Read Ebook: On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening with Biographical Notices of Them 2nd edition with considerable additions by Felton Samuel

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There appears the following more modern publications respecting Mr. Evelyn:--

The Encycl. of Gardening enumerates the whole of Mr. Evelyn's works. So does Dr. Watts in his Bibl. Britt.; and Mr. Johnson in his History of English Gardening.

Plott, in his Staffordshire, calls Mr. Cotton "his worthy, learned, and most ingenious friend." Sir John Hawkins thus speaks of him:--"He was both a wit and a scholar; of an open, cheerful, and hospitable temper; endowed with fine talents for conversation, and the courtesy and affability of a gentleman." He farther thus speaks of one of his poems:--"It is not for their courtly and elegant turn, that the verses of Charles Cotton ought to be praised; there is such a delightful flow of feeling and sentiment, so much of the best part of our nature mixed up in them, and so much fancy displayed, that one of our most distinguished living poets has adduced several passages of his Ode upon Winter, for a general illustration of the characteristics of fancy." He must have possessed many endearing qualities, for the benevolent and pious Walton thus concludes a letter to his "most honoured friend, Charles Cotton, Esq.:"--"though I be more than a hundred miles from you, and in the eighty-third year of my age, yet I will forget both, and next month begin a pilgrimage to beg your pardon: for I would die in your favour, and till then will live, Sir, your most affectionate father and friend, Isaac Walton." One cannot wonder at the good old man wishing to visit the courteous and well-bred Mr. Cotton, and to enjoy the intercourse of hospitable urbanity, near the pastoral streams of the Dove, when he had received such an invitation as the following, addressed to his "dear and most worthy friend, Mr. Isaac Walton:"--

Whilst in this cold and blustering clime, Where bleak winds howl and tempests roar, We pass away the roughest time Has been of many years before;

Whilst from the most tempestuous nooks The chillest blasts our peace invade, And by great rains our smallest brooks Are almost navigable made;

Whilst all the ills are so improved, Of this dead quarter of the year, That even you, so much beloved, We would not now wish with us here;

In this estate, I say, it is Some comfort to us to suppose, That, in a better clime than this, You, our dear friend, have more repose;

And some delight to me the while, Though nature now does weep in rain, To think that I have seen her smile, And haply may I do again.

If the all-ruling Power please We live to see another May, We'll recompense an age of these Foul days in one fine fishing day.

We then shall have a day or two, Perhaps a week, wherein to try What the best master's hand can do With the most deadly killing fly:

A day with not too bright a beam, A warm, but not a scorching sun, A southern gale to curl the stream, and, master, half our work is done.

This, my best friend, at my poor home Shall be our pastime and our theme; But then--should you not deign to come, You make all this a flattering dream.

SAMUEL GILBERT'S portrait is prefixed to his "Florist's Vade Mecum;" 12mo. In his "Gardener's Almanack," is a particular description of the roses cultivated in the English gardens at that period. He was the author of "Fons Sanitatis, or the Healing Spring at Willowbridge Wells." He was son-in-law to John Rea, the author of Flora, and who planned the gardens at Gerard's Bromley. Willowbridge Wells are at a little distance from where these once superb gardens were.

JACOB BOBART, the elder, is an admirable portrait, by D. Loggan, taken at his age of eighty-one, and engraved by Burghers. Granger says it is extremely scarce. Beneath the head, which is dated 1675, is this distich:--

Think that day lost whose descending sun Views from thy hand no noble action done.

Yr success and happyness is sincerely wished by Ja. Bobart, Oxford."

JOHN LOCKE wrote "Observations upon the Growth of Vines and Olives; the Production of Silk, the Preservation of Fruits. Written at the request of the Earl of Shaftesbury; now first printed from the original manuscript in the possession of the present Earl of Shaftesbury, 1s. 6d. Sandby, 1766." Among the many portraits we have of this learned man, the public are indebted to Lord King, for having prefixed to his Life of Mr. Locke, a very fine portrait of him, from after Greenhill. This great and good man possessed, in the highest degree, those virtues that have given him a claim to the highest rank in the admiration of posterity. In Rutter's delineations of a part of Somersetshire, he gives a neat wood-cut of the cottage at Wrington, wherein Locke was born, and he informs us, that in the garden belonging to Mrs. Hannah More, near that village, she has placed an urn commemorative of Locke, which was a gift to her from the justly celebrated Mrs. Montague. He was drawn also by Kneller. Bromley gives a list of many of his engraved portraits. Houbraken engraved one for Birch's Lives. Vertue gave two engravings from Kneller.

WILLIAM FLEETWOOD, successively Bishop of St. Asaph and Ely, and who died in 1723, was author of "Curiosities of Nature and Art in Husbandry and Gardening," 8vo. 1707. His portrait is prefixed to his "Sermons on the Relative Duties," 8vo. 1716; and also to his "Essay on the Miracles." His works were published in a collected form in 1 vol. folio, 1737. He was incontestibly the best preacher in his time. Dr. Doddridge calls him "silver tongued." Pope's line of

"When I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the church-yard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tomb-stones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day and died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head.

Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row, Befringe the rails of Bedlam, or Soho."

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."

Young uttered this sublime apostrophe when the death of Pope was first announced to him:--

In the gardens of Stowe is the following inscription to

Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love.

Mr. Mason, in his English Garden, thus panegyrises his elysian scenes:--

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, 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.

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 , 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.

"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 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, 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:--

Yours, &c.

"A. H. HAWORTH."

BATTY LANGLEY was born at Twickenham, where he resided. He was the author of,

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

The Rev. WILLIAM HANBURY, the intimate friend of Churchill, and of Lloyd, in his singular "History of the Charitable Foundations at Church Langton," 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. , 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.

Mr. Marshall calls him, "the indefatigable Hanbury, whose immense labours are in a manner lost to the public." No man delighted more than Mr. Hanbury did, in describing the beauty of trees and shrubs: this is visible in the extracts which Mr. Marshall has made in his "Planting and Rural Ornament."

WILLIAM SHENSTONE, Esq., justly celebrated for his pure and classic taste in landscape gardening. His tender and pathetic feelings shine throughout most of his works; and the sweetness and simplicity of his temper and manners, endeared him to the neighbourhood and to his acquaintance. Dr. Johnson says, his life was unstained by any crime. He farther says of him, "He began from this time to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful. His house was mean, and he did not improve it; his care was of his grounds. When he came home from his walks, he might find his floor flooded by a shower through the broken roof; but could spare no money for its reparation. In time his expences brought clamours about him, that overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and his groves were haunted by beings very different from fawns and fairies. He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. It is said, that if he had lived a little longer he would have been assisted by a pension: such bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed; but that it was ever asked is not certain; it is too certain that it never was enjoyed."

His intimate friend, Robert Dodsley, thus speaks of him: "Tenderness, indeed, in every sense of the word, was his peculiar characteristic; his friends, his domestics, his poor neighbours, all daily experienced his benevolent turn of mind. He was no economist; the generosity of his temper prevented him from paying a proper regard to the use of money: he exceeded, therefore, the bounds of his paternal fortune, which before he died was considerably incumbered. But when one recollects the perfect paradise he had raised around him, the hospitality with which he lived, his great indulgence to his servants, his charities to the indigent, and all done with an estate not more than three hundred pounds a year, one should rather be led to wonder that he left any thing behind him, than to blame his want of economy. He left, however, more than sufficient to pay all his debts; and, by his will, appropriated his whole estate for that purpose."

Stranger! if woods and lawns like these, If rural scenes thy fancy please, Ah! stop awhile, and pensive view Poor Shenstone's urn: who oft, like you, These woods and lawns well-pleased has rov'd, And oft these rural scenes approv'd. Like him, be thou fair virtue's friend, And health and peace thy steps attend.

Mr. Shenstone died in 1763, and is buried in Hales Owen church yard. An urn is placed in the church to his memory, thus inscribed:--

Whoe'er thou art, with reverence tread These sacred mansions of the dead.-- Not that the monumental bust Or sumptuous tomb HERE guards the dust Of rich or great: This simple urn records a name That shines with more exalted fame. Reader! if genius, taste refined, A native elegance of mind; If virtue, science, manly sense; If wit, that never gave offence; The clearest head, the tenderest heart, In thy esteem e'er claim'd a part; Ah! smite thy breast, and drop a tear, For, know, THY Shenstone's dust lies here.

Mr. Mason thus speaks of Shenstone:

In his "Elements of Criticism," there is a distinct chapter on architecture and gardening. He therein thus addresses the reader:--"These cursory observations upon gardening, shall be closed with some reflections that must touch every reader. Rough uncultivated ground, dismal to the eye, inspires peevishness and discontent: may not this be one cause of the harsh manners of savages? A field richly ornamented, containing beautiful objects of various kinds, displays in full lustre the goodness of the Deity, and the ample provision he has made for our happiness. Ought not the spectator to be filled with gratitude to his Maker, and with benevolence to his fellow creatures? Other fine arts may be perverted to excite irregular and even vicious emotions; but gardening, which inspires the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot fail to promote every good affection. The gaiety and harmony of mind it produceth, inclineth the spectator to communicate his satisfaction to others, and to make them happy as he is himself, and tends naturally to establish in him a habit of humanity and benevolence."

JOHN ABERCROMBIE'S manly and expressive countenance is best given in the portrait prefixed to an edition in 2 vols. 8vo. published Feb. 1, 1783, by Fielding and Debrett. He is also drawn at full-length at his age of seventy-two, in the sixteenth edition, printed in 1800, with a pleasing view of a garden in the back-ground, neatly engraved. This honest, unassuming man, persevered "through a long life of scarcely interrupted health," in the ardent pursuit of his favourite science. The tenor of his life exemplified how much a garden calms the mind, and tranquilly sets at rest its turbulent passions. Mr. Loudon's Encyclop. of Gardening, after giving some interesting points of his history, thus concludes: "In the spring of 1806, being in his eightieth year, he met with a severe fall, by which he broke the upper part of his thigh bone. This accident, which happened to him on the 15th of April, terminated in his death. After lying in a very weak exhausted state, without much pain, he expired in the night, between April and May, as St. Paul's church struck twelve. He was lamented by all who knew him, as cheerful, harmless, and upright." One of his biographers thus relates of him: "Abercrombie from a fall down stairs in the dark, died at the age of eighty, and was buried at St. Pancras. He was present at the famous battle of Preston Pans, which was fought close to his father's garden walls. For the last twenty years of his life he lived chiefly on tea, using it three times a-day: his pipe was his first companion in the morning, and last at night. He never remembered to have taken a dose of physic in his life, prior to his last fatal accident, nor of having a day's illness but once." A list of his works appears in Watts's Bibl. Brit., and a most full one in Johnson's History of English Gardening, who, with many collected particulars of Abercrombie, relates the great and continually increasing sale of some of his works.

LAUNCELOT BROWNE, Esq. His portrait was painted by Dance, and engraved by Sherwin. Under this portrait are engraved the following lines, from the pen of Mr. Mason, which are also inscribed on the tomb of Mr. Browne, in the church of Fen-Staunton, Huntingdonshire:

Mr. Walpole, too, pays Mr. Browne this elegant compliment: "Did living artists come within my plan, I should be glad to do justice to Mr. Browne; but he may be a gainer by being reserved for some abler pen." This celebrated landscape gardener died suddenly, in Hertford Street, May Fair, on the 6th of February, 1783, on his return from a visit to his old friend the Earl of Coventry. Mr. Browne, though bred a common gardener at Stowe, possessed a cultivated mind, and his society was much courted. Joseph Cradock, Esq. called him "a most agreeable, unassuming man." He amassed a large fortune. He was consulted by most of the nobility and gentry, and the places he laid out or altered, were, as Mr. Loudon observes, beyond all reckoning. Mr. Repton has given a list of his principal works.

Daines Barrington happily said, "Kent has been succeeded by Browne, who hath undoubtedly great merit in laying out pleasure-grounds; but I conceive that in some of his plans, I see rather traces of the kitchen-gardener of old Stowe, than of Poussin or Claude Lorraine: I could wish, therefore, that Gainsborough gave the design, and that Browne executed it." Mr. Loudon observes, "that Browne must have possessed considerable talents, the extent of his reputation abundantly proves; but that he was imbued with much of that taste for picturesque beauty, which distinguished the works of Kent, Hamilton, and Shenstone, we think will hardly be asserted by any one who has observed attentively such places as are known to be his creations." Mr. George Mason candidly asks, "why Browne should be charged with all the defects of those that have called themselves his followers, I have seen no good reason alleged, nor can I suppose it possible to produce one." Many of his imitators exhibited so little talent in their creations, that Mr. Browne's name considerably suffered in the estimation of many.

WILLIAM MASON, precentor and canon of York, died in 1797. His friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted an impressive portrait of him, which is engraved by Doughty. A masterly copy of this fine portrait is in Mr. Cadell's Contemporary Portraits. A copy is also prefixed to the edition of his works, in 4 vols. 8vo. 1811, published by Mr. Cadell. His portrait was also taken by Vaslet, and engraved by Carter, 1771. It is a large metz etching. He translated Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting, to which Sir Joshua added some notes. Mr. Mason has prefixed an Epistle to Sir Joshua, which thus concludes:

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