396 Landscape Gardening 



About this time the Baron de Liderer, the Austrian Con- 

 sul General, who had a summer retreat in Newburgh, began 

 to notice the youth, whose botanical and mineralogical 

 tastes so harmonized with his own. Nature keeps fresh 

 the feelings of her votaries, and the Baron, although an old 

 man, made hearty friends with Downing; and they ex- 

 plored together the hills and lowlands of the neighborhood, 

 till it had no more vegetable nor mineral secrets from the 

 enthusiasts. Downing always kept in the hall of his house, 

 a cabinet, containing mineralogical specimens collected in 

 these excursions. At the house of the Baron, also, and in 

 that of his wealthy neighbor, Edward Armstrong, Downing 

 discovered how subtly cultivation refines men as well as 

 plants, and there first met that polished society whose ele- 

 gance and grace could not fail to charm him as essential to 

 the most satisfactory intercourse, while it presented the 

 most entire contrast to the associations of his childhood. 

 It is not difficult to fancy the lonely child, playing unheeded 

 in the garden, and the dark, shy boy, of the Montgomery 

 Academy, meeting with a thrill of satisfaction, as if he had 

 been waiting for them, the fine gentlemen and ladies at the 

 Consul General's, and the wealthy neighbor's, Air. Arm- 

 strong, at whose country-seat he was introduced to Air. 

 Charles Augustus Murray, when, for the first time, he saw 

 one of the class that he never ceased to honor for their 

 virtues and graces - - the English gentleman. At this time, 

 also, the figure of Raphael Hoyle, an English landscape 

 painter, flits across his history. Congenial in taste and 

 feeling, and with varying knowledge, the t\vo young men 

 rambled together over the country near Newburgh, and 

 while Hoyle caught upon canvas the colors and forms of the 

 flowers, and the outline of the landscape, Downing instructed 

 him in their history and habits, until they wandered from 

 the actual scene into discussions dear to both, of art, and 

 life, and beauty; or the artist piqued the imagination of 

 his friend with stories of English parks, and of Italian 

 vineyards, and of cloud-capped Alps, embracing every zone 

 and season, as they rose, --while the untravelled youth 



