On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening,: with Biographical Notices of Them, 2nd edition, with considerable additionsFelton, Samuel
History
On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening,: with Biographical Notices of Them, 2nd edition, with considerable additions
Felton, Samuel
Gardening -- Bibliography; Horticulturists -- England
JAMES GARDINER. His portrait is engraved by Vertue, from after Verelst,
and prefixed to his translation of _Rapin on Gardens_, 8vo. second
edition; no date. A third edition, 8vo. 1728. I believe he also wrote
"On the Beatitudes;" 2 vols. 8vo. Switzer says, that this "incomparable
Latin poem was translated by an ingenious and worthily dignified
clergyman, and a great lover of gardening, Mr. Gardiner, Sub-Dean of
Lincoln." He became afterwards (I believe) Bishop of Lincoln; and a
Latin epitaph on this bishop is in Peck's _Desid. Curiosa._ There is a
print of "Jacobus Gardiner, Episc. Lincoln," engraved by George White,
from after Dahl.
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. The portraits of this worthy man are numerous.
Vanderbane's engraving, from Sir Peter Lely's, is particularly fine.
Vertue's engravings, from Sir Peter, in the folio editions of 1720 and
1740, are also fine. This same portrait is neatly engraved in the late
Mr. Nichol's Collection of Poems. Houbraken has also engraved the same
for Birch's Lives. Sir William Temple, after spending twenty years in
negociations with foreign powers, retired in 1680 from public life, and
employed his time in literary pursuits. He was ambassador for many years
at the court of Holland, and there acquired his knowledge and taste in
gardening. He had a garden at Sheen, and afterwards, another at Moor
Park, where he died in 1700; and though his body was buried in
Westminster Abbey, his heart was enclosed in a silver urn under a
sun-dial in the latter garden. His Essay "Upon the Gardens of Epicurus,
or of Gardening in the year 1685," is printed in all the editions of his
works.[70] These works are published in 2 vols. folio, and 4 vols. 8vo.
Switzer, in his History of Gardening, first published in 1715, says,
"That he was a great lover of gardening, appears by his own writings,
and several kinds of fruit brought over by him out of Holland, &c. as
well as by the testimony of his neighbours _yet living_, the greatest
consolation of his life being, in the lucid intervals he had from public
employs, in his beloved gardens at _Sheen_." And, in his Fruit Gardener
he says, that "the magnificence and generosity of this great lover of
planting, distributed vast numbers of the finest grapes among the
nurserymen about London, as well as amongst the nobility and gentry."
Lord Mountmorris thus speaks of him:--"The retirement of this great man
has bequeathed the most invaluable legacy to posterity. Of the taste and
elegance of his writings too much can never be said, illuminated as they
are by that probity and candour which pervade them, and those charms
which render truth irresistible. Though other writers may be more the
objects of imitation to the scholar, yet his style is certainly the best
adapted to the politician and the man of fashion; nor would such an
opinion be given, were it not for an anecdote of Swift, which I had from
the late Mr. Sheridan, who told me the dean always recommended him as
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