JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AM) RURAL TASTE. 



Mt ininning ml Ijjc Inrtitultorist. 



"flllE had barely time to announce in our last number, the sad intelligence of the 

 '^ death of Mr. Downing. "We had hoped to present this month, an elaborate 

 memoir, prepared by an intimate friend of Mr. D., but unavoidable circumstances have 

 prevented its preparation at so early a day. It will be given in a future number, ac- 

 companied by a portrait of Mr. Downing. 



We cannot, however, suffer the occasion to pass without paying some feeble tribute 

 to the memory of one who was endeared to every lover of his country — to every ad- 

 mirer of the beautiful, and expressing our ardent appreciation of his worth. 



His sudden and untimely death has fallen with a crushing weight on the hearts of 

 his friends, and upon the public generally, as a common calamity. The place he oc- 

 cupied is now a blank — the commanding position to which he had carved his way, will 

 wait long for a claimant. Though comparatively a young man, he had earned a repu- 

 tation for ability, and enjoyed a popularity, which few have been fortunate enough to 

 win. Without the advantage of a liberal education, — forced from youth to rely upon 

 his own unaided exertions, — at the early age of thirty-seven years he had elevated him- 

 self to an enviable rank among the first minds of the age. At whatever point of 

 view we regard him, we are compelled to admire the symmetry of his character, the 

 vigor of his mind, the versatility' of his talents, and that healthful flow of enthusiastic 

 feeling which marks his writings. There are those who can work out beautiful 

 thoughts in marble, who can clothe them in the touching language of poetry, or bid 

 them flow in the rounded periods and convincing strains of oratory, but few minds 

 seem possessed of the power to add by art to the beauty of nature, and make the des- 

 ert blossom like the rose. 



Mr. Downing first claims our attention as a practical Horticulturist and Nur- 

 serymen. Unlike the majority of working-men, he did not busy himself exclu- 

 sively in the manipulations and detail of his art, though in these eminently successful, 



Sept. 1, 1852. 



No. IX. 



