GLEANINGS ON GARDENS. 61 



Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down, 

 Where a green grassy turf is all I crave, 



With here and there a violet bestrewn, 

 Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave, 

 And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave.' 



That munificent patron of literature, that worthy 

 and benevolent man, Thomas Hollis, Esq. (Milton's 

 great admirer, and of whom Dr .Franklin observed 

 that 'he loved to do good alone and by stealth'), 

 ordered his body to be buried in one of his fields at 

 Corsham, and the field to be ploughed over imme- 

 diately after his interment.* 



In 1804 the following account is given of his 

 Serene Highness the reigning Duke of Saxe-Gotha : 

 *He forbade in his will, all ceremony at his burial, 

 except such as is usual for his lowest subjects. He 

 desired to be buried in his English garden, at the 

 feet of the coffins containing the bodies of two of his 

 already deceased children. No speech or sermon to 

 be pronounced, and no monument to be erected over 

 him ; but he desires his second son, Prince Frederick, 

 to place a tree upon his grave. To this prince he 

 bequeaths his English garden, which is to be open, as 

 formerly, to all visitors. The simple burial ceremony 



* Mr. Hollis devoted above half of his large income to deeds of 

 charity. When his house in London was on fire, in 1761, he calmly 

 walked out, only taking under his arm his favourite original picture 

 of Milton. 



