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
JOSEPH ADDISON, Esq. There is an original portrait of this eminent man,
at Holland House. Another at Oxford. Noble's continuation of Granger
enumerates several engravings of him, from Kneller's portraits. Dayl,
the painter, also drew him. His portrait appears in the Kit Cat Club. In
Ireland's "Picturesque Views on the River Avon," he gives an interesting
description of Mr. Addison's house at Bilton, near Rugby, two miles from
Dunchurch; with a view of the same. The house "remains precisely in the
state it was at the decease of its former possessor, nor has the
interior suffered much change in its former decoration. The furniture
and pictures hold their places with an apparent sacred attention to his
memory. Among the latter, are three of himself, at different periods of
his life; in each of which is strongly marked with the pencil, the ease
of the gentleman, and the open and ingenuous character of the friend to
humanity." From Dr. Drake's Biographical Sketch of Addison, it appears,
that these portraits were still remaining in his house in 1797. A copy
of the above view is given in the Monthly Magazine for February, 1822,
and it there says, that "the spacious gardens retain the fashion of the
age of the Spectator." The origin of the modern style of landscape
gardening, or the first writers on that subject, were unquestionably Mr.
Addison, in Nos. 414 and 477 of the _Spectator_, and Mr. Pope in his
celebrated _Guardian_. The first artists who practised in this style,
were Bridgman and Kent.[72] Mr. Addison's pure taste on these subjects
is visible even where he prefers Fontainebleau to the magnificent
Versailles, in his paper in the _Guardian_, No. 101:--"It is situated
among rocks and woods, that give you a fine variety of savage prospects.
The king has humoured the genius of the place, and only made use of so
much art as is necessary to help and regulate nature, without reforming
her too much. The cascades seem to break through the clefts and cracks
of rocks that are covered over with moss, and look as if they were piled
upon one another by accident. There is an artificial wildness in the
meadows, walks, and canals; and the garden, instead of a wall, is fenced
on the lower end by a natural mound of rock-work that strikes the eye
very agreeably. For my part, I think there is something more charming in
these rude heaps of stone than in so many statues, and would as soon see
a river winding through woods and meadows, as when it is tossed up in so
many whimsical figures at Versailles." In No. 414 of his Spectator, he
says, "English gardens are not so entertaining to the fancy as those in
France, and Italy, where we see a large extent of ground covered over
with an agreeable mixture of garden, and forest, which represent every
where an artificial rudeness, much more charming than that neatness and
elegancy which we meet with in those of our own country." Mr. Murphy
thus compares Addison with Johnson:--"Addison lends grace and ornament
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