Chapter 6

TIMOTHY NOURSE, whose "Campania Foelix," 8vo. 1700, has prefixed to it, a very neat engraving by Vander Gucht, of rural life. He has chapters on Fruit Trees; on the several kinds of Apple Trees, and on Cyder and Perry. In page 262 he, with great humanity, strongly pleads to acquit Lord Chancellor Bacon from the charge against him of corruption in his high office. His Essay "Of a Country House," in this work, is curious; particularly to those who wish to see the style of building, and the decorations of a country seat at that period. Mr. Nourse also published "A Discourse upon the Nature and Faculties of Man, with some Considerations upon the Occurrences of Humane Life." Printed for Jacob Tonson, at the Judge's Head, in Chancery-lane, 1686, 8vo. His chapter on Solitude, wherein he descants on the delights of rural scenery and gardens; and his conclusion, directing every man towards the attainment of his own felicity, are worth perusing. That on Death is forcibly written; he calls it "no more than for a man to close up all the travails, pains, and misfortunes of life, with one sweet and eternal sleep; he is now at everlasting rest; the fears and misery of poverty, the anxieties of riches, the vexations of a process, do not devour him. He does not fear the calumnies of the base, nor the frowns of the great. 'Tis death which delivers the prisoner from his fetters, and the slave and captive from his chain; 'tis death which rescues the servant from the endless toils of a laborious life, the poor from oppression, and makes the beggar equal with princes. Here desperation finds a remedy, all the languors of disease, all the frustrations and tediousness of life, all the infirmities of age, all the disquiets of the passions, and all the calamities of fortune, with whatever can make a man miserable, vanish in these shades." In his very curious "Essay of a Country House," he thus moralizes:--"The variety of flowers, beautiful and fragrant, with which his gardens are adorned, opening themselves, and dying one after another, must admonish him of the fading state of earthly pleasures, of the frailty of life, and of the succeeding generations to which he must give place. The constant current of a fountain, or a rivulet, must remind of the flux of time, which never returns."

SAMUEL COLLINS, ESQ. of Archeton, Northamptonshire, author of "Paradise Retrieved; 1717, 8vo. In the Preface to the Lady's Recreation, by Charles Evelyn, Esq. he is extremely severe on this "Squire Collins," whom he accuses of ignorance and arrogance.

JOHN EVELYN, son of the author of _Sylva_. His genius early displayed itself; for when little more than fifteen, he wrote a Greek poem, which must have some merit, because his father has prefixed it to the second edition of his _Sylva_. In Mr. Nicoll's Collection of Poems, are some by him. There are two poems of his in Dryden's Miscellany. He translated Plutarch's Life of Alexander from the Greek; and the History of Two Grand Viziers, from the French. When only nineteen, he translated from the Latin, Rapin on Gardens. He died in 1698. The Quarterly Review, in its review of Mr. Bray's Memoirs of Evelyn, thus speaks of this son, and of his father:--"It was his painful lot to follow to the grave his only remaining son, in the forty-fourth year of his age, a man of much ability and reputation, worthy to have supported the honour of his name. Notwithstanding these repeated sorrows, and the weight of nearly fourscore years, Evelyn still enjoyed uninterrupted health, and unimpaired faculties; he enjoyed also the friendship of the wise and the good, and the general esteem beyond any other individual of his age."[50]

THOMAS FAIRCHILD, whose garden and vineyard at Hoxton, Mr. Bradley mentions in high terms, in numberless pages of his many works. I will merely quote from one of his works, viz. from his Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature:--"that curious garden of Mr. Thomas Fairchild, at Hoxton, where I find the greatest collection of fruits that I have yet seen, and so regularly disposed, both for order in time of ripening and good pruning of the several kinds, that I do not know any person in Europe to excel him in that particular; and in other things he is no less happy in his choice of such curiosities, as a good judgement and universal correspondence can procure." Mr. Fairchild published The City Gardener; 8vo. 1722, price 1s. He corresponded with Linnæus. He left funds for a Botanical Sermon to be delivered annually at St. Leonard, Shoreditch, on each Whitsun Tuesday, "On the wonderful works of God in the creation, or on the certainty of the resurrection of the dead, proved by the certain changes of the animal and vegetable parts of the creation."[51] Dr. Pulteney thus speaks of Mr. Fairchild:--"My plan does not allow me to deviate so far as to cite authors on the subject of gardening, unless eminent for their acquaintance with English botany. Some have distinguished themselves in this way; and I cannot omit to mention, with applause, the names of Fairchild, Knowlton, Gordon, and Miller. The first of these made himself known to the Royal Society, by some 'New Experiments relating to the different, and sometimes contrary motion of the Sap;' which were printed in the Phil. Trans. vol. xxxiii. He also assisted in making experiments, by which the sexes of plants were illustrated, and the doctrine confirmed. Mr. Fairchild died in November, 1729."

GEORGE RICKETS, of Hoxton, was much noted about 1688 and 1689. Rea, in his Flora, says of him, "Mr. Rickets, of Hogsden, often remembered, the best and most faithful florist now about London." Rea describes, in his Flora, one hundred and ninety different kinds of tulips, and says, "All these tulips, and _many others_, may be had of Mr. Rickets." Worlidge thus speaks of him:--"he hath the greatest variety of the choicest apples, pears, cherries, plums, apricots, peaches, malacolones, noctorines, figgs, vines, currans, gooseberries, rasberries, mulberries, medlars, walnuts, nuts, filberts, chesnuts, &c. that any man hath, and can give the best account of their natures and excellencies." And again he says, "the whole nation is obliged to the industry of the ingenious Mr. George Rickets, gardner at Hoxton or Hogsden without Bishopsgate, near London, at the sign of the Hand there; who can furnish any planter with all or most of the fruit trees before mentioned, having been for many years a most laborious and industrious collector of the best species of all sorts of fruit from foreign parts. And hath also the richest and most complete collection of all the great variety of flower-bearing trees and shrubs in the kingdom. That there is not a day in the year, but the trees, as well as the most humble plants, do there yield ornaments for Flora; with all sorts of curious and pleasant winter-greens, that seemed to perpetuate the spring and summer, from the most humble myrtle, to the very true cedar of Libanus. Not without infinite variety of tulips, auriculaes, anemones, gillyflowers, and all other sorts of pleasant, and delicate flowers, that he may be truly said to be the master-flowrist of England; and is ready to furnish any ingenious person with any of his choicest plants."

JOHN COWEL appears to have been a noted gardener at Hoxton, about 1729. He was the author of the "Curious and Profitable Gardener."

HUGH STAFFORD, ESQ. of Pynes, in Devonshire, who published, in 1729, "A Treatise on Cyder Making, with a Catalogue of Cyder Apples of Character; to which is prefixed, a Dissertation on Cyder, and Cyder-Fruit." Another edition in 1753.

BENJAMIN WHITMILL, Sen. and Jun. Gardeners at Hoxton, published the sixth edition, in small 8vo. of their "Kalendarium Universale: or, the Gardener's Universal Calendar." The following is part of their Preface:--"The greatest persons, in all ages, have been desirous of a country retirement, where every thing appears in its native simplicity. The inhabitants are religious, the fair sex modest, and every countenance bears a picture of the heart. What, therefore, can be a more elegant amusement, to a good and great man, than to inspect the beautiful product of fields and gardens, when every month hath its pleasing variety of plants and flowers. And if innocence be our greatest happiness, where can we find it but in a country life? In fields and gardens we have pleasures unenvied, and beauties unsought for; and any discovery for the improvement of them, is highly praiseworthy. In the growth of a plant, or a tree, we view the progress of nature, and ever observe that all her works yield beauty and entertainment. To cultivate this beauty, is a task becoming the wealthy, the polite, and the learned; this is so generally understood, that there are few gentlemen of late, who are not themselves their chief gardeners. And it certainly redounds more to the honour and satisfaction of a gardener, that he is a preserver and pruner of all sorts of fruit trees, than it does to the happiness of the greatest general that he has been successful in killing mankind."

SAMUEL TROWEL, of Poplar, published, in 1739, A New Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening; 12mo. 2s. 6d. This was translated in Germain, at Leipsig, 1750, in 8vo.

REV. FRANCIS COVENTRY, who wrote an admirable paper in the _World_, (No. 15,) on the absurd novelties introduced in gardens. He wrote Penshurst, in Dodsley's Poems.

JAMES JUSTICE, ESQ. published the "Scot's Gardener's Director," 8vo. A new edition, entitled "The _British_ Gardener's Director, chiefly adapted to the Climate of the Northern Counties," was published at _Edinburgh_, 1764, 8vo. The Encyclopædia of Gardening calls his book "an original and truly valuable work;" and in page 87, 846, and 1104, gives some interesting particulars of this gentleman's passion for gardening.

JOHN GIBSON, M.D. author of "The Fruit Gardener," to which he has prefixed an interesting Preface on the Fruit Gardens of the Ancients. In this Preface he also relates the origin of fruit gardens, by the hermits, and monastic orders. In his Introduction, he says, that "every kind of fruit tree seems to contend in spring, who shall best entertain the possessor with the beauty of their blossoms. Mankind are always happy with the prospect of plenty; in no other scene is it exhibited with such charming variety, as in the fruit garden and orchard. Are gentlemen fond of indulging their tastes? Nature, from the plentiful productions of the above, regales them with a variety of the finest flavours and exalted relishes. To cool us in the heat of summer, she copiously unites the acid to an agreeable sweetness. Flowering shrubs and trees are often purchased by gentlemen at a high price; yet not one of them can compare in beauty with an _apple tree_, when beginning to expand its blossoms."[52] Speaking of the greengage, he says, "its taste is so exquisitely sweet and delicious, that nothing can exceed it." He enlivens many of his sections on the cultivation of various fruits, by frequent allusions to Theophrastus, Virgil, Pliny, and other _Rei rustica scriptores_. His chapter on Pears, (the various kinds of which possess "a profusion of sweets, heightened by an endless variety of delicious flavours,") is particularly profuse. So is that on Apples.

JAMES RUTTER published, in 1767, Modern Eden, or the Gardener's Universal Guide; 8vo.

JOHN DICKS published, in 1769, The New Gardener's Dictionary; in sixty numbers, small folio, 30s. Blyth.

JAMES GARTON published, in 1769, The Practical Gardener; 8vo. 3s. Dilly.

---- WILDMAN published, in 1768, a Treatise on the Culture of Pear Trees: to which is added, a Treatise on the Management of Bees; 12mo. Dublin.

ANTHONY POWEL, ESQ. Gardener to George II. published The Royal Gardener; 12mo. 1769.

---- OCKENDEN, ESQ. published, in 1770, Letters, describing the Lake of Killarney, and Rueness's Gardens; 8vo. Dublin.

THOMAS HITT published his Treatise on Fruit Trees, 8vo. 1775. A third edition in 1768. Mr. Loudon calls it "an original work, valuable for its mode of training trees." He also published, in 1760, a Treatise on Husbandry; 8vo. 3s.

ADAM TAYLOR, Gardener to J. Sutton, Esq. at New Park, near Devizes, published a Treatise on the Ananas, or Pine Apple: containing Plain and Easy Directions for Raising this most excellent Fruit without Fire, and in much higher perfection than from the Stove; to which are added, Full Directions for Raising Melons. Devizes, 8vo. 1769.

JAMES MEADER, Gardener at Sion House, and afterwards to the Empress Catharine. He published, in 1771, in 12mo. The Modern Gardener, &c. in a manner never before published; selected from the Diary MSS. of the late Mr. Hitt. Also, The Planter's Guide, or Pleasure Gardener's Companion; with plates, 1779, oblong 4to.

RICHARD WESTON, ESQ. an amateur gardener, who has given, at the end of his "Tracts on Practical Agriculture, and Gardening," 1762, 8vo. a Catalogue of English Authors on Agriculture, Gardening, &c. There is another edition in 1773, with additions. His intelligent Catalogue is brought down to the end of the year 1772. This volume of Tracts contains an infinity of ingenious and curious articles. One of the chapters contains "A Plan for Planting all the Turnpike Roads in England with Timber Trees."[53] He most zealously wishes to encourage planting. "I believe (says this candid writer) that one of the principal reasons why few persons plant, springs from a fearful conjecture that their days will have been passed, before the forest can have risen. But let not the parent harbour so selfish an idea; it should be his delight, to look forward to the advantage which his children would receive from the timber which he planted, contented if it flourished every year beneath his inspection; surely there is much more pleasure in planting of trees, than in cutting of them down. View but the place where a fine tree stands, what an emblem does it afford of present beauty and of future use; examine the spot after the noble ornament shall have been felled, and see how desolate it will appear. Perhaps there is not a better method of inducing youth to have an early inclination for planting, than for fathers, who have a landed estate, to persuade those children who are to inherit it, as soon as they come to years of discretion, to make a small nursery, and to let them have the management of it themselves; they will then see the trees yearly thriving under their hands: as an encouragement to them, they should, when the trees are at a fit growth to plant out, let them have the value of them for their pocket money. This will, in their tender years, fix so strong an idea of the value, and the great consequence of planting, as will never be eradicated afterwards; and many youths, of the age of twenty-five, having planted quick growing trees, may see the industry of their juvenile years amply rewarded at that early age, a time when most young men begin to know the value of money."[54] Mr. Pope, in one of his letters to Mr. Allen, thus discovers his own generous mind:--"I am now as busy in planting for myself as I was lately in planting for another. I am pleased to think my trees will afford shade and fruit to others, when I shall want them no more." Mr. Addison's admirable recommendation of planting, forms No. 583 of the Spectator. He therein says, "When a man considers that the putting a few twigs in the ground, is doing good to one who will make his appearance in the world about fifty years hence, or that he is perhaps making one of his own descendants easy or rich, by so inconsiderable an expence; if he finds himself averse to it, he must conclude that he has a poor and base heart. Most people are of the humour of an old fellow of a college, who, when he was pressed by the society to come into something that might redound to the good of their successors, grew very peevish. _We are always doing_, says he, _something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us._"[55] Mr. Weston also published The Universal Botanist and Nursery; 1770, 1774, 4 vols. 8vo. The Gardener and Planter's Calendar, containing the Method of Raising Timber Trees, Fruit Trees, and Quicks for Hedges; with Directions for Forming and Managing a Garden every Month in the Year; also many New Improvements in the Art of Gardening; 8vo. 1773. Mr. Weston then appears to have lived at Kensington Gore. The Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1806, says, that he died at Leicester, in 1806, aged seventy-four. He was formerly a thread hosier there. It gives an amusing and full list of his various publications, particularly of his intended "Natural History of Strawberries."

GEORGE MASON. The best edition of his "Essay on Design in Gardening," appears to have been that of 1795, in 8vo. Two Appendixes were published in 1798, which are said to have been written by Mr. U. Price. In Mr. Nichols's fourth volume of Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, are some particulars of Mr. Mason. He published Hoccleve's Poems, with a Glossary; an Answer to Thomas Paine; the Life of Lord Howe; a Supplement to Johnson's Dictionary: in the ill-tempered preface to which, he thus strangely speaks of that Dictionary:--"this muddiness of intellect sadly besmears and defaces almost every page of the composition." This is only a small instance of his virulence against Johnson in this preface. One would have thought that Mr. Mason's sarcasms would have been softened, or even subdued, by its glowing and eloquent preface, which informs us that this great work was composed "without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour." I am sorry to say, that Mr. Mason, even in the above Essay, discovers, in three instances, his animosity to our "Dictionary writer," for so he calls Dr. Johnson. Mr. Boswell, speaking of Johnson's preface, says, "We cannot contemplate without wonder, the vigorous and splendid thoughts which so highly distinguish that performance;" and on the Dictionary he observes, that "the world contemplated with wonder, so stupendous a work, achieved by one man, while other countries had thought such undertakings fit only for whole academies." Linnæus and Haller styled Ray's History of Plants, _opus immensi laboris_. One may justly apply the same words to this Dictionary. It was well for Mr. Mason that he escaped (what Miss Seward called) "the dead-doing broadside of Dr. Johnson's satire." George Mason omits no opportunity of censuring Mr. Whateley's Observations on Modern Gardening. In the above Essay, he censures him in seven different pages, and in his distinct chapter or division on this book of Mr. Whateley's, (consisting of thirteen pages) there are no less than thirty-three additional sneers, or faults, found with his opinions. He does not acknowledge in him one single solitary merit, except at page 191. In page 160, he nearly, if not quite, calls him a _fool_, and declares that _vanity_ is the passion to which he is constantly sacrificing.[56] It would be an insult to any one who has read Mr. Whateley's work, to endeavour to clear him from such a virulent and ill-founded attack. Neither Dr. Johnson, with all his deep learning, nor Mr. Whateley, with all the cultivated fancy of a rich scholastic mind, would either of them have been able to comprehend, or to understand, or even to make head or tail of the first half of Mr. George Mason's poem, with which he closes the above edition of his Essay. As he has been so caustically severe against Dr. Johnson, it cannot be ungenerous if one applies to the above part of his own poem, the language of a French critic on another subject:--"Le style en est dur, et scabreux. Il semble que l'auteur a ramassé les termes les plus extraordinaires pour se rendre inintelligible." Percy, Bishop of Dromore, in vol. x. page 602, of the British Critic, has given a critique of Mr. Mason's edition of Hoccleve, in which he chastises its injustice, arrogance, and ignorance. Mr. Mason has been more liberal in warmly praising Kent, and Shenstone, in acknowledging the great taste and elegance of Mr. Thomas Warton, when the latter notices Milton's line of

_Bosom'd high in tufted trees,_

which picturesque remark of Mr. Warton's could not have been excelled even by the nice and critical pen of the late Sir U. Price; and when he informs us, in more than one instance, of the great Earl of Chatham's "turning his mind to the embellishment of rural nature."

THOMAS WHATELEY, on whose "Observations on Modern Gardening," the Encyclopædia of Gardening (that most comprehensive assemblage of every thing delightful and curious in this art,) observes, "It is remarkable, that so little is known of a writer, the beauty of whose style, and the justness of whose taste, are universally acknowledged." The same work further says, "his excellent book, so frequently referred to by all succeeding writers on garden scenery, ought to be in the hands of every man of taste." And the same work still further observes, that "its style has been pronounced by Ensor, inimitable, and the descriptions with which his investigations are accompanied, have been largely copied, and amply praised by Alison, in his work On Taste. The book was soon translated into the continental languages, and is judiciously praised in the _Mercure de France_, _Journal Encyclopédique_, and Weiland's _Journal_. G. Mason alone dissents from the general opinion, enlarging on the very few faults or peculiarities which are to be found in the book. Wheatley, or Whately (for so little is known of this eminent man, that we have never been able to ascertain satisfactorily the orthography of his name,) was proprietor of Nonsuch Park, in Surrey; and was secretary to the Earl of Suffolk. He published only this work, soon after which he died. After his death, some remarks on Shakspeare, from his pen, were published in a small 12mo." A second edition of this elegant little work was published in 1808, by Parson, Oxford; or Rivington, St. Paul's; in which, the advertisement to the reader informs us, that "the respectable author intended to have gone through eight or ten of the principal characters of Shakspeare, but suspended his design, in order to finish his Observations on Modern Gardening, first published in the year 1770; immediately after which time, _he was engaged in such an active scene of public life_, as left him but little leisure to attend to the Belles Lettres; and in the year 1772 he died."[57]