (meaning under their shadow,) fewel for
the fire, shade for the heat, physick for the sick, refreshment for the
sound, plenty of food for man, and that not of the worst, and drink also
of the best."
Milton also in the above Tractate thus speaks:--"In those vernal seasons
of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and
sullenness against nature, not to go out and see her riches, and partake
in her rejoicing with heaven and earth."