readily believe, that, when the old man, at seventy-eight, (through some
quarrel with the Apothecaries,) took his last walk to the river-bank, he
did it with a sinking at the heart which kept by him till he died.

I come now to speak of Thomas Whately, to whom I have already alluded,
and of whom, from the scantiness of all record of his life, it is
possible to say only very little. He lived at Nonsuch Park, in Surrey,
not many miles from London, on the road to Epsom. He was engaged in
public affairs, being at one time secretary to the Earl of Suffolk, and
also a member of Parliament. But I enroll him in my wet-day service
simply as the author of the most appreciative and most tasteful treatise
upon landscape-gardening which has ever been written,--not excepting
either Price or Repton. It is entitled, "Observations on Modern
Gardening," and was first published in 1770. It was the same year
translated into French by Latapie, and was to the Continental gardeners
the first revelation of the graces which belonged to English cultivated
landscape. In the course of the book he gives vivid descriptions of
Blenheim, Hagley, Leasowes, Claremont, and several other well-known
British places. He treats separately of Parks, Water, Farms, Gardens,
Ridings, etc., illustrating each with delicate and tender transcripts of
natural scenes. Now he takes us to the cliffs of Matlock, and again to
the farm-flats of Woburn. His criticisms upon the places reviewed are
piquant, full of rare apprehension of the most delicate natural
beauties, and based on principles which every man of taste must accept
at sight. As you read him, he does not seem so much a theorizer or
expounder as he does the simple interpreter of graces which had escaped
your notice. His suggestions come upon you with such a momentum of
truthfulness, that you cannot stay to challenge them.

There is no argumentation, and no occasion for it. On such a bluff he