the venerable feats of learning and of religion. A very amiable and ingenious writer has ventured to fuggeft, that even the clergy at large, from the habit of talking and difputing with familiarity on fubjects of religion, are lefs apt to indulge the ardour of devotion, than the common tribe of mankind, engaged in the varied and busy fcene of many-coloured life.

It is however certain, that a devotional taste and babit are very defirable in themselves, exclufive of their effects in meliorating the morals and difpofition, and promoting present and future felicity. They add dignity, pleasure, and fecurity, to any age; but to old age they are the moft becoming grace, the most fubftantial fupport, and the fweetest comfort. In order to preserve them, it will be neceffary to preferve our fenfibility; and nothing will contribute fo much to this purpose as a life of temperance, innocence, and fimplicity.

No. XCI. ON THE PLEASURES OF A GARDEN.

OT he alone is to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind who makes an useful discovery; but he alfo, who can point out and recommend an innocent pleafure. Of this kind are the pleafures arifing from the obfervation of nature; and they are highly agreeable to every tafte uncorrupted by vicious indulg

ence.

There will always be many in a rich and civilized country, who, as they are born to the enjoyment of competent eftates, engage not in bufinefs civil or profeffional. But the reftlefs mind muft either find or make an object. Pleasure, therefore, becomes, to the unemployed, a ferious purfuit. Whatever is its effence, and whatever the declaimer may urge against it, pleasure will be fought by all who poffefs the liberty of election. It becomes then incumbent on the moralift, not only to urge the performance of duty, but to exhibit objects that please without enervating the mind, and gratify defire without corrupting the principles.

Rural

Rural fcenes, of almost every kind, are delightful to the mind of man. The verdant plain, the flowery mead, the meandering ftream, the playful lamb, the warbling of birds, are all capable of exciting emotions gently agreeable. But the misfortune is, that the greater part are hurried on in the career of life with too great rapidity, to be able to give attention to that which folicits no paffion. The darkest habitation in the dirtieft street of the metropolis, where money can be earned, has greater charms, with many, than the groves of Hagley.

Yet the patron of refined pleasure, the elegant Epicurus, fixed the feat of his enjoyment in a garden. He thought a tranquil fpot, furnished with the united sweets of art and nature, the beft adapted to delicate repofe. And even the feverer philofophers of antiquity were wont to difcourfe in the fhade of a fpreading tree, in fome cultivated plantation.

It is obvious, on intuition, that nature often intended folely to please the eye in her vegetable productions. She decorates the flowret, that fprings beneath our feet, in all the perfection of external beauty. She has clothed the garden with a conftant fucceffion of various hues. Even the leaves of the tree undergo a pleafing viciffitude. The fresh verdure they exhibit in the fpring, the various fhades they affume in fummer, the yellow and ruffet tinge of autumn, and the nakedness of winter, afford a constant pleasure to a picturefque imagination. From the fnow-drop to the mofs-rofe, the flower-garden difplays an infinite variety of fhape and colour. The tate of the florist has been ridiculed as trifling; yet furely without reafon. Did nature bring forth the tulip and the lily, the rofe and the honeyfuckle, to be neglected by the haughty pretender to fuperior reafon ? To omit a fingle focial duty for the cultivation of a polyanthus, were ridiculous as well as criminal; but to pafs by the beauties lavished before us, without obferving them, is no lefs ingratitude than ftupidity. A bad heart finds little amufement but in a communication with the active world, where fcope is given for the indulgence of malignant paffions; but an amiable dif

pofition

pofition is commonly known by a tafte for the beauties" of the animal and the vegetable creation.

The northern countries of Europe are by no means well adapted to the true enjoyment of rural fcenery. Our vernal seasons, which the poets celebrate in all the luxuriance of defcription, are commonly rendered cold and uncomfortable, by the long continuance of an eaftern wind. Our poets borrowed their ideas of a fpring from the poets of Italy, who collected theirs from nature. A genial day in April, is among us the fubject of general congratulation. And, while the lilac bloffoms, and the laburnum drops its golden clufters, the fhivering poffeffor of them is conftrained to seek warmth at the fide of his chimney. Yet, from the temperature of our climate we derive a beauty unknown in the gardens of a warmer country. Few objects are more pleafing than the fimooth lawn; but the foft verdure, which conftitutes its beauty, is not to be found in more fouthern climates. It is certainly true, that the rarity of our truly vernal weather, like that of other delights, increases the pleasure of it; and it is probable, for this reafon, that an Englishman, notwithstanding his complaints against his atmosphere, enjoys the pleasures of a garden in their full perfection. A fine day, fays Temple, is a kind of fenfual pleasure; but furely it would cease to be fuch, if every day were fine.

A practical attention to a garden, is by fome esteemed a degrading employment. It is true, indeed, that paftoral and agricultural manners, if we may believe the dignified defcriptions of Virgil, are greatly degenerated. The employments of fhepherds and hufbandmen are now become mean and fordid. The work of the garden is ufually left to a peasant. Nor is it unreasonable to affign the labour, which wearies without amusement, to those who are fufficiently amused by the profpect of their wages. But the operations of grafting, of inoculating, of pruning, of tranfplanting, are curious experiments in natural philofophy; and, that they are pleafing as well as curious, thofe can testify, who remember what they felt on feeing their attempts fucceed.

Among

Among the employments fuitable to old age, Cicero has enumerated the care of a garden. It requires no great exertion of mind or body; and its fatisfactions are of that kind which please without agitation.. Its beneficial influence on health, is an additional reason for an attention to it at an age when infirmities abound.

In almost every defcription of the feats of the bleffed, ideas of a garden feem to have predominated. The word Paradife itself is fynonymous with garden. The fields of Elyfium, that fweet region of poefy, are adorned with all that imagination can conceive to be delightful. Some of the moft pleafing paffages of Milton, are thofe in which he reprefents the happy Pair engaged in cultivating their blissful abode. Poets have always been delighted with the beauties of a garden. Lucan is reprefented by Juvenal as repofing in his garden. Virgil's Georgics prove him to have been captivated with rural fcenes; though, to the furprise of his readers, he has not affigned a book to the fubject of a garden. Our Shenftone made it his ftudy; but, with all his taste and fondness for it, he was not happy in it. The captivating fcenes which he created at the Leafowes, afforded him, it is faid, little pleasure in the abfence of spectators. The truth is, he made the embellishment of his grounds, which should have been the amufement of his life, the business of it; and involved himself in fuch troubles, by the expences, it occafioned, as neceffarily excluded tranquil enjoyment.

It is the lot of few to poffefs territories extenfive and well adapted like his, to conftitute an ornamented farm. Still fewer are capable of fupporting the expence of preferving it in good condition. But let not the rich fuppofe they have appropriated the pleasures of a garden. The poffeffor of an acre, or a smaller portion, may receive a real pleasure, from obferving the progrefs of vegetation, even in a culinary plant. A very limited tract, properly attended to, will furnish ample employment for an individual. Nor let it be thought a mean care; for the fame hand that raised the cedar, formed the hyffop on the wall. Even the orchard, cultivated folely for advantage, exhibits beauties unequalled in the fhrubbery; nor can the green-house produce an ap

pearance

performed without painful efforts, But they call forth. the latent powers of the mind, and by requiring an exertion beyond the natural strength, really compel it to effect all that it is able. Indolence prevents men in general from effecting all that they are able." The pleafurable fyftem diffuades them from the attempt. And if there were not some auftere inftructors, and fome faithful followers of them, there would not be active virtue enough in a community to preferve its existence.

In the earlier periods of fociety the grave philofophy is moft cultivated. For then virtuous exertions are most neceffary, and luxurious indulgences precluded. Succefs, and increase in wealth and glory, are the ufual confequence. Luxury fucceeds in a course as certain in all its ftages as any phyfical progrefs. A tafte for a light, cheerful, fanciful philofophy, foon explodes the fudden precepts of rigid moralifts, Manners are relaxed, and naturally bring on a declenfion of empire. At least all regard for liberty is loft; and the mind, enervated with pleafure, gladly finks in the repofe of defpotism.

It is evident that in our own country, the feverer philofophy lofes ground. This, among many others, is a fymptom of corruption, and the harbinger of decay. An imitation of French manners has greatly accelerated this revolution in our fentiments. And, after all, it is a forced and unnatural change; for an Englishman, whether from the influence of climate, or some caufe inherent in his conftitution, is by nature grave, and difpofed to admit manly thoughts, and to practife manly actions.

The influence of books on the national manners in a community, almoft every member of which devotes fome part of his time to reading, muft be important. And among other methods which might be used to excite the fpirit of patriotifm and political virtue, it might be proper to restore a tafte for folid and fevere morality, and to explode thofe light, fuperficial, fentimental, and affected productions, which, while they please the fickly mind, encrease its imbecility.

No.