ON
THE PORTRAITS
OF
English Authors on Gardening,
WITH
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THEM.
Lately published, by the same Author, price 3s.
GLEANINGS ON GARDENS;
Chiefly respecting those of the Ancient Style in England.
PRINTED BY LOWE AND HARVEY, PLAYHOUSE YARD, BLACKFRIARS.
ON THE
PORTRAITS
OF
ENGLISH
AUTHORS ON GARDENING,
WITH
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
Your painting is almost the natural man.—Timon of Athens.
A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.—Winter's Tale.
I will make a prief of it in my note-book.—M. W. of Windsor.
BY S. FELTON.
SECOND EDITION,
WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITIONS.
LONDON: 1830.
PUBLISHED BY EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE; AND JOSEPH
ONWHYN,CATHARINE STREET, STRAND.
PREFACE.
The following pages apply only to those English writers on gardening whoare deceased. That there have been portraits taken of some of thosesixty-nine English writers, whose names first occur in the followingpages, there can be no doubt; and those portraits may yet be with theirsurviving relatives or descendants. I am not so presumptuous as to applyto the following most slight memorials, some of which relate to veryobscure persons, who claimed neither "the boast of heraldry, nor thepomp of power," but whose
——useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure
benefited society by their honest labour;—I am not so vain as to applyto these, any part of the high testimony which Sir Walter Scott has sojustly paid to the merit of Mr. Lodge's truly splendid work of the[Pg vi]portraits of celebrated personages of English history. I can only takeleave to disjoint, or to dislocate, or copy, a very few of his words,and to apply them to the following scanty pages, as it must beinteresting to have exhibited before our eyes our fathers as theylived, accompanied with such memorials of their lives and characters,as enable us to compare their persons and countenances with theirsentiments:—portraits shewing us how "our ancestors looked, moved, anddressed,"—as the pen informs us "how they thought, acted, lived anddied." One cannot help feeling kindness for the memories of those whosewritings have pleased us.[1]
What native of the county of Hereford, but must wish to see theirtown-hall ornamented with a life-breathing portrait of Dr. Beale,embodying, as it[Pg vii] were, in the resemblance of the individual, (to usethe words of a most eloquent person on another occasion), "his spirit,his feelings, and his character?" Or what elegant scholar but must wishto view the resemblance of the almost unknown Thomas Whately, Esq., orthat of the Rev. William Gilpin, whose vivid pen (like that of the lateSir Uvedale Price), has "realized painting," and enchained his readersto the rich scenes of nature?
Dr. Johnson calls portrait painting "that art which is employed indiffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening theaffections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead."
The horticultural inte