INTRODUCTION 191 



vocation of a pirate, until it was shamed and suppressed 

 by Longfellow's " Excelsior," or we learned from Herbert 

 or from Keble the supreme ambition. 



In some places we are reminded not only of the 

 standard works of great writers, but of other associations 

 which seem to bring us into closer communion with them. 

 We gardeners, for example, rejoice at Twickenham and 

 at Strawberry Hill in the thought that Pope and Walpole 

 were enthusiastic brethren of our craft ; and while we 

 admire the " Essay on Gardening " more than the " Essay 

 on Man," we extol the author of the latter as the more 

 practical artist of the two. They were united as champions 

 and pioneers of the natural or English style. They were 

 alike earnest in denouncing the monotonous formalities and 

 repetitions, the ponderous walls, balustrades, and stairs, 

 the feeble waterspouts, the mutilated shrubs, which still 

 disfigure too many of our modern gardens. 



I am approaching my main object by a circuitous 

 route, resembling "the Drive" at some pretentious villa, 

 which meanders, like a river flowing to the sea, through 

 small clumps of shrubberies to the door of the house, 

 and is designed to impress the visitor, "to astonish the 

 Browns," with erroneous ideas of space, because that same 

 sense of a fresh interest and a new proximity, to which I 

 have referred in their connection with personal friendships 

 and local associations, has come to me in my perusal 

 of " A Garden Kalendar " of Gilbert White of Selborne. I 

 seem to follow him among his flowers and fruits, to listen 

 to his words, to rejoice in his success, and to lament his 

 disappointments ; and I know that this sympathy will be 

 enjoyed by an innumerable company of gardeners, who 

 have hitherto shared in the great disappointment that this 

 enthusiastic expert, concerning all that is most beautiful 

 and wonderful in the world around us, should have pub- 

 lished so little about his garden. I suppose that no book on 

 Natural History has gone through so many editions, but 

 this is the first to include the horticultural diary com- 



