JOHN CLAUDIUS LOUDON. 



567 



Supposine, then, the subject aud the details 

 to be appropriate, who would think of asking, 

 with any view of detraction from their merits, 

 to what country did such fellow laborers in the 

 g^reat vineyard of public usefulness belong ? 



John Claudius Loudon was born at Cam- 

 buslang, in Lanarkshire, on the 8th April, 1783. 

 His father was a fcrmer, and resided, at the 

 time the subject of this notice was born, at 

 Kerse Hall, near Gogar, in the vicinity of Edin- 

 burgh. Young Loudon showed an inclination 

 for gardening when very younsr, and his great- 

 est pleasure, during his early boyhood, was in 

 making walks and beds, and rearing plants in 

 his fathers garden. Anxious to obtain for him 

 the advantasres of a liberal education, his father 

 pent him to Edinburgh for the purpose of attend- 

 ing the public schools. Here he acquired some 

 knowledge of classical learning, for which he 

 had shown a strong repugnance, and made him- 

 self acquainted with French and Italian. Draw- 

 ing was at this period his favorite pursuit, and 

 inthis he made such proficiency that he was 

 qualified at an early age to become draughts- 

 man and assistant to ^Ir. John Mawer, at East 

 Dairy, near Edinburgh. He sub.sequently re- 

 sided for several years with Mr. Dickson, nur- 

 seryman in Leith Walk, and during that time 

 he attended clas.ses on Botany, Chemistry, and 

 Agriculture, in the Edinburgh University. He 

 was noticed at this time for the diligence with 

 which he prosecuted everj' branch of study on 

 which he entered. Such was his desire of im- 

 provement that he regularly sat up two nights 

 every week to study, drinking strong green tea 

 to keep himself awake. This practice he con- 

 tinued for many years. 



He repaired to London in 1803, and began to 

 occupy himself professionally as a landscape 

 gardener. In this he was eminently successful, 

 finding abundance of employment in many dif- 

 ferent parts of England. Through the influence, 

 probably, of Sir Joseph Banks, who always 

 continued to be his warm friend, at whose house 

 he occasionally met most of the scientific men 

 of the day, he was early elected a member of 

 the Linnean Society. Mr. Loudon's first work 

 appears to have been suggested to him while 

 employed in Scotland, in 1804, laying out 

 grounds for various noblemen and gentlemen — 

 in particular, the Earl of Mansfield, who was 

 then altering and improving the palace gardens 

 at Scone. The book alluded to was entitled — 

 -Observations on the Formation and Manage- 

 ment of Useful and Ornamental Plantations, on 

 the Theory and Practice of Landscape Garden- 

 ing, and on Gaining aud Embanking Land from 

 llivers or the Sea." This work was published 

 in Edinburgh by Constable & Co., and by Long- 

 man & Co. London, with the latter of whom 

 Mr. Loudon continued to transact busine.ss of 

 this kind for nearly forty yeans. This was suc- 

 ceeded, in l80."i. by another publication, enti- 

 tled — " A Short Treatise on some Improvements 

 lately made in Hot-houses." A more important 

 work than either of the.se appeared on the fol- 

 lowing year, ornamented by some elegant cop- 

 per-plate engravings of landscape scenery. — 

 This was his " Treatise on Forming, Improving 

 and Managing Country llesidences. and on the 

 Choice of Situations appropriate to every class 

 of Purchasers, &c." 



The year 1806 was marked by an occurrence 

 which proved a source of great annoyance to 



llC!->7) 



Mr. Loudon, not only at the time it happened, 

 but during the whole of the remainder of his 

 life. While traveling in Wales, he caught a 

 violent cold by being exposed all night on the 

 top of a coach to the rain ; this brought on rheu- 

 matic fever, which finally settled in his left knee, 

 and, from imi>r()per medical treatment, termin- 

 ated in a still' joint. While suffering under the 

 immediate etlects of this calamity, which befell 

 him in the prime of his days and the vigor of his 

 power, his mental energy continued unabated : 

 he painted land.scapes, learned German — pay- 

 ing his expenses, as he had done before when 

 he learned French, by selling for publication a 

 pamphlet he had translated by way of exercise ; 

 he also took lessons in Greek and Hebrew^. A 

 farm called Wood-Hall, where he stayed during 

 his illness, being to let, he induced his father to 

 rent it, with a view of improving the state of 

 husbandry, which was then in a wretched stale 

 in many parts of England. The attention he 

 was thus led to pay to Agriculture was the 

 means of inducing him to embody his opinions 

 on this subject in a pamphlet published in l«iJ8, 

 entitled — " An Immediate and Effectual Mode 

 of Raising the Rental of the Landed Property 

 of England, and rendering Great Britain Inde- 

 pendent of other Nations for a Supply of Bread- 

 corn." He afterward took another fann, called 

 Great Tew, not far from Oxford, where he es- 

 tablished a kind of agricultural college for the 

 instruction of young men in agricultural pur- 

 suits, being desirous of securing a permanent 

 .source of income, in ca.se his auchylosed knee 

 should prevent him carrying on his favorite pur- 

 suit of laud.«cape gardening. In 1809 he pub- 

 lished a pamphlet, giving an account of this in- 

 stitution, and pointing out the utilitj' of agricul- 

 tural knowledge to the sons of the landed pro- 

 prietors of England, and to young men intended 

 for estate agents. 



By the exercise of his j)rofession as a land- 

 .scape gardener, diligently pro.sccuted, not only 

 in England and Scotland, but also in Wale"s 

 and Ireland, Mr. Loudon had amassed a consid- 

 erable sum of money — upward of £l,'),000 ; and 

 when the Continent was thrown open to Eng- 

 lish visitors, by the general rising against Bona- 

 parte in 1803, he resolved to relax his exertions 

 for a time, and gratify his ardent thirst for know- 

 ledge by traveling abroad. He accordingly re- 

 paired to Sweden, Prussia, Austria, and Russia ; 

 visited the two capitals of the latter country — 

 arriving at Mo.scow on the 4tli of March, 1814, 

 while the buildings were yet black with the 

 famous conflagration. Of the various difliculties 

 he encountered on the road, we may mention 

 the following: 



" Once the horses in his carriage, being una- 

 ble to drag it through the snow-drift, the po.stil- 

 lions very coolly unharnessed them and trotted 

 off, telling him that they would bring fresh 

 horses in the morning, and that he would be in 

 no danger from the wolves, if he would keep 

 the windows of the carriage close, and the leath- 

 ern curtains down. There was no remedy but 

 to submit ; and few men were better fitted by 

 Nature for bearing the horrors of such a night 

 than Mr. Loudon, from his natural calmness and 

 p.atient endurance of difliculties. He often, how- 

 ever, spoke of the situation he was in, particu- 

 larly when he heard the howlinir of the wolves, 

 and once when a herd of them rushed across 

 the road close to his carriage. He had also some 

 doubts whether the postillions would be able to 

 recollect where they had left the carriage, as 



