If a rich man were openly to boast of his plate or his
equipages, or a literary man of his essays or his sonnets, as lovers of
flowers boast of their geraniums or dahlias or rhododendrons, they would
disgust the most indulgent hearer. But no one is shocked at the
exultation of a gardener, amateur or professional, when in the fulness
of his heart he descants upon the unrivalled beauty of his favorite
flowers:
'Plants of his hand, and children of his care.'
"I have made myself two gardens," says Petrarch, "and I do not imagine
that they are to be equalled in all the world. I should feel myself
inclined to be angry with fortune if there were any so beautiful out of
Italy." "I wish," says poor Kirke White writing to a friend, "I wish you
to have a taste of these (rural) pleasures with me, and if ever I should
live to be blessed with a quiet parsonage, and _another great object of
my ambition--a garden_, I have no doubt but we shall be for some short
intervals at least two quite contented bodies." The poet Young, in the
latter part of his life, after years of vain hopes and worldly
struggles, gave himself up almost entirely to the sweet seclusion of a
garden; and that peace and repose which cannot be found in courts and
political cabinets, he found at last
In sunny garden bowers
Where vernal winds each tree's low tones awaken,
And buds and bells with changes mark the hours.
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