In his "Elements of Criticism," (a truly original work) there is a distinct chapter on architecture and gardening. He therein thus addresses the reader:--"These cursory observations upon gardening, shall be closed with some reflections that must touch every reader. Rough uncultivated ground, dismal to the eye, inspires peevishness and discontent: may not this be one cause of the harsh manners of savages? A field richly ornamented, containing beautiful objects of various kinds, displays in full lustre the goodness of the Deity, and the ample provision he has made for our happiness. Ought not the spectator to be filled with gratitude to his Maker, and with benevolence to his fellow creatures? Other fine arts may be perverted to excite irregular and even vicious emotions; but gardening, which inspires the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot fail to promote every good affection. The gaiety and harmony of mind it produceth, inclineth the spectator to communicate his satisfaction to others, and to make them happy as he is himself, and tends naturally to establish in him a habit of humanity and benevolence." JOHN ABERCROMBIE'S manly and expressive countenance is best given in the portrait prefixed to an edition in 2 vols. 8vo. published Feb. 1, 1783, by Fielding and Debrett. He is also drawn at full-length at his age of seventy-two, in the sixteenth edition, printed in 1800, with a pleasing view of a garden in the back-ground, neatly engraved. This honest, unassuming man, persevered "through a long life of scarcely interrupted health," in the ardent pursuit of his favourite science. The tenor of his life exemplified how much a garden calms the mind, and tranquilly sets at rest its turbulent passions. Mr. Loudon's Encyclop. of Gardening, after giving some interesting points of his history, thus concludes: "In the spring of 1806, being in his eightieth year, he met with a severe fall, by which he broke the upper part of his thigh bone. This accident, which happened to him on the 15th of April, terminated in his death. After lying in a very weak exhausted state, without much pain, he expired in the night, between April and May, as St. Paul's church struck twelve. He was lamented by all who knew him, as cheerful, harmless, and upright." One of his biographers thus relates of him: "Abercrombie from a fall down stairs in the dark, died at the age of eighty, and was buried at St. Pancras. He was present at the famous battle of Preston Pans, which was fought close to his father's garden walls. For the last twenty years of his life he lived chiefly on tea, using it three times a-day: his pipe was his first companion in the morning, and last at night.[87] He never remembered to have taken a dose of physic in his life, prior to his last fatal accident, nor of having a day's illness but once." A list of his works appears in Watts's Bibl. Brit., and a most full one in Johnson's History of English Gardening,