And sure there seem of human kind Some born to shun the solemn strife; Some for amusive tasks design'd To soothe the certain ills of life, Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose, New founts of bliss disclose, Call forth refreshing shades and decorate repose. SHENSTONE. Dr. Hammond says he had “heard say of a man who, upon his death-bed, being to take his farewell of his son, and considering what course of life to recommend that might secure his innocence, at last enjoined him to spend his time in making verses, and in dressing a garden; the old man thinking no temptation could creep into either of these employments.” As to the former part of this counsel, a certain Sir Edmund King was of a different opinion; for meeting with Watts in his youth, he said to him, “Young man, I hear that you make verses! Let me advise you never to do it but when you can't help it.” If there were ever a person who could not help it, Joanna Baillie would have said nothing more than what was strictly true, when she observed that “surely writing verses must have some power of intoxication in it, and can turn a sensible man into a fool by some process of mental alchemy.” “Gardening,” says Mr. Courtenay, in his Life of Sir William Temple, “is a pursuit peculiarly adapted for reconciling and combining the tastes of the two sexes, and indeed of all ages. It is therefore of all amusements the most retentive of domestic affection. It is perhaps most warmly pursued by the very young, and by those who are far advanced in life,—before the mind is occupied with worldly business, and after it has become disgusted with it. There is nothing in it to remind of the bustle of political life; and it requires neither a sanguine disposition nor the prospect of a long life, to justify the expectation of a beautiful result from the slight and easy care which it exacts. Is it too much to say that the mind which can with genuine taste occupy itself in gardening, must have preserved some portion of youthful purity; that it must have escaped, during its passage through the active world its deeper contaminations; and that no shame nor remorse can have found a seat in it.” Certainly it is not too much to say this of Sir William Temple; nor would it be too much to say it of his biographer, whether he occupy himself, or not, in gardening as well as in literature, after many laborious years honourably passed in political and official life.