Part 10

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." 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." 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." 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. 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."

His remarks on some of the characters of Shakspeare (whom, in his Observations, he calls the great master of nature) breathe in many of his pages, that fire, which he could have caught only from those of the great poet. Such was his eagerness to complete his Observations, that he for a short while "suspended his design" of examining other characters of the poet, when the bright effusions of his genius "fled up to the stars from whence they came." This elegant little work is merely a fragment, nay, even an unfinished fragment. It must, then, cause deep regret, that death should so prematurely have deprived us of that rich treasure of animated thoughts, which, no doubt, would have sprung from his further tracing the poet's deep and piercing knowledge of the human heart. One may safely apply to Mr. Whateley, what he himself applies to the poet:--"He had a genius to express all that his penetration could discover." The Journal Encyclopédique, Juilliet, 1771, when speaking of the French translation of Whateley's Observations, says, "On ne peut guères se faire une idée de ces jardins, si l'on n'a été à Londres. Accoutumés à la symétrie des nôtres, nous n'imaginons pas qu'on puisse établir une forme irregulière, comme une regle principale: cependant ceux qui sentent combien la noble simplicité de la nature est supérieure à tous les rafinemens symétriques de l'art, donneront peuetêtre la préference aux jardins Anglois. C'est l'effet que doit produire la lecture de cet ouvrage, qui quoique destiné aux amateurs et aux compositeurs des jardins, offre aux gens de goût, aux artistes et sur-tout aux peintres, des observations fines et singulieres sur plusieurs effets de perspective et sur les arts en général; aux philosophes, des réflections justes sur les affections de notre ame; aux poëtes, des descriptions exactes, quoique vives, des plus beaux jardins d'Angleterre dans tous les genres, qui décèlent dans l'Auteur un oeil infiment exercé, une grande connoissance des beaux arts, une belle imagination et un esprit accoutumé à penser."

The "bloom of an orchard, the festivity of a hay field, and the carols of harvest home," could not have met with a more cheerful and benevolent pen than Mr. Whateley's; a love of country pervades many of his pages; nor could any one have traced the placid scenery, or rich magnificence of nature, with a happier pen than when he records the walk to the cottage at Claremont, the grandeur and majesty of the scene at Blenheim, or Stowe, Persfield, Wotton in the vale of Aylesbury--the rugged, savage, and craggy points of Middleton Dale, "a chasm rent in the mountain by some convulsion of nature, beyond the memory of man, or perhaps before the island was peopled," with its many rills, springs, rivulets, and water-falls--the vast cliffs of rocks at Matlock, Bath, that "scene of romantic magnificence; from such scenes, probably, was conceived the wild imagination, in ancient mythology, of the giants piling Pelion upon Ossa; the loftiness of the rocks, and the character of the Derwent, a torrent in which force and fury prevail; the cascades in it are innumerable; before the water is recovered from one fall, it is hurried down another; and its agitation being thus increased by repeated shocks, it pushes on with restless violence to the next, where it dashes against fragments of rocks, or foams among heaps of stones which the stream has driven together"--the dusky gloom at the iron forge, "close to the cascade of the Weir, (between Ross and Monmouth) where the agitation of the current is increased by large fragments of rocks, which have been swept down by floods from the banks, or shivered by tempests from the brow; and the sullen sound, at stated intervals, from the strokes of the great hammers in the forge, deadens the roar of the water-fall"--the solitude, the loveliness, and the stillness of Dovedale, "the whole of which has the air of enchantment; grotesque as chance can cast, wild as nature can produce"--the monkish tomb-stones, and the monuments of benefactors long since forgotten, which appear above the green sward, at Tintern Abbey, with its maimed effigies, and sculpture worn with age and weather--his view to the approach to Lord Cadogan's, near Reading--his feeling and enchanting description of the Leasowes--"the wonderful efforts which art has made at Painshill to rival nature;" where the massy richness of its hanging wood "gives an air of grandeur to the whole"--the Tinian, and other lawns, and noble and magnificent views in that vast sylvan scene Hagley, where, in a spot which once delighted Mr. Pope, is inscribed an urn to his memory, "which, when shewn by a gleam of moonlight through the trees, fixes that thoughtfulness and composure to which the mind is insensibly led by the rest of this elegant scene."

His section "Of the Seasons," where he descants on the spirit of the morning, the excess of noon, or the temperance of evening," must strike every one by its felicity of style; and the reader may judge of the rich pages which this book contains, even from what he says of water:--"It accommodates itself to every situation; is the most interesting object in a landscape, and the happiest circumstance in a retired recess; captivates the eye at a distance, invites approach, and is delightful when near; it refreshes an open exposure; it animates a shade; cheers the dreariness of a waste, and enriches the most crowded view; in form, in style, and in extent, may be made equal to the greatest compositions, or adapted to the least; it may spread in a calm expanse to soothe the tranquillity of a peaceful scene; or hurrying along a devious course, add splendour to a gay, and extravagance to a romantic, situation. So various are the characters which water can assume, that there is scarcely an idea in which it may not concur, or an impression which it cannot enforce; a deep stagnated pool, dank and dark with shades which it dimly reflects, befits the seat of melancholy; even a river, if it be sunk between two dismal banks, and dull both in motion and colour, is like a hollow eye which deadens the countenance; and over a sluggard, silent stream, creeping heavily along all together, hangs a gloom, which no art can dissipate, nor even the sunshine disperse. A gently murmuring rill, clear and shallow, just gurgling, just dimpling, imposing silence, suits with solitude, and leads to meditation; a brisker current, which wantons in little eddies over a bright sandy bottom, or babbles among pebbles, spreads cheerfulness all around; a greater rapidity, and more agitation, to a certain degree are animating; but in excess, instead of wakening, they alarm the senses; the roar and the rage of a torrent, its force, its violence, its impetuosity, tend to inspire terror; that terror, which, whether as cause or effect, is so nearly allied to sublimity."

DANIEL MALTHUS, ESQ. purchased, in 1759, the Rookery, near Dorking, noted for its beauties of hill, dale, wood, and water; he sold it in 1768. He translated Gerardin, De la Composition des Paysages, 12mo. 1783, to which he prefixed a preface, being, chiefly, remarks on what the gardens of the Greeks and Romans were; a view of Rosseau's tomb is prefixed. Mr. Malthus justly observes, that this Essay "is full of the most insinuating eloquence, that it is wrote by the friend of Rousseau, and from scenes which realize some of its most beautiful descriptions." He further observes, that "trifling as this enquiry will appear in itself, it may add something towards the benevolent purpose of M. d'Ernonville, which is to make men sensible of the exhaustless charms of nature, to lead them back to their simple and original tastes, to promote the variety and resources of a country life, and to unite its usefulness with its embellishment."

JOHN KENNEDY published a Treatise upon Planting, Gardening, &c. 8vo. York, 1776.

N. SWINDEN, "an ingenious gardener and seedsman at Brentford-End," wrote The Beauties of Flora Displayed; 8vo. 1778.

SAMUEL FULMER wrote The Young Gardener's Best Companion for the Kitchen, and Fruit Garden; 12mo. 1781.

CHARLES BRYANT published Flora Dietetica; or, the History of Esculent Plants: 8vo. 1785. Also, a Dictionary of Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, and Plants; 8vo. Norwich, 1790.

JOSEPH HEELEY, ESQ. author of Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes; with Critical Remarks on the Modern Taste in Gardening; 1777, 2 vols. 12mo.

THOMAS KYLE, or KEIL, "one of the first gardeners in Scotland, of his time," published a Treatise on the Management of the Peach and Nectarine Trees: to which is added, the Method of Raising and Forcing Vines; 8vo. Edinb. 1785. A second edition in 1787.

WILLIAM MARSHALL, ESQ. who, in his "Planting and Rural Ornament," has very properly transcribed the whole of that masterly production of Mr. Walpole's pen, his History of the Modern Taste in Gardening. He observes, that "a pen guided by so masterly a hand, must ever be productive of information and entertainment, when employed upon a subject so truly interesting. Desirous of conveying to our readers all the information which we can compress, with propriety, within the limits of our plan, we wished to have given the substance of this valuable paper; but finding it already in the language of simplicity, and being aware of the mischiefs which generally ensue in meddling with the productions of genius, we had only one alternative: either wholly to transcribe, or wholly to reject." Mr. Marshall, alluding to the above work of his, says, "Wheatley, Mason, and Nature, with some Experience, and much Observation, are the principal sources from which this part of our work was drawn; it was planned, and in part written, among the magnificent scenes of nature, in Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire, where the rich and the romantic are happily blended, in a manner unparalleled in any other part of the island." In this same work is preserved, Mr. Gray's letter on the scenery of Grasmere Water. His descriptions of many trees and shrubs are extremely interesting; and he has rendered them more so by his frequent quotations from Mr. Hanbury. He also published, in 8vo. The Rural Economy of the Southern Counties; 2 vols.--of the Midland Counties, 2 vols.--of Gloucestershire, 2 vols.--of Norfolk, 2 vols.--of Yorkshire, 2 vols.--Agriculture of the Southern Counties, 2 vols.--Minutes of Agriculture--and a Review of the Landscape, a didactic poem--and of an Essay on the Picturesque. The Encyclop. of Gardening, after relating varied information respecting him, says, that he "finally retired to a considerable property he possessed in his native county, in the Vale of Cleveland, in 1808, where he died, at an advanced age, in 1819. He was a man of little education, but of a strong and steady mind: and pursued, in the most consistent manner, from the year 1780 to his death, the plan he originally laid down; that of collecting and condensing the agricultural practices of the different counties of England, with a view to a general work on Landed Property, which he published; another on Agriculture, which he did not live to complete, and a Rural Institute, in which he was supplanted by the Board of Agriculture." His observations on the Larch, in vol. i. of his "Planting and Rural Ornament," and the zeal with which he recommends the planting of it on the infertile heathy flats of Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, on the bleak and barren heights of Yorkshire, Westmoreland, Cornwall, and Devon, and on the Welch and Salopean hills; and the powerful language with which he enforces its valuable qualities, merit the attention of every man of property.

WILLIAM SPEECHLY. He wrote Hints on Domestic Rural Economy; 8vo. On the Culture of the Vine and Pine Apple, with Hints on the Formation of Vineyards in England. On the Culture of the Pine Apple, and the Management of the Hot-House; 8vo. He made a tour in Holland, chiefly to observe the Dutch mode of cultivating the Pine, and the Grape. Mr. Loudon, in his Encyclop. calls him "the Moses of modern British vine dressers;" and in the Gardener's Magazine for January, 1828, has given an interesting and honourable character of him. He died at Great Milton, in 1819, aged eighty-six. Marshall, in his Planting and Rural Ornament, has given us Mr. Speechley's sensible letter on the Duke of Portland's Plantations. Mr. Johnson says "he perhaps surpassed every practical gardener of his age."

PHILIP LE BROCQ, chaplain to the Duke of Gloucester, wrote,

1, A Description of Certain Methods of Planting, Training, and Managing all Kinds of Fruit Trees, Vines, &c. London, 8vo. 1786.

2, Sketch of a Plan for making the New Forest, a Real Forest. Stockdale, 8vo. 1793.

WALTER NICHOL, whom Mr. Loudon, in his Encyclopædia, calls an author of merit, and informs us that Mr. Nichol, "in the year 1810, undertook an extensive journey through England, for the purpose of visiting the principal seats and plantations, with a view, on his return, to compose the Planter's Calendar. This work had scarcely commenced, when he was seized with an illness which carried him off suddenly, in March, 1811." His works appear to be the following:--

The Gardener's Kalendar; or, Monthly Directory of every Branch of Horticulture; 8vo.

The Planter's Kalendar; or, the Nurseryman's and Forester's Guide; 8vo.

The Villa Garden Directory; or, Monthly Index of Work to be done in Gardens, Shrubberies, &c.; 12mo.

Scotch Forcing Gardener; 8vo.

The Practical Planter.