Appendix 10,") 



of fruit, to the date of its publication. The fourteenth edi- 

 tion was published in the year 1852. 



It was in May of the year 1846 that I first saw Downing. 

 A party was made up under the locusts to cross the river 

 and pass the day at "Highland Gardens," as his place was 

 named. The river at Newburgh is about a mile wide, and 

 is crossed by a quiet country ferry, whence the view down- 

 ward toward the West Point Highlands, Butter Hill, Sugar- 

 Loaf, Cro' Nest, and Skunnymunk, is as beautiful a river 

 view as can be seen upon a summer day. It w f as a merry 

 party which crossed, that bright May morning, and broke, 

 with ringing laughter, the silence of the river. Most of us 

 were newly escaped from the city, where we had been block- 

 aded by the winter for many months, and although often 

 tempted by the warm days that came in March, opening the 

 windows on Broadway and ranging the blossoming plants in 

 them, to believe that summer had fairly arrived, we had 

 uniformly found the spring to be that laughing lie which the 

 poets insist it is not. There was no doubt longer, however. 

 The country was so brilliant with the tender green that it 

 seemed festally adorned, and it was easy enough to believe 

 that human genius could have no lovelier nor loftier task than 

 the development of these colors, and forms, and opportu- 

 nities, into their greatest use and adaptation to human life. 

 "God Almighty first planted a garden, and, indeed, it is the 

 first of human pleasures." Lord Bacon said it long ago, and 

 the bright May morning echoed it, as we crossed the river. 



I had read Downing's books; and they had given me the 

 impression, naturally formed of one who truly said of him- 

 self, "Angry volumes of politics have we written none: but 

 peaceful books, humbly aiming to weave something more 

 into the fair garland of the beautiful and useful that encircles 

 this excellent old earth." 



His image in my mind was idyllic. I looked upon him as 

 a kind of pastoral poet. I had fancied a simple, abstracted 

 cultivator, gentle and silent. We left the boat and drove 

 to his house. The open gate admitted us to a smooth ave- 

 nue. We had glimpses of an arbor-vitee hedge, - - a small 



