GLEANINGS ON GARDENS. 5 



with which he throughout mentions the pleasures of 

 a garden. 



Many of the old gardens at Oxford may be seen 

 in the curious views given of them in Loggan's 

 Oxonia Illustrata ; in the very neat ones in Skelton's 

 Oxonia Restaurata and in Williams' Oxonia Depicta. 

 Beeverell, in his Delices de la Grande Bretagne, has 

 given reduced copies of some of them, and also of the 

 Cambridge gardens. Loggan has also given some of 

 the latter ones in his Cantabrigia Illustrata * 



* James Dallaway, in his interesting Anecdotes of the Arts, pays 

 the following tribute to Oxford : ' Oxford is not more distinguished 

 for beauty as a city, than for the number and pleasantness of its 

 gardens and public resorts. The "cathedral length of trees" at 

 Christ Church, the bowers of Merton, the happy effects of modern 

 gardening at St. John's, and of the style of the last age in Trinity 

 and New Colleges, with the delightful retreats on the banks of the 

 Cherwell, at Magdalene, compose environs of infinite amenity. 

 The English Academus enjoys its "studious walks and shades" 

 which yield to those of Athens only on account of the revolutions 

 of our climate.' 



It is scarcely possible to think on Oxford without the mind 

 recurring to the recollection of the late Dr. Thomas Warton. No 

 man took greater pleasure than he did in conversing, not only on its 

 ancient college gardens, but on those that in his youth existed in the 

 adjacent counties. His poems exhibit the richest imagery when 

 painting the scenes of Nature. Flattery cannot now 'sooth the dull 

 cold ear of death,' and therefore let me devote a very brief tribute 

 to that mild and good man, by quoting a few lines from one who 

 knew him well : ' Before I enter on the subject of his great literary 

 abilities I must mention what is much more estimable, the virtu 

 and goodness of his heart. Truth, honour, and a generosity of dis- 

 position, endeared him to all who knew him. From an unsuspecting 



