Biography: — John Templeibn^ Esq, 405 



wilds by the inclemency of the season, seek the plains of Ireland, in hopes 

 of finding that comfort which their own country denied them; but scarcely 

 are they arrived, fatigued with the length of their journey, and weak from 

 want of food, ere they experience new calamities. In vain do they seek the 

 silent wood, or trust to generosity for protection ; for no pangs are felt by 

 the greedy epicure or thoughtless sportsman, when innocence and beauty 

 die. It is to innocence and beauty they call for protection. Let the youth- 

 ful hand scatter food, and they will give life and happiness to hundreds ; 

 let them guard their rural walks against all destroyers of the feathered 

 tribes, and the consciousness of having done a good action will make the 

 music of the groves awaken ideas which the virtuous alone can enjoy." 

 In another place I find him quoting with approbation the beautiful lines of 

 Cowper, — 



" I would not enter on my list of friends, 

 (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense. 

 Yet wanting sensibility,) the man 

 Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 



# * # 



The sum is this : — If man's convenience, health, 

 Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims 

 Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. 

 Else they are all — the meanest things that are. 

 As free to live, and to enjoy that life. 

 As God was free to form them at the first. 

 Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all." 



Mr. Templeton began to cultivate flowers about the year 1786, and soon 

 made his flower-garden an object of attention ; but it was not till after his 

 father's death, in 1790, that, on recovery from a severe illness, he began to 

 study botany with enthusiasm as a science ; having been first directed to 

 it by a desire of extirpating weeds from his farm, to which he then applied 

 himself. Having made himself well acquainted with the Linnean system, 

 he, in 1793, laid out his experimental garden, if I may so call it, which is 

 said to have been suggested by a passage in Rousseau's Heloise. This had 

 been partly an orchard, partly an osier ground ; and conducting through it 

 a stream of water, raised on an artificial rock, he rendered it in every 

 way fit for the intended purpose. Here he collected, from various parts of 

 the world, rare and useful plants, which he endeavoured to naturalise in 

 this climate, by placing them in a soil and situation resembling, as nearly as 

 possible, that to which they had been accustomed. By this means there is 

 growing, in his garden, in the open air, a wonderful and curious collection 

 of plants from India, China, North and South America, Siberia, &c. : such 

 as Camellia japonica, Thea viridis (the tea-plant), Ailanthus prae'cox, and 

 others, which were formerly kept in the hot-house, and then in the green- 

 house. Most of the trees at Cranmore (all, I beheve, except the chest- 

 nuts and oaks) were raised from seed or planted by himself; and so great 

 a variety of the natives of the forest has, perhaps, never been collected in 

 so small a place. In 1794 he paid his first visit to London, where he 

 formed an acquaintance with Professor Martyn, of Cambridge, author of 

 the valuable additions to Miller's Dictionary ; Dr. Shaw, the zoologist ; 

 Mr. Dickson, of Covent Garden, the celebrated cryptogamist ; and Mr. 

 Whitley, an eminent nursery-man, from whom he afterwards purchased 

 many plants, and with whom he corresponded. In 1795 he became 

 acquainted with the late Mr. Arbuckle, collector of Donaghadee ; and 

 through him, with the Earl of Clanbrassil. This nobleman, much attached 

 to the study of botany, had Mr. Templeton frequently with him at Bryans- 

 ford, and near Dundalk ; on which occasions he usually accompanied Mr. 



