Part 19

2. Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Natural History; selected from the principal writers of antiquity. 1793. 4to.

3. Remarks on the Influence of Climate, Situation, Nature of Country, &c. The Encyclop. of Gardening calls this "a most interesting work." A writer in the New Monthly Mag. says "it displays an almost unlimited extent of learning and research."

4. An Historical View of the Taste for Gardening and Laying out Grounds among the Nations of Antiquity. 8vo. 1s. 6d. 1783. Dilly.

A list of his other works (nearly twenty in number), may be seen in the Dictionary of Living Authors, or in vol. xii. of the New Monthly Mag.; which last work says that the late Lord Thurlow, at whose table he was almost a constant guest, declared that "he never saw such a man; that he knew every thing, and knew it better than any one else." Neither this last publication, nor Dr. Watts in his Bibl. Brit. mention Dr. Falconer's Historical View of the Taste for Gardening.

WILLIAM CURTIS. This honest, much-esteemed, and inoffensive man, though so deservedly eminent as a botanist, published only the following work on horticulture:--"Directions for Cultivating the Crambe Maritima, or Sea-kale for the Use of the Table." A new edition, enlarged, with three engravings. 2s. 6d. Mr. Loudon says, that this pamphlet has done more to recommend the culture of sea-kale and diffuse the knowledge of it, than all his predecessors. Nearly three pages of the Encyclopædia are enriched with the result of all that has appeared on the cultivation of this vegetable by English, Scotch, or French writers.

The botanical works of Mr. Curtis have long been held in high esteem. The first number of his Flora Londinensis appeared in 1777. He commenced his Botanical Magazine in 1787. His Observations on British Grasses, appeared in a second edition, with coloured plates, in 1790. His Lectures were published after his death, to which is prefixed his portrait. His portrait is also given in Dr. Thornton's Botany. He died in 1799, was buried in Battersea church-yard, and on his grave-stone these lines are inscribed:--

While living herbs shall spring profusely wild, Or gardens cherish all that's sweet and gay, So long thy works shall please, dear nature's child, So long thy memory suffer no decay.

THOMAS MARTYN, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, whose striking portrait, from a picture by Russel, appears in Dr. Thornton's superb work on botany. He died in June, 1825, in the ninetieth year of his age. His edition of Miller's Gardener's Dictionary, appeared in 4 vols. folio. Mr. Johnson observes, that this work "requires no comment. It is a standard, practical work, never to be surpassed." Mr. Martyn also published Flora Rustica, a description of plants, useful or injurious in husbandry, with coloured plates, 4 vols. 8vo.

SIR W. CHAMBERS. There are portraits of him by Sir J. Reynolds, engraved by Collyer and by Green; one by Cotes, engraved by Houston, in 1772; and a profile by Pariset, after a drawing by Falconot. He died in 1796, aged sixty-nine. He published,

1. Designs for Chinese Buildings.

2. Plans and Views of the Buildings and Gardens at Kew.

3. A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, second edition, with additions. To which is annexed an Explanatory Discourse, 4to. 1773. This work gave rise to those smart satires, An Heroic Epistle, and An Heroic Postscript.

HUMPHREY REPTON, Esq. His portrait is prefixed to his Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, folio. 1803. He also published on this subject:

1. Letter to U. Price, Esq. on Landscape Gardening, 8vo. 1794.

2. Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening, folio, 1795.

3. Enquiry into the Changes in Landscape Gardening, 8vo. 1806.

4. On the Introduction of Indian Architecture and Gardening, folio, 1808.

5. On the supposed Effect of Ivy upon Trees. A charming little essay inserted in the Linn. Trans. vol. xi.

6. Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, 4to. 1816. In p. 80 of the Encyclop. of Gardening, is some general information respecting Mr. Repton.

WILLIAM FORSYTH, Esq. His portrait is prefixed to the seventh edition of his Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees, 8vo. 1824; also to the 4to. edition of the same work in 1802. He also published Observations on the diseases, defects, and injuries in all kinds of Fruit and Forest Trees, with an account of a particular method of cure, 8vo. 1791. Mr. Forsyth died in 1804.

MR. JAMES DICKSON, who established the well-known seed and herb shop in Covent-garden, and died at the age of eighty-six, a few years ago, appears to have been very much esteemed. His family at Croydon possess his portrait, and there is another preserved by the Horticultural Society. He married for his second wife a sister of the intrepid traveller Mungo Park. Mr. Dickson, when searching for plants in the Hebrides, in 1789, was accompanied by him. Handsome mention is made of Mr. Dickson in the Life of Mungo Park, prefixed to the "Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa." In the above life, the friendly and generous assistance which Sir Joseph Banks shewed both to Mr. Dickson, and to Mungo Park, is very pleasingly recorded. A memoir of Mr. Dickson is given in the 5th vol. of the Hort. Transactions. He published, Fasciculus Plantarum Cryptog. Brit. 4 parts 4to. 1785-1801.

RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT, Esq. author of The Landscape, a didactic poem, 4to. 1794. A second edition, with a preface, appeared in 4to. in 1795. This poem is the only production of Mr. Knight, on the subject of landscape scenery, except his occasional allusions thereto, in his Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste, the second edition of which appeared in 8vo. in 1805. This latter work embraces a variety of subjects, and contains many energetic pages, particularly those on Homer, and on the English drama. His philosophical survey of human life "in its last stages," (at p. 461), and where he alludes to "the hooks and links which hold the affections of age," is worthy of all praise; it is deep, solemn, and affecting. The other publications of this gentleman are enumerated in Dr. Watts's Bibl. Brit. Mr. Knight, in his Landscape, after invoking the genius of Virgil, in reference to his

----O qui me gelidis in vallibus Hoemi Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat unbrâ,

thus proceeds, after severely censuring Mr. Browne, who

----bade the stream 'twixt banks close shaved to glide; Banish'd the thickets of high-bowering wood, Which hung, reflected o'er the glassy flood: Where screen'd and shelter'd from the heats of day, Oft on the moss-grown stone reposed I lay, And tranquil view'd the limpid stream below, Brown with o'er hanging shade, in circling eddies flow. Dear peaceful scenes, that now prevail no more, Your loss shall every weeping muse deplore! Your poet, too, in one dear favour'd spot, Shall shew your beauties are not quite forgot: Protect from all the sacrilegious waste Of false improvement, and pretended taste, One tranquil vale! where oft, from care retir'd He courts the muse, and thinks himself inspired; Lulls busy thought, and rising hope to rest, And checks each wish that dares his peace molest.

After scorning "wisdom's solemn empty toys," he proceeds:

Let me, retir'd from business, toil, and strife, Close amidst books and solitude my life; Beneath yon high-brow'd rocks in thickets rove, Or, meditating, wander through the grove; Or, from the cavern, view the noontide beam Dance on the rippling of the lucid stream, While the wild woodbine dangles o'er my head, And various flowers around their fragrance spread.

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