INTRODUCTION xvii 



to the little spot of Mother Earth near the sun-dial in 

 the Garden he had cultivated and immortalised, while 

 by his own direction the rest of his ashes were deposited 

 in Westminster Abbey. 



Temple's Essay is entitled " Upon the Gardens of 

 Epicurus," and over Temple's generation, as well as 

 over himself personally, the doctrine of Epicurus, 

 the Philosopher of the Garden, in one or other of its 

 Protean manifestations, was a dominating influence. 

 For Epicureanism is an elastic philosophy, stretching 

 from the varying heights of a Lucretius, a Gassendi, 1 

 a Peiresc or a Temple, to the witty shallows of a 

 Grammont or the swinish depths of a Shadwell, a 

 Wycherley, and a Rochester. The name shelters 

 alike virtue and sensuality. Whether interpreted with 

 the urbanity and refinement of St. Evremond, or 

 the more sledge-hammer sensualism and self-interest 

 of Hobbes, the Philosophy of the Garden permeated 



1 It is too much to expect that, even when Epicurus 

 comes into his own again, Gassendi's Dc Vita, Moribus, et 

 Doctrina EpUuri, which constituted him the Defender of the 

 Garden Faith, will ever become popular although old 

 Dr. Charlton's Manual may ; but there is no reason why 

 a judicious and worthy reprint of Gassendi's Life of that 

 "Incomparable Virtuoso" Peiresc "Englished" by Dr. 

 Rand and eulogised by Evelyn and Isaac Disraeli should 

 not yield a substantial harvest. 



