Persons of influence, residing in the country, should do their utmost to encourage the cultivation not only of flowers, but of vegetables and bees, amongst their poorer neighbours. It not only tends to keep them out of ale and beerhouses, those curses of the labouring man in this country, but improves their minds, their habits, and health. An amiable florist has observed, that the love of flowers is one of the earliest impressions, which the dawning of reason implants in the human mind; and that happy are the parents of children in whose imaginations this desirable predilection is early evinced. It inculcates a salutary habit of reasoning and thinking on subjects worthy of exercising the thoughts, and is calculated to improve them. It gradually trains the mind to the study and observance of that most instructive volume, the Book of Nature. The passion for flowers is, indeed, one of the most enduring and permanent of all enjoyments. At the coming of each revolving Spring, we anxiously return to our loved and favourite pursuit. With joy and delight we perceive that

1

Ethereal mildness is come,

and that the glory of reviving nature is returned.

In Pliny's description of his beautiful garden in Tuscany, how readily we trace the happiness and contentment he found in following the intellectual pursuit he so much delighted in. He says,

"I here enjoy a more profound retirement. All is calm and composed, and this contributes, no less than the clear air and unclouded sky, to that health of body and cheerfulness of mind, which I particularly enjoy here."

Horace, also, expressed his desire of possessing a garden, and a small portion of ground.

Hoc erat in votis: modus agri non ita magnus;
Hortus ubi, et tecto vicinus jugis aquæ fons,

Et paulum silvæ super his foret.

It would be endless to attempt an enumeration of the many celebrated men of our own country who have taken pleasure in the cultivation of a garden. I will, therefore, only refer to a few.

Those who have been at Dropmore, will have seen a proof of the fine taste of the late Lord Grenville, who converted an almost barren heath into one of the most charming gardens and pleasuregrounds imaginable. Here Deodara cedars, araucarias, and many rare and beautiful pines, may be seen in great perfection, and a great variety of curious plants. Every opportunity was taken of preserving in the demesne the wilder beauties of the situation; the woods and plantations flourished under the immediate hands and pruning hook of the Right Honourable Thomas Grenville, while the Flower Gardens plainly told what of their great beauty they owed to the guiding care and judgment of their noble mistress.

A friend of mine, upon viewing the grounds on a fine summer day, in 1840, gave expression to his feelings in the following lines

Long midst thy groves, fair DROPMORE, could I stray, For you are fair, indeed-from the bare heath

You sprung by magic of his classic mind

And owe your landscape to a GRENVILLE's skill.

Yes! you were grateful,- solace sweet you gave
To temples aching for his country's weal,-
To nerves all wearied with the constant strife
Of angry senates, in tumultuous times.

Your groves have soothed him with their umbrage cool,
Your laughing lawns have spread their greensward soft
To tempt his steps, strolling in converse sweet

With kindred souls, co-equal in their lore,
And striving each for England's happiness.

Yes, you were grateful,

- here in peace he dwelt,

Rich in connubial and fraternal love.

DROPMORE! those hands yet tend with pious care Your charms, and as He left them, still they glow, While riper beauty consummates his plan.

W. N.

Mr. Fox delighted in planting and ornamenting St. Anne's Hill, where masses of some of the finest rhododendrons and azalias in England may be seen, and where the effects of his good taste are very conspicuous. Burke and Warren Hastings passed their most tranquil, and, perhaps, happiest days, in laying out and improving their gardens at Hallbarn and Daylesford; and Mr. Pitt had equal pleasure at Holwood. The late Marquess

258 PITT, MARQUESS WELLESLEY, ST. JOHN.

Wellesley shewed his fondness for flowers almost to the last moment of his life. The conservatory of that great statesman at Kingston House was a blaze of beauty, even in Winter; and not a long time before he died, he mentioned to me the great delight it afforded him.

The celebrated St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, was also a lover of gardens. When he resided on his beautiful estate, called La Source, near Orleans, the taste he shewed in its adornment is said to have been exquisite. He calls it "his Hermitage;" and in mentioning the small river Loiret, which has its source near his residence, he says, "I have, in my wood, the biggest and clearest spring in Europe, which forms, before it leaves the park, a more beautiful river than any which flows in Greek or Latin verse." Like Shenstone, he placed inscriptions in his grounds. When he resided at Dawley, Pope, in one of his letters to Swift, says, "I now hold the pen for my Lord Bolingbroke, who is reading your letter between two hay-cocks; but his attention is somewhat diverted by casting his eyes on the clouds, not in admiration of what you say, but for fear of a shower. As to the return of his health and vigour, were you here, you might enquire of his hay-makers; but as to his temperance, I can answer, that for one whole day we have had nothing for dinner but mutton broth, beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl. Now his

Lordship has run after his cart, and I have a moment to tell you that I overheard him agree with a painter, to paint his hall with rakes, spades, prongs, and other ornaments, to countenance his calling this place a farm."

Horace Walpole, in his letters, frequently speaks of his garden, and of the pleasure it afforded him, especially in the lilac and laburnum season. He says, in one of them, "My present and sole occupation is planting, in which I have made great progress, and talk very learnedly with the nurserymen, except that now and then a lettuce, run to seed, overturns all my botany, as I have more than once, taken it for a curious West-Indian flowering shrub." In another letter, he thus mentions his favourite pursuit to his friend, Mr. Montague, "I can furnish you with a few plants, particularly three Chinese arbor-vitas, a dozen of the New England pines,* that beautiful tree that we have so much admired at the Duke of Argyle's, for its clear, straight stem, the lightness of its hairy green, and for being feathered quite to the ground. * * There is another bit of picture of which I am fond, and that is a larch or spruce fir, planted behind a weeping willow, and shooting upwards as the willow depends."

Shenstone talks with enthusiasm of his flowers,

* What pine is this, which Walpole calls New England. Quære Weymouth. J. M.