Sir William Temple has remarked, that this description contains all the justest rules and provisions which can go toward composing the best gardens. Its extent was four acres, which in those times of simplicity was looked upon as a large one, even for a prince; it was inclosed all round for defence; and for conve-niency joined close to the gates of the palace. He mentions next the trees, which were standards, and suffered to grow to their full height. The fine description of the fruits that never failed, and the eternal zephyrs, is only a more noble and poetical way of expressing the continual succession of one fruit after another, throughout the year. The vineyard seems to have been a plantation distinct from the garden; as also the beds of greens mentioned afterwards at the extremity of the inclosure, in the nature and usual place of our kitchen gardens. The two fountains are disposed very remarkably. They rose within the inclosure, and were brought by conduits, or ducts, one of them to water all parts of the gardens, and the other underneath the palace into the town for the service of the public. How contrary to this simplicity is the modern practice of gardening! We seem to make it our study to recede from nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most regular and formal shapes, but even in monstrous attempts beyond the reach of the art itself. We run into sculpture, and are yet better pleased to have our trees in the most awkward figures of men and animals, than in the most regular of their own. Hunc et nexilibus videas è frondibus hortos, Here interwoven branches form a wall, I believe it is no wrong observation, that persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. On the contrary, people of the common level of understanding are principally delighted with the little niceties and fantastical operations of art, and constantly think that finest which is least natural. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. I know an eminent cook, who beautified his country seat with a coronation dinner in greens; where you see the cham pion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual youth at the other. For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of this curious taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of greens to be disposed of by au eminent town gardener, who has lately applied to me upon this head. He represents, that for the advancement of a politer sort of ornament in the villas and gardens adjacent to this great city, and in order to distinguish those places from the mere barbarous countries of gross nature, the world stands much in need of a virtuoso gardener who has a turn to sculpture, and is thereby capable of improving upon the ancients of his profession in the imagery of evergreens. My correspondent is arrived to such perfection, that he cuts family pieces of men, women, or children. Any ladies that please may have their own effigies in myrtle, or their husbands' in hornbeam. He is a puritan wag, and never fails when he shows his garden, to repeat that passage in the Psalms, Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine, and thy children as olive branches round thy table.' I shall proceed to his catalogue, as he sent it for my recommendation. Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in the great storm: Eve and the serpent very flourishing. The tower of Babel, not yet finished. 'St. George in box; his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a condition to stick the dragon by next April. A green dragon of the same, with a tail of ground-ivy for the present. 'N. B. These two not to be sold separately. 'Edward the Black Prince in cypress. 'A laurestine bear in blossom, with a juniper hunter in berries. A pair of giants, stunted, to be sold cheap. 'A queen Elizabeth in phylyræa, a little inclining to the green-sickness, but of full growth. 6 Another queen Elizabeth in myrtle, which was very forward, but miscarried by being too near a savine. An old maid of honour in wormwood. Divers eminent modern poets in bays, somewhat blighted, to be disposed of, a pennyworth. A quickset hog, shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week in rainy weather. 'A lavender pig, with sage growing in his belly. Noah's ark in holly, standing on the mount; the ribs a little damaged for want of water. 'A pair of maidenheads in fir, in great forwardness. No. 174.] Wednesday, September 30, 1713. Salve Pæoniæ largitor nobilis undæ, Claud. Hail, greatest good Dardanian fields bestow, the stream wherein Diana washed herself when she bestowed horns on Acteon; but by one of a serious turn, these healthful springs may rather be likened to the Stygian waters, which made the body invulnerable; or to the river of Lethe, one draught of which washed away all pain and anguish in a moment. As I have taken upon me a name which ought to abound in humanity, I shall make it my business, in this paper, to cool and assuage those malignant humours of scandal which run throughout the body of men and women there assembled; and after the manner of those famous waters, I will endeavour to wipe away all foul aspersions, to restore bloom and vigour to decayed reputations, and set injured characters upon their legs again. I shall herein In public assemblies there are generally some envious splenetic people, who having no merit to procure respect, are ever finding fault with those who distinguish themselves. This happens more frequently at those places, where this season of the year calls persons of both sexes together for their health. I have had reams of letters from Bath, Epsom, Tunbridge, and St. Wenefrede's well; wherein I could ob-regulate myself by the example of that good serve that a concern for honour and virtue, proceeded from the want of health, beauty, or fine petticoats. A lady who subscribes herself Eudosia, writes a bitter invective against Chloe, the celebrated dancer; but I have learned, that she herself is lame of the rheumatism. Another, who hath been a prude ever since she had the small-pox, is very bitter against the coquettes and their indecent airs; and a sharp wit hath sent me a keen epigram against the gamesters; but I took notice, that it was not written upon gilt paper. man, who used to talk with charity of the greatest villains; nor was ever heard to speak with rigour of any one, until he affirmed with severity that Nero was a wag. Having thus prepared thee, gentle reader, I shall not scruple to entertain thee with a panegyric upon the gamesters. I have indeed spoken incautiously heretofore of that class of men; but I should forfeit all titles to modesty, should I any longer oppose the common sense of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom. Were we to treat all those with contempt, who are the favourites of blind chance, few levees would be crowded. It is not the height of sphere in which a man moves, but the manner able. When therefore I see a gentleman lose his money with serenity, I recognise in him all the great qualities of a philosopher. If he storms, and invokes the gods, I lament that he is not placed at the head of a regiment. The great gravity of the countenances round Harrison's table, puts me in mind of a council board; and the indefatigable application of the several combatants furnishes me with an unanswerable reply to those gloomy mortals, who censure this as an idle life. In short, I cannot see any reason why gentlemen should be hindered from raising a fortune by those means, which at the same time enlarge their minds. Nor shall I speak dishonourably of some little artifice and finesse used upon these occasions; since the world is so just to any man who is become a possessor of wealth, as not to respect him the less, for the methods he took to come by it. Having had several strange pieces of intelligence from the Bath; as, that more constitutions were weakened there than repaired; that the physicians were not more busy in de-in which he acts, that makes him truly valustroying old bodies, than the young fellows in producing new ones; with several other common-place strokes of raillery; I resolved to look upon the company there, as I returned lately out of the country. It was a great jest to see such a grave ancient person as I am, in an embroidered cap and brocade night-gown. But, besides the necessity of complying with the custom, by these means I passed undiscovered, and had a pleasure I much covet, of being alone in a crowd. It was no little satisfaction to me, to view the mixed mass of all ages and dignities upon a level, partaking of the same benefits of nature, and mingling in the same diversions. I sometimes entertained myself by observing what a large quantity of ground was hid under spreading petticoats; and what little patches of earth were covered by creatures with wigs and hats, in comparison to those spaces that were distinguished by flounces, fringes, and furbelows. From the earth my fancy was diverted to the water, where the distinctions of sex and condition are concealed; and where the mixture of men and women hath given occasion to some persons of light imaginations, to compare the Bath to the fountain of Salmacis, which had the virtue of joining the two sexes into one person; or to Upon considerations like these, the ladies share in these diversions. I must own, that I receive great pleasure in seeing my pretty countrywomen engaged in an amusement which puts them upon producing so many virtues. Hereby they acquire such a boldness, as raises them near the lordly creature man. Here they are taught such contempt of wealth, as may dilate their minds, and prevent many curtain lectures. Their natural tenderness is a weakness here easily unlearned; and I find my soul exalted, when I see a lady sacrifice the fortune of her children with as little concern as a Spartan or a Roman dame. In such a place as the Bath I might urge, that the casting of a die is indeed the properest exercise for a fair creature to assist the waters; not to mention the opportunity it gives to display the well-turned arm, and to scatter to advantage the rays of the diamond. But I am satisfied, that the gamester ladies have surmounted the little vanities of showing their beauty, which they so far neglect, as to throw their features into violent distortions, and wear away their lilies and roses in tedious watching, and restless lucubrations. I should rather observe that their chief passion is an emulation of manhood; which I am the more inclined to believe, because, in spite of all slanders, their confidence in their virtue keeps them up all night, with the most dangerous creatures of our sex. It is to me an undoubted argument of their ease of conscience, that they go directly from church to the gaming-table; and so highly reverence play, as to make it a great part of their exercise on Sundays. The water poets are an innocent tribe, and deserve all the encouragement I can give them. It would be barbarous to treat those authors with bitterness, who never write out of the season, and whose works are useful with the waters. I made it my care therefore to sweeten some sour critics who were sharp upon a few sonnets, which, to speak in the language of the Bath, were mere alkalies. I took particular notice of a lenitive electuary, which was wrapped up in some of these gentle compositions; and am persuaded that the pretty one who took it, was as much relieved by the cover as the medicine. There are a hundred general topics put into metre every year, viz. The lover is inflamed in the water; or, he finds his death where he sought his cure; or, the nymph feels her own pain, without regarding her lover's torment.' These being for ever repeated, have at present a very good effect; and a physician assures me, that laudanum is almost out of doors at the Bath. Thy physicians here are very numerous, but very good-natured. To these charitable gentlemen I owe, that I was cured, in a week's time, of more distempers than I ever had in my life. They had almost killed me with their humanity. A learned fellow-lodger prescribed me a little something, at my first coming, to keep up my spirits; and the next morning I was so much enlivened by another, as to have an order to bleed for my fever. I was proffered a cure for the scurvy by a third, and had a recipe for the dropsy gratis before night. In vain did I modestly decline these favours; for I was awakened early in the morning by an apothecary, who brought me a dose from one of my well-wishers. I paid him, but withal told him severely, that I never took physic. My landlord hereupon took me for an Italian merchant that suspected poison; but the apothecary, with more sagacity, guessed that I was certainly a physician myself, The oppression of civilities which I underwent from the sage gentlemen of the faculty, frightened me from making such inquiries into the nature of these springs, as would have furnished out a nobler entertainment upon the Bath, than the loose hints I have now thrown together. Every man who hath received any benefit there, ought, in proportion to his abilities, to improve, adorn, or recommend it. A prince should found hospitals, the noble and rich may diffuse their ample charities. Mr. Tompion gave a clock to the Bath; and I, Nestor Ironside, have dedicated a Guardian. No. 175.] Thursday, October 1, 1713. Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo. Who rais'd by merit an immortal name. THE noble genius of Virgil would have been exalted still higher, had he had the advantage of Christianity. According to our scheme of thoughts, if the word memores in the front of this paper were changed into similes, it would have very much heightened the motive to virtue in the reader. To do good and great actions merely to gain reputation, and transmit a name to posterity, is a vicious appetite, and will certainly ensnare the person who is moved by it, on some occasions, into a false delicacy for fear of reproach; and at others, into artifices which taint his mind, though they may enlarge his fame. The endeavour to make men like you, rather than mindful of you, is not subject to such ill consequences, but moves with its reward in its own hand; or to speak more in the language of the world, a man with this aim is as happy as a man in an office, that is paid out of money under his own direction. There have been very worthy examples of this self-denying virtue among us in this nation; but I do not know of a nobler example in this taste, than that of the late Mr. Boyle, who founded a lecture for the Proof of the Christian religion, against atheists, and other notorious infidels.' The reward of perpetual memory amongst men, which might possibly have some share in this sublime charity, was certainly considered but in a second degree; and Mr. Boyle had it in his thoughts to make men imitate him as well as speak of him, when he was gone off our stage. The world has received much good from this institution, and the noble emulation of great men on the inexhaustible subject of the essence, praise, and attributes of the Deity, has had the natural effect, which always attends this kind of contemplation: to wit, that he who writes upon it with a sincere heart, very eminently excels whatever he has produced on any other occasion. It eminently appears from this observation, that a particular blessing has been estowed on this lecture. This great philosopher provided for us, after his death, an employment not only suitable to our condition, but to his own at the same time. It is a sight fit for angels, to behold the benefactor and the persons obliged, not only in different places, but under different beings, employed in the same work. This worthy man studied nature, and traced all her ways to those of her unsearchable author. When he had found him, he gave this bounty for the praise and contemplation of him. To one who has not run through regular courses of philosophical inquiries (the other learned labourers in this vineyard will forgive me,) I cannot but principally recommend the book, intitled, Phisico-Theology: printed for William Innys, in St. Paul's church-yard. It is written by Mr. Derham, rector of Upminster, in Essex. I do not know what Upminster is worth; but I am sure, bad I the best living in England to give, I should not think the addition of it sufficient acknowledge, ment of his merit; especially since I am informed, that the simplicity of his life is agree, able to his useful knowledge and learning. The praise of this author seems to me to be the great perspicuity and method which render his work intelligible and pleasing to people who are strangers to such inquiries, as well as to the learned. It is a very desirable entertainment to find occasions of pleasure and satisfaction in those objects and occurrences which we have all our lives, perhaps, overlooked; or beheld without exciting any reflections that made us wiser, or happier. The plain good man does, as with a wand, show us the wonders and spectacles in all nature, and the particular capacities with which all living creatures are endowed for their several ways of life; how the organs of creatures are made according to the different paths in which they are to move and provide for themselves and families; whether they are to creep, to leap, to swim, to fly, to walk; whether they are to inhabit the bowels of the earth, the coverts of the wood, the muddy or clear streams; to howl in forests, or converse in cities. All life from that of a worm to that of a man is explained; and, if I may so speak, the wondrous works of the creation, by the observations of this author, lie before us as objects that create love and admiration; which, without such explica tions, strike us only with confusion and amazement. The man who, before he had this book, dressed and went out to loiter and gather up something to entertain a mind too vacant, no longer needs news to give himself amusemest, the very air he breathes suggests abundant matter for his thoughts. He will consider that he has begun another day of life, to breathe with all other creatures in the same mass of air, vapours, and clouds, which surround our globe; and of all the numberless animals that live by receiving momentary life, or rather momentary and new reprieves from death, at their nostrils, he only stands erect, conscious and contemplative of the benefaction, A man who is not capable of philosophical reflections from his own education, will be as much pleased as with any other good news which he has not before heard. The agitations of the wind, and the falling of the rains, are what are absolutely necessary for his welfare and accommodation. This kind of reader will behold the light with a new joy, and a sort of reasonable rapture. He will be led from the appendages which attend and surround our globe, to the contemplation of the globe itself, the distribution of the earth and waters, the variety and quantity of all things provided for the uses of our world. Then will bis contemplation, which was too diffused and general, be let down to particulars, to different soils and moulds, to the beds of minerals and stones, into caverns and volcanos, and then again to the tops of mountains, and then again to the fields and valleys. When the author has acquainted his reader with the place of his abode; he informs him of his capacity to make himself easy and happy in it by the gift of senses, by their ready organs, by showing him the structure of those organs, the disposition of the ear for the receipt of sounds, of the nostril for smell, the tongue for taste, the nerves to avoid barms by our feeling, and the eye by our sight. The whole work is concluded (as it is the sum of fifteen sermons in proof of the existence of the Deity) with reflections which apply each distinct part of it to an end, for which the author may hope to be rewarded with an immortality much more to be desired, than that of remaining in eternal honour among all the sons of men, |