EDITOR'S TABLE. 



life and intercourse. I thought that he still wanted a baptizing of a more Christian, republican 

 spirit. Later I thought the baptizing had come, gentle and pure as heavenly dew. 



" And before my leaving America I enjoyed to see the soul of my friend rise, expand, and 

 become more and more enlarged and universal. It could not be otherwise, a soul so gifted must 

 scatter its di'sane gifts as the sun its rays, and the flower its seeds, over the whole laud, for the 

 whole people, for one and for all. The good and gifted man would not else be a true republican.*' 



As to the essays themselves we have nothing to say. The public verdict has long since 

 been passed upon them. All we have to do is to recommend their perusal to every person 

 interested in country life. "When we lost Mr. Downing it was not the best of architects? 

 or landscape gardeners, or pomologists we lost, for we have others that may fill his place in 

 any or all of the departments ; but as a rural architect and landscape gardener combined, he 

 left behind him no equal. He had studied these two subjects, so closely interwoven with 

 one another, until he had matured them. He had made the study of the heautiful the 

 chief business of his life, until not a line or shadow of a building, a tree, or a landscape, 

 could escape the scrutiny of his keen and delicate perception. 



Some other even might have possessed as much knowledge and taste as Mr. Downing, 

 and yet have scarcely ever been heard of; but he commanded attention by his dexterous 

 and graceful pen. Subjects that in other writers' hands were dry and uninviting, he clotlicd 

 in a garb so rich and fanciful, that people read them for amusement quite as much as for 

 instruction. His descriptions of the beautiful — as for instance his " ieati ideal of a fine 

 ornamental tree," is no less irresistible than his sarcasm on " Cockneyism in the Country." 

 This was the secret of his power in awakening taste and giving it the right du-ection, and 

 this it was that enabled him to accomplish so much with so little efibrt and in so short 

 a time. 



It was said of him, we are told in the memoir, that " if his income had been a million a 

 minute, he would have still been in debt." This was merely meant to convey the idea that 

 he was not a man who managed his finance in a way that the world calls prudently, which 

 we presume to be the truth. He desired money only as a means of promoting his comfort 

 and gratifying his taste. Gold was to him merely to be used in the embellishment of hfe, 

 not in making it miserable and mean. The cash-book or the ledger were less concerns to 

 him than the book of nature. The money that your prudent, money-making men would 

 have invested in bonds or stocks, he spent freely upon his dwelling and his garden, and in 

 entertaining a refined society of congenial tastes. But he was an industrious, energetic, 

 courageous man. He became embarrassed in his affairs as much more prudent men have, 

 but "his composed manner was unruffled as ever." "His house was still the resort 

 of the most brilliant society ; stiU — as it always had been and was until the end — the seat 

 of beautiful hospitality." He was of a sanguine temperament ; he had full faith in his 

 ability to earn enough to maintain his position, and he did so. He had faith in the growth 

 of taste and liberality in regard to rural afiairs among his countrymen, and felt that his 

 taste and genius could not be unemployed or unpaid ; and he was right. At the time of 

 his death his services were called for in all directions, and his prospects were of the most 

 flattermg character. At the age of thirty-seven he had built up a new profession, and 

 made himself an acknowledged master of it, and had written a library of tlio most element 

 and instructive works on rural affairs. Will wo admit, then, that Mr. Downing (\itid poor? 

 No hoary millionaire ever dropped into his grave and left sucli riches behind him. The 

 riches that ho left, the earnings of early manhood, are not such as "fast" relatives might 

 spend in a few years, but such as wUl endure forever. 



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