justly celebrated Jean de la Quintinye, whose precepts, says Voltaire, have been followed by all Europe, and his abilities magnificently rewarded by Louis; Le Nôtre, the most celebrated gardener (to use Mr. Loudon's words) that perhaps ever existed, and of whom the Biographie Univer. observes, that whatever might have been the changes introduced in whatever Le Nôtre cultivated, "il seroit difficile de mettre plus de grandeur et de noblesse;"[3] Charles Riviere du Fresnoy "qu'il joignot a un goût général pour tous les arts, des talens particuliers pour la musique et le dessein. Il excelloit sur-tout dans l'art de destribuer les jardins. Il publia plusieurs _Chansons et les Amusemens serieux et comiques_: petit ouvrage souvens re-imprimé et pleins de peintures vives et plaisantes, de la plupart des états de la vie. On remarques dans touts ses productions une imagination enjouée et singuliere;" Pontchasteau, who wrote on the cultivation of fruit trees, whose penitence and devotion were so severely austere, and whose very singular history is given us in the interesting "Lettres de Madame la Comtesse de la Riviere;" Linant, to whom Voltaire was a warm protector and friend, and who, in 1745, wrote his poem Sur la Perfection des Jardins, sous la regne de Louis XIV.; and of whom it was said that "les qualités du coeur ne le caractérisoient pas moins que celles de l'esprit;" Le Pere Rapin;[4] D'Argenville; Le Maistre, curate of Joinville, who in 1719 added to his "Fruitier de la France," "Une Dissertation historique sur l'origine et les progrés des Jardins; Vaniere, who wrote the Prædium Rusticum;[5] Arnauld d'Andilli, in so many respects rendered illustrious, who retired to the convent of Port Royal, (that divine solitude, where the whole country for a league round breathed the air of virtue and holiness, to quote Mad. de Sevigné's words), and who sent each year to the queen some of that choice fruit which he there with such zeal cultivated, and which Mazarin "appelloit en riant des fruits bénis." This good man died at the age of eighty-six, and the letter of Mad. de Sevigné, of the date of Sept. 23, 1671, will alone consign him to the respect of future ages;[6] Jean Paul de Ardenne, superior of the congregation of the oratory of Marseilles, one of the most famous florists of the period in which he lived, and who devoted great part of his time in deeds of charity; Francis Bertrand, who, in 1757, published Ruris delicæ, being poems from Tibullus, Claudian, Horace, and from many French writers, on the pleasures of the country; Mons. de Chabanon; Morel, who assisted in laying out Ermenonville, and who wrote, among other works, Théorie des Jardins, ou l'art des Jardins de la Nature; the animated Prevost; Gouges de Cessieres, who wrote Les Jardins d'Ornament, ou les Georgiques Francoises; he, too, whom the Prince de Ligne calls ----_enchanteur_ De Lille! _O_ Virgile _moderne_!