The Viscomte, though his English composition was so quaint and
imperfect, was an elegant writer in his own language, and showed great
taste and skill in laying out his grounds. He had visited England, and
carefully studied our modern style of gardening. He had personally
consulted Shenstone, Mason, Whateley and other English authors on
subjects of rural taste. He published an eloquent description of his own
estate. His famous friend Rousseau wrote the preface to it. The book was
translated into English. Rousseau spent his last days at Ermenonville
and was buried there in what is called The Isle of Poplars. The garden
is now in a neglected state, but the tomb of Rousseau remains uninjured,
and is frequently visited by the admirers of his genius.
"Dr. Warton," says Bowles, "mentions Milton and Pope as the poets to
whom English Landscape is indebted, but he forgot poor Shenstone." A
later writer, however, whose sympathy for genius communicates such a
charm to all his anecdotes and comments in illustration of the literary
character, has devoted a chapter of his Curiosities of Literature to a
notice of the rural tastes of the proprietor of the Leasowes. I must
give a brief extract from it.
"When we consider that Shenstone, in developing his fine pastoral ideas
in the Leasowes, educated the nation into that taste for landscape-
gardening, which has become the model of all Europe, this itself
constitutes a claim on the gratitude of posterity. Thus the private
pleasures of a man of genius may become at length those of a whole
people. The creator of this new taste appears to have received far less
notice than he merited. The name of Shenstone does not appear in the
Essay on Gardening, by Lord Orford; even the supercilious Gray only
bestowed a ludicrous image on these pastoral scenes, which, however, his
friend Mason has celebrated; and the genius of Johnson, incapacitated by
nature to touch on objects of rural fancy, after describing some of the
offices of the landscape designer, adds, that 'he will not inquire
whether they demand any great powers of mind.' Johnson, however, conveys
to us his own feelings, when he immediately expresses them under the
character of 'a sullen and surly speculator.' The anxious life of
Shenstone would indeed have been remunerated, could he have read the
enchanting eulogium of Whateley on the Leasowes; which, said he, 'is a
perfect picture of his mind--simple, elegant and amiable; and will
always suggest a doubt whether the spot inspired his verse, or whether
in the scenes which he formed, he only realised the pastoral images
which abound in his songs.' Yes! Shenstone had been delighted could he
have heard that Montesquieu, on his return home, adorned his 'Chateau
Gothique, mais orné de bois charmans, don't j'ai pris l'idée en
Angleterre;' and Shenstone, even with his modest and timid nature, had
been proud to have witnessed a noble foreigner, amidst memorials
dedicated to Theocritus and Virgil, to Thomson and Gesner, raising in
his grounds an inscription, in bad English, but in pure taste, to
Shenstone himself; for having displayed in his writings 'a mind
natural,' and in his Leasowes 'laid Arcadian greens rural;' and recently
Pindemonte has traced the taste of English gardening to Shenstone. A man
of genius sometimes receives from foreigners, who are placed out of the
prejudices of his compatriots, the tribute of posterity!"
"The Leasowes," says William Howitt, "now belongs to the Atwood family;
and a Miss Atwood resides there occasionally. But the whole place bears
the impress of desertion and neglect. The house has a dull look; the
same heavy spirit broods over the lawns and glades: And it is only when
you survey it from a distance, as when approaching Hales-Owen from
Hagley, that the whole presents an aspect of unusual beauty."
Shenstone was at least as proud of his estate of the Leasowes as was
Pope of his Twickenham Villa--perhaps more so. By mere men of the world,
this pride in a garden may be regarded as a weakness, but if it be a
weakness it is at least an innocent and inoffensive one, and it has been
associated with the noblest intellectual endowments. Pitt and Fox and
Burke and Warren Hastings were not weak men, and yet were they all
extremely proud of their gardens. Every one, indeed, who takes an active
interest in the culture and embellishment of his garden, finds his pride
in it and his love for it increase daily. He is delighted to see it
flourish and improve beneath his care. Even the humble mechanic, in his
fondness for a garden, often indicates a feeling for the beautiful, and
a genial nature. If a rich man were openly to boast of his plate or his
equipages, or a literary man of his essays or his sonnets, as lovers of
flowers boast of their geraniums or dahlias or rhododendrons, they would
disgust the most indulgent hearer. But no one is shocked at the
exultation of a gardener, amateur or professional, when in the fulness
of his heart he descants upon the unrivalled beauty of his favorite
flowers:
'Plants of his hand, and children of his care.'
"I have made myself two gardens," says Petrarch, "and I do not imagine
that they are to be equalled in all the world. I should feel myself
inclined to be angry with fortune if there were any so beautiful out of
Italy." "I wish," says poor Kirke White writing to a friend, "I wish you
to have a taste of these (rural) pleasures with me, and if ever I should
live to be blessed with a quiet parsonage, and another great object of
my ambition--a garden, I have no doubt but we shall be for some short
intervals at least two quite contented bodies." The poet Young, in the
latter part of his life, after years of vain hopes and worldly
struggles, gave himself up almost entirely to the sweet seclusion of a
garden; and that peace and repose which cannot be found in courts and
political cabinets, he found at last
In sunny garden bowers
Where vernal winds each tree's low tones awaken,
And buds and bells with changes mark the hours.
He discovered that it was more profitable to solicit nature than to
flatter the great.
For Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.
People of a poetical temperament--all true lovers of nature--can afford,
far better than more essentially worldly beings, to exclaim with
Thomson.
I care not Fortune what you me deny,
You cannot bar me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face:
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns and living streams at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:--
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
The pride in a garden laid out under one's own directions and partly
cultivated by one's own hand has been alluded to as in some degree
unworthy of the dignity of manhood, not only by mere men of the world,
or silly coxcombs, but by people who should have known better. Even Sir
William Temple, though so enthusiastic about his fruit-trees, tells us
that he will not enter upon any account of flowers, having only
pleased himself with seeing or smelling them, and not troubled himself
with the care of them, which he observes "is more the ladies part than
the men's." Sir William makes some amends for this almost contemptuous
allusion to flowers in particular by his ardent appreciation of the use
of gardens and gardening in general. He thus speaks of their attractions
and advantages: "The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of the
smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the
exercise of working or walking, but above all, the exemption from cares
and solicitude, seem equally to favor and improve both contemplation and
health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet
and ease of the body and mind." Again: "As gardening has been the
inclination of kings and the choice of philosophers, so it has been the
common favorite of public and private men, a pleasure of the greatest
and the care of the meanest; and indeed an employment and a possession
for which no man is too high or too low." This is just and liberal;
though I can hardly help still feeling a little sore at Sir William's
having implied in the passage previously quoted, that the care of
flowers is but a feminine occupation. As an elegant amusement, it is
surely equally well fitted for all lovers of the beautiful, without
reference to their sex.
It is not women and children only who delight in flower-gardens. Lord
Bacon and William Pitt and the Earl of Chatham and Fox and Burke and
Warren Hastings--all lovers of flowers--were assuredly not men of
frivolous minds or of feminine habits. They were always eager to exhibit
to visitors the beauty of their parterres. In his declining years the
stately John Kemble left the stage for his garden. That sturdy English
yeoman, William Cobbett, was almost as proud of his beds of flowers as
of the pages of his Political Register. He thus speaks of gardening:
"Gardening is a source of much greater profit than is generally
imagined; but, merely as an amusement or recreation it is a thing of
very great value. It is not only compatible with but favorable to the
study of any art or science; it is conducive to health by means of the
irresistible temptation which it offers to early rising; to the stirring
abroad upon one's legs, for a man may really ride till he cannot walk,
sit till he cannot stand, and lie abed till he cannot get up. It tends
to turn the minds of youth from amusements and attachments of a
frivolous and vicious nature, it is a taste which is indulged at home;
it tends to make home pleasant, and to endear to us the spot on which it
is our lot to live,--and as to the expenses attending it, what are all
these expenses compared with those of the short, the unsatisfactory, the
injurious enjoyment of the card-table, and the rest of those amusements
which are sought from the town." Cobbett's English Gardener.
"Other fine arts," observes Lord Kames, "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, inclining the
spectator to communicate his satisfaction to others, and to make them
happy as he is himself, tend naturally to establish in him a habit of
humanity and benevolence."
Every thoughtful mind knows how much the face of nature has to do with
human happiness. In the open air and in the midst of summer-flowers, we
often feel the truth of the observation that "a fair day is a kind of
sensual pleasure, and of all others the most innocent." But it is also
something more, and better. It kindles a spiritual delight. At such a
time and in such a scene every observer capable of a religious emotion
is ready to exclaim--
Oh! there is joy and happiness in every thing I see,
Which bids my soul rise up and bless the God that blesses me
Anon.
The amiable and pious Doctor Carey of Serampore, in whose grounds sprang
up that dear little English daisy so beautifully addressed by his
poetical proxy, James Montgomery of Sheffield, in the stanzas
commencing:--
Thrice welcome, little English flower!
My mother country's white and red--
was so much attached to his Indian garden, that it was always in his
heart in the intervals of more important cares. It is said that he
remembered it even upon his death-bed, and that it was amongst his last
injunctions to his friends that they should see to its being kept up
with care. He was particularly anxious that the hedges or railings
should always be in such good order as to protect his favorite shrubs
and flowers from the intrusion of Bengalee cattle.
A garden is a more interesting possession than a gallery of pictures or
a cabinet of curiosities. Its glories are never stationary or stale. It
has infinite variety. It is not the same to-day as it was yesterday. It
is always changing the character of its charms and always increasing
them in number. It delights all the senses. Its pleasures are not of an
unsocial character; for every visitor, high or low, learned or
illiterate, may be fascinated with the fragrance and beauty of a garden.
But shells and minerals and other curiosities are for the man of science
and the connoisseur. And a single inspection of them is generally
sufficient: they never change their aspect. The Picture-Gallery may
charm an instructed eye but the multitude have little relish for human
Art, because they rarely understand it:--while the skill of the Great
Limner of Nature is visible in every flower of the garden even to the
humblest swain.
It is pleasant to read how the wits and beauties of the time of Queen
Anne used to meet together in delightful garden-retreats, 'like the
companies in Boccaccio's Decameron or in one of Watteau's pictures.'
Ritchings Lodge, for instance, the seat of Lord Bathurst, was visited by
most of the celebrities of England, and frequently exhibited bright
groups of the polite and accomplished of both sexes; of men
distinguished for their heroism or their genius, and of women eminent
for their easy and elegant conversation, or for gaiety and grace of
manner, or perfect loveliness of face and form--all in harmonious union
with the charms of nature. The gardens at Ritchings were enriched with
Inscriptions from the pens of Congreve and Pope and Gay and Addison and
Prior. When the estate passed into the possession of the Earl of
Hertford, his literary lady devoted it to the Muses. "She invited every
summer," says Dr. Johnson, "some poet into the country to hear her
verses and assist her studies." Thomson, who praises her so lavishly in
his "Spring," offended her ladyship by allowing her too clearly to
perceive that he was resolved not to place himself in the dilemma of
which Pope speaks so feelingly with reference to other poetasters.
Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I,
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie.
I sit with sad civility, I read
With honest anguish and an aching head.
But though "the bard more fat than bard beseems" was restive under her
ladyship's "poetical operations," and too plainly exhibited a desire to
escape the infliction, preferring the Earl's claret to the lady's
rhymes, she should have been a little more generously forgiving towards
one who had already made her immortal. It is stated, that she never
repeated her invitation to the Poet of the Seasons, who though so
impatient of the sound of her tongue when it "rolled" her own
"raptures," seems to have been charmed with her at a distance--while
meditating upon her excellencies in the seclusion of his own study. The
compliment to the Countess is rather awkwardly wedged in between
descriptions of "gentle Spring" with her "shadowing roses" and "surly
Winter" with his "ruffian blasts." It should have commenced the poem.
O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain,
With innocence and meditation joined
In soft assemblage, listen to my song,
Which thy own season paints; when nature all
Is blooming and benevolent like thee.
Thomson had no objection to strike off a brief compliment in verse, but
he was too indolent to keep up in propriâ personâ an incessant fire of
compliments, like the bon bons at a Carnival. It was easier to write
her praises than listen to her verses. Shenstone seems to have been more
pliable. He was personally obsequious, lent her recitations an attentive
ear, and was ever ready with the expected commendation. It is not likely
that her ladyship found much, difficulty in collecting around her a
crowd of critics more docile than Thomson and quite as complaisant as
Shenstone. Let but a Countess
Once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens, how the style refines!
Though Thomson's first want on his arrival in London from the North was
a pair of shoes, and he lived for a time in great indigence, he was
comfortable enough at last. Lord Lyttleton introduced him to the Prince
of Wales (who professed himself the patron of literature) and when his
Highness questioned him about the state of his affairs, Thomson assured
him that they "were in a more poetical posture than formerly." The
prince bestowed upon the poet a pension of a hundred pounds a year, and
when his friend Lord Lyttleton was in power his Lordship obtained for
him the office of Surveyor General of the Leeward Islands. He sent a
deputy there who was more trustworthy than Thomas Moore's at Bermuda.
Thomson's deputy after deducting his own salary remitted his principal
three hundred pounds per annum, so that the bard 'more fat than bard
beseems' was not in a condition to grow thinner, and could afford to
make his cottage a Castle of Indolence. Leigh Hunt has versified an
anecdote illustrative of Thomson's luxurious idleness. He who could
describe "Indolence" so well, and so often appeared in the part
himself,
Slippered, and with hands,
Each in a waistcoat pocket, (so that all
Might yet repose that could) was seen one morn
Eating a wondering peach from off the tree.
A little summer-house at Richmond which Thomson made his study is still
preserved, and even some articles of furniture, just as he left
them.[025] Over the entrance is erected a tablet on which is the
following inscription:
HERE
THOMSON SANG
THE SEASONS
AND THEIR CHANGE.
Thomson was buried in Richmond Church. Collins's lines to his memory,
beginning
In yonder grave a Druid lies,
are familiar to all readers of English poetry.
Richmond Hill has always been the delight not of poets only but of
painters. Sir Joshua Reynolds built a house there, and one of the only
three landscapes which seem to have survived him, is a view from the
window of his drawing-room. Gainsborough was also a resident in
Richmond. Richmond gardens laid out or rather altered by Brown, are now
united with those of Kew.
Savage resided for some time at Richmond. It was the favorite haunt of
Collins, one of the most poetical of poets, who, as Dr. Johnson says,
"delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the
magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian
gardens." Wordsworth composed a poem upon the Thames near Richmond in
remembrance of Collins. Here is a stanza of it.
Glide gently, thus for ever glide,
O Thames, that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now fair river! come to me;
O glide, fair stream for ever so,
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.
Thomson's description of the scenery of Richmond Hill perhaps hardly
does it justice, but the lines are too interesting to be omitted.
Say, shall we wind
Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead?
Or court the forest-glades? or wander wild
Among the waving harvests? or ascend,
While radiant Summer opens all its pride,
Thy hill, delightful Shene[026]? Here let us sweep
The boundless landscape now the raptur'd eye,
Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send,
Now to the sister hills[027] that skirt her plain,
To lofty Harrow now, and now to where
Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow
In lovely contrast to this glorious view
Calmly magnificent, then will we turn
To where the silver Thames first rural grows
There let the feasted eye unwearied stray,
Luxurious, there, rove through the pendent woods
That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat,
And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks,
Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retir'd,
With her the pleasing partner of his heart,
The worthy Queensbury yet laments his Gay,
And polish'd Cornbury woos the willing Muse
Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames
Fair winding up to where the Muses haunt
In Twit nam's bowers, and for their Pope implore
The healing god[028], to loyal Hampton's pile,
To Clermont's terrass'd height, and Esher's groves;
Where in the sweetest solitude, embrac'd
By the soft windings of the silent Mole,
From courts and senates Pelham finds repose
Enchanting vale! beyond whate'er the Muse
Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung!
O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills!
On which the Power of Cultivation lies,
And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
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