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its trees, the arrangement of its flowers, the succession of its artificial embellishments, and the judicious conduct of its surrounding path, that it becomes apparently magnified into ample extent. The patches of flowers and clumps of shrubs are of various shapes and unequal dimensions; and its trees are of a growth and figure, which at once harmonize with and diversify the scenery of the place. Every therm has its motto or its poesy, and every building its inscription, all happily selected to heighten or suggest appropriate senti ment, and aid the moral influence of the garden.

In this description it may, indeed, appear, that the artificial objects are too numerous for the small limits of the spot which they adorn; but they are so managed as to be seen only in unexpected succession, or in such careless glimpses of them as to avoid the least appearance of ostentation, while they enrich the composition of the scene. In a flower garden, where all is bloom and fragrance, and where nature appears in her gayest embroidery, picturesque embellishment demands all the elegance that art can bestow; but taste alone could not have formed the picture which has been so imperfectly described. Such an Arcadian scene must have been produced by an Arcadian imagination. Indeed, so much is there of invention and original fancy in the piece, that the genius of poetry could alone have composed it. Nuneham is a place of the first beauty: Nuneham, however, may in the course of varying opinion, be thought to have an equal; but its flower garden transcends all rivalry, and is itself alone.

We shall conclude this article, which might have been much prolonged if our limits would have allowed it, with some account of the virtuous and accomplished nobleman, whose superior taste gave us the subject of the foregoing description.

George Simon Harcourt died April 20, 1809, at his house in Cavendish Square: nor ought this nobleman to pass to the sepulchre of his ancestors, without that tribute which truth owes to superior virtue. Earl Harcourt possessed a

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very cultivated understanding. His mind was stored with no common portion of general knowledge, and the whole was refined by an exquisite taste. No man ever felt an higher sense of honour, no man ever acted from stronger impressions of moral duty, both as it regards the common offices of social life, or as it is enlarged and purified by the spirit of that religion which he seriously professed. No man reflected more upon the part he was called to perform in the world, or acted with greater rectitude on the principles which he had adopted. A natural love of tranquillity, a taste for the fine arts and the more flowery parts of literature, to which not only the circumstances of his 'early life, but the tendencies of his genius may have disposed him; and a constitution which never appeared to be calculated to encounter the fatigues of public business, might have combined to prevent his being engaged in any of the active departments of the state. The embassy to Spain, during the Marquis of Lansdown's administration, was pressed upon and declined by him. The office of Master of the Horse to the Queen was, we have equal reason to believe, couferred upon him, as a mark of personal regard, by their Majesties; and he enjoyed it to the close of his life. Hence it is, that this nobleman was only known in the great circle of the world, by an appearance suited to his rank and office, the polished urbanity of his manners, and as a lover and admirable judge of the fine arts, in which, as far as he chose to indulge himself, he may be said to have excelled. Whether it was a mere juvenile caprice, which had possessed him during his foreign travels, or whether he was influenced by his descent from an ancient and distinguished family among the peers of France, it is not necessary to consider; but his entrance into public life was marked by such a decided preference to French manners and fashions, and his appearance so adapted to it, as almost to disguise his exterior as an Englishman. But the whimsical propensity did not affect his mind, or gallicise his character, nor did he render it offensive to others. He indulged his fancy, and when

his intimate friends made it an object of their sportive sallies, he would enliven them by his own good humour, and turn aside any pleasant ridicule by the display of his own admirable temper. If, however, he had one fashionable folly, he had no fashionable vice, and his leisure hours were passed in the pursuits and embellishments of science. It was, we believe, at this period that he produced the set of etchings, which are highly estimated by the collectors in that branch of art, and which the late Lord Orford mentions in his works as a very beautiful specimen of it. The French fancy, however, wore away, and was lost in the easy affability of the accomplished English gentleman. Lord Harcourt considered good breeding as the first of the minor virtues, and never deviated from it; but as his notion of it partook rather de la vielle cour, he might be represented by those who only knew him in the public circles, as an inflexible observer of every rule of courtly etiquette; and especially at a time when the manners and appearance of our young men of fashion and fortune are scarcely superior to those of their grooms, and very often inferior to that of their valets and butlers. But he had no unbecoming pride; his behaviour never overawed the poor, nor did it trench upon the ease of familiar association. His punctilios were those of a refined and dignified benevolence, and never served as a check but to such indecorums as are ever held, by those of correct understanding, to be inadmissible in the sphere of polished life. He might think as many men of superior minds have done, that, on certain occasions, it is the duty of rank and station to preserve certain forms, and to dress behaviour with somewhat of appropriate ceremony; and it may be owing, in some degree, to a neglect of those forms, which at present prevail too much in rank and station, that a respect for the higher orders has so materially diminished among the inferior classes of the people. But in his family, among his private friends, in his intercourse with his tenants, and in all his ordinary avoçations, his carriage was such as to give pleasure to all who

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had communication with him. With his more ennobling qualities he possessed a comic elegance of thought, and a classical facetiousness, which rendered his private society infinitely pleasant; and even in his nervous moments, for he was occasionally troubled with them, he would describe himself in such a way, as not only to relieve the distress of his friends, but force that hilarity upon them, which would operate also as a temporary relief to himself. At Nuneham, his country residence, and whose native beauties his taste had so embellished and improved, he was a blessing to all who lived within the sphere of his protection; while to its neighbourhood it is well known, that the village of Nuneham is so ordered, by the regulations he framed, by the encouragements he afforded, by the little festivals he established, and the rewards he distributed, as to display a scene of good order, active industry, moral duty, and humble piety, of which it were to be wished there were more examples. To these qualities may be added his capacity for friendship; nor can we pass unnoticed a very signal example of it, in the asylum he afforded to the Duc d'Harcourt, and his family, when the French Revolution drove them from the proud situation, the exalted rank, and extensive property, which they possessed in their own country, to a state of dependence in this. Indeed to all, whatever their condition might be, who had shewn him kindness, or done him service, his friendship was ap propriately directed. Mr. Whitehead, the Poet Laureat, and Mr. Mason, the poet, were among those whom he distinguished by his early regard, and it accompanied them to the end of their lives;-nor did it quit them there:-in certain spots of his beautiful garden at Nuneham, which they respectively preferred, the urn and the tablet commemorate and record their virtues. The old and faithful domestics who died in his service are not without their memorials; and in the parochial church-yard, the grave of an ancient gardener is distinguished by the flowers which are cultivated around it. These may be said to be little

things, but they nevertheless mark the character of that heart which suggested them. It is almost superfluous to add, that, in the nearer and dearer relations of life, he exercised the virtues which they required of him. Above all, Earl Harcourt was a sincere christian; and it pleased that Being, who measures out days and years at his pleasure, to suffer him to attain an age beyond the common allotment of man. In his seventy-fourth year, he closed his venerable, useful, and honourable life.

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