64 GLEANINGS ON GARDENS. 



place, and occasion), I wish either recalled or con- 

 cealed ; I will die as I have lived, in the commission 

 of the only crime with which I can be charged during 

 my whole life, the crime of speaking plainly the plain 

 truth.' In the early part of the life of this friendly 

 and kind man, when he resided at Brentford, as a 

 clergyman, no one was more beloved by his parish- 

 ioners ; he administered every possible comfort to the 

 poor ; his sermons zealously enforced the excellence of 

 that faith in which he had been educated. 



Another person whose talents somewhat remind 

 one of those of Tooke, was also buried in his garden : 

 Theophrastus, who died at the age of eighty-five 

 (though some historians say he wrote his Characters 

 when ninety-nine), and whose name was so celebrated 

 throughout Greece, that he had at one time two 

 thousand pupils, lived entirely in his gardens at 

 Athens, to which he was so devoted that, in his will, 

 he left it to some particular friends to study in, and 

 for the repose of his own bones ; giving orders therein 

 for embellishing the walks, and for the continuation 

 of his old faithful gardener, for whom he had before 

 made a good provision. I will transcribe what a 

 French writer says of him : ' Aristotle charme de la 

 facilite de son esprit et de la douceur de son elocution, 

 lui changea son nom qui etoit Tyrtaine, en celui 

 d'j&uphraste, qui signifie celui qui parle bien, et ce nom 



