The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, The same mild season gives the blooms to blow, Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear, Beds of all various herbs, for ever green, Two plenteous fountains the whole prospect crown'd ; Sir William Temple has remarked that this description contains all the justest rules and provisions which can go toward composing the best gardens. Its extent was four acres, which in those times of simplicity was looked upon as a large one, even for a prince: it was inclosed inclosed all round for defence; and for conveniency joined close to the gates of the palace. He mentions next the trees, which were standards, and suffered to grow to their full height. The fine description of the fruits that never failed, and the eternal zephyrs, is only a more noble and poetical way of expressing the continual succession of one fruit after another throughout the year. The vineyard seems to have been a plantation distinct from the garden; as also the beds of greens mentioned afterwards at the extremity of the inclosure, in the nature and usual place of our kitchen gardens. The two fountains are disposed very remarkably. They rose within the inclosure, and were brought by conduits or ducts, one of them to water all parts of the gardens, and the other underneath the palace into the town, for the service of the public. How contrary to this simplicity is the modern practice of gardening! We seem to make it our study to recede from nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most regular and formal shapes, but even in monstrous attempts beyond the reach of the art itself: we run into sculpture, and are yet better pleased to have our trees in the most awkward figures of men and animals, than in the most regular of their own. Hinc &nexilibus videas e frondibus bortos, I believe I believe it's no wrong observat on, that persons of genius, who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature, as such are chiefly sensible that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. On the contrary, people of the common level of understanding are principally delighted with the little niceties and fantastical operations of art, and constantly think that finest which is least natural. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. I know an eminent cook who' beautified his country-seat with a coronation dinner, in greens, where you see the champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual youth at the other. For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of this curious taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of greens to be disposed of by an eminent town-gardener who has lately applied to me upon this head. He represents, that for the advancement of a politer sort of ornament in the villas and gardens adjacent to this great city, and in order to distinguish those places from the mere barbarous countries of gross nature, the world stands much in need of a virtuoso gardener who has a turn to sculpture, and is thereby capable of improving upon the antients of his profession in the imagery of evergreens. My correspondent is arrived to such perfection, that he cuts family pieces of men, women or children. Any ladies that please may have their own effigies in myrtle, or their husbands' in hornbeam. He is a puritan wag, and never fails, when he shows his garden, to repeat that passage in the Psalms, "Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine, and thy children as as olive branches round thy table.' I shall proceed to his catalogue, as he sent it for my recommendation. Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in the great storm : Eve and the serpent very flourishing. The tower of Babel, not yet finished. St. George in box: his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a condition to stick the dragon by next April. A green dragon of the same, with a tail of groundivy for the present. N. B. These two not to be sold separately. Edward the black prince in cypress. A laurustine bear in blossom, with a juniper hunter in berries. A pair of giants, stunted, to be sold cheap. A queen Elizabeth in phillyræa, a little inclining to the green-sickness, but of full growth. Another queen Elizabeth in myrtle, which was very forward, but miscarried by being too near a savine. An old maid of honour in wormwood. A topping Ben Jonson in laurel. Divers eminent modern poets in bays, somewhat blighted, to be disposed of a pennyworth. A quick-set hog shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week in rainy weather. A lavender pig with sage growing in his belly. Noah's ark in holly, standing on the mount; the ribs a little damaged for want of water. SELECTIONS SELECTIONS FROM THE FREE-HOLDER. PRESTON HERO. No. 3. EVERY one knows that it is usual for a French officer, who can write and read, to set down all the occurrences of a campaign in which he pretends to have been personally concerned; and to publish them under the title of his memoirs, when most of his fellow-soldiers are dead that might have contradicted any of his matters of fact. Many a gallant young fellow has been killed in battle before he came to the third page of his secret history; when several, who have taken more care of their persons, have lived to fill a whole volume. with their military performances, and to astonish the world with such instances of their bravery as had escaped the notice of every body else. One of our late Preston heroes had, it seems, resolved upon this method of doing himself justice: and, had he not been nipped in the bud, might have made a very formidable figure in his own works among posterity. A friend of mine, who had the pillage of his pockets, has made me a present of the following memoirs, which he desires me to accept as a part of the spoils of the rebels. VOL. III, 2 B |