LIFE OF JOHN C LOUDON. 



of nearly all the palaces and large rural residences in the countries through which 

 he passed ; and he visited all the principal gardens, frequently going two or three 

 days' journey out of his route, if he heard of any garden that he thought worth 

 seeing. He also visited most of the eminent scientific men in the different cities 

 he passed through ; and was elected a member of the Imperial Society of Moscow, 

 the Natural History Society at Berlin, the Royal Economical Society at Potsdam, 

 and many others. I have often wondered that, on his return home, he did not 

 publish his travels ; as the Continent was then, comparatively, so little known, 

 that a narrative of what he saw, illustrated by his sketches, would have been highly 

 interesting. Business of a very unpleasant nature, however, awaited him, and 

 probably so completely occupied his mind as to leave no room for anything else. 



I have already mentioned that when Mr. Loudon went abroad, he had a large 

 sum of money lying unemployed in his banker's hands ; and with this he was in- 

 duced, I know not how, to embark in mercantile speculations and underwriting 

 ships at Lloyd's. As he knew nothing of business of this nature, it is not sur- 

 prising that his speculations turned out badly ; and, for more than twelve months, 

 he was involved in pecuniary difficulties. I am unable to give all the details of 

 his sufferings during this period, as it was a subject he never spoke of, and the 

 allusions to it in his memorandum books are by no means explicit. It appears, 

 however, that after having made several fruitless journeys (including one to Paris, 

 in 1815) in the hope of recovering some part of the property, he was compelled 

 to submit to the loss of nearly the whole ; and that his health was very seriously 

 injured by the anxieties he underwent. 



About this time (1816), his mother and sisters left the country, and he, having 

 determined that in future they should reside with him, took a house at Bayswater 

 called the Hermitage, which had a large garden annexed. His health was now 

 seriously impaired, but his mind always seemed to acquire additional vigor from 

 the feebleness of his body ; and, as he was unable to use so much exertion as he 

 had formerly done in landscape-gardening, he amused himself by trying experi- 

 ments relating to the construction of hothouses, and by having several of ditierent 

 kinds erected in his garden. 



In August, 1815, a paper had been published in the Transactions of the Hor- 

 ticultural Society, by Sir George Mackenzie, of Coul, on the "Form which the 

 Glass of a Forcing-House ought to have, in order to receive the greatest possible 

 Quantity of Rays from the Sun." This form Sir George conceived to be that of 

 a globe, but as it seemed impracticable to make a hothouse globular, he proposed 

 to make the roof the segment of a circle. Mr. Loudon appears to have been very 

 much struck with this paper, but he saw faults in the plan which he thought might 

 be amended, and he tried houses with curvilinear roofs of various kinds, in order 

 to ascertain which was the best. He also tried a house with what he called ridge 

 and furrow glazing ; a plan which has since been carried out on a magnificent 

 scale by Mr. Paxton, in the Duke of Devonshire's splendid conservatory at Chats- 

 worth. While these houses were in progress, he wrote a work entitled "Remarks 

 on the Construction of Hothouses, &c.," which was published in 1817. Shortly 

 afterwards he invented a new kind of sash-bar, of which he gave a description, 

 together with sketches of the hothouses, and details of their construction, in a quarto 

 pamphlet, entitled " Sketches of Curvilinear Hothouses, &c.," which was published 

 in 1818. The profits of this bar he was to have shared with the ironmonger by 

 whom it Avas sold ; but, I believe, he never reaped any pecuniary advantage from 

 it. He also published, in folio, another work, in the same year, entitled " A 

 Comparative View of the Common and Curvilinear Modes of Roofing Hothouses." 

 now seems to have determined on devoting his time principally to his 



