296 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



my ovrn order, the clergy, not to make them envied by mag- 

 nificence, but to make them happy by loving an innocent 

 diversion suitable to a grave and contemplative genius. . . . 

 This I suppose most people will allow, that as there are some 

 sports and exercises not suitable to a divine, so gardening is 

 a very agreeable and commendable recreation viz. pruning, 

 planting, sowing, grafting, and inoculating, and sometimes 

 digging, ad ruborem but not ad sudorem.' 



In 1796 Three Dialogues on the Amusements of Clergy- 

 men was published, professing to be the views of Bishop 

 Stillingfleet, communicated to Dr. Josiah Frampton. 

 It is rather an amusing book, and can scarcely be taken 

 seriously, but is quite worth reading. All amuse- 

 ments are more or less forbidden, except battledore 

 and shuttlecock in the tithe barn. Gardening natu- 

 rally forms one of the subjects of discussion, and he 

 has little to say about it except that c there cannot be 

 a more clerical amusement,' but he gives the good advice 

 that the clergyman should try to make his garden the 

 best in the parish, a model garden to his neighbours. 



But the best book on clerical gardening is Tlie Manse 

 Garden, a book published nearly seventy years ago, and 

 now, I believe, out of print, but well worth reprint- 

 ing. The author was the Rev. N. Paterson, at that 

 time minister of Galashiels, and afterwards a leading 

 member of the Scotch Free Kirk. It is altogether a 

 delightful book, full of quaint sentences, shrewd good- 



