xxii INTRODUCTION 



heart is to rest in his garden l the rest of his body 

 being bequeathed to Westminster Abbey. Surely this 

 transfigures a legal into a human document of poignant 

 literary associations. 



Temple's prose has been praised by many critics in 

 varying voices. Hume, writing in an age when style 

 had sunk its individuality in the generic ; and, in 

 pursuit of colourless Ciceronianism, had lost the per- 

 sonal note and become de V ' epoque meme plutot que de 



1 The versions of this affaire du cceur are various. Stephen 

 Switzer, in the valuable " History of Gard'ning " prefixed to 

 his Ichnographla Rusika, thought the heart was interred "in 

 his beloved Gardens at Sheen." Defoe's account (1748) is as 

 follows : 



About Two Miles from Famham is More-park, formerly 

 the Seat of Sir William Temple, who, by his Will, ordered 

 his Heart to be put into a China Bason, and buried under a 

 Sun-dial in his Garden, which was accordingly performed. 

 This House is situated in a Valley, surrounded on Every 

 Side with Hills, having a running Stream thro' the Garden, 

 which with a small Expence might be made to Serpentize 

 through all the adjacent Meadows, in a most delightful 

 manner. 



While Cobbett in his Rural Rides writes : 



I would have showed him (his son) the garden-seat, 

 under which Sir William Temple's heart was buried, agree- 

 ably to his Will; but, the seat was gone, also the wall at 

 the back of it ; and the exquisitely beautiful little lawn in 

 which the seat stood, was turned into a parcel of divers- 

 shaped cockney-clumps, planted according to the strictest 

 rules of artificial and refined vulgarity. 



