GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



the King pressed upon Temple the office of Secretary of State ; 

 over and over again he refused it !* On more than one occasion, 

 as Macaulay tells us, when the country was in danger, " the Triple 

 Alliance was mentioned with reverence in every debate, and the 

 eyes of all men were turned to that quiet orchard, where the 

 author of that great league was amusing himself with reading and 

 gardening." He obeyed the royal command, it is true, and left 

 his garden and his books as Cincinnatus left his plough ; but, his 

 mission accomplished, -he returned to them, for his was not the 

 sustained patriotism which at all risks must wait to see the vessel 

 of the State floating smoothly in placid waters. 



Macaulay charges Temple with shirking responsibility and fear- 

 ing to imperil a safe position by grasping at prizes which he might 

 not reach, even when the best interests of his country demanded 

 the risk. He " dreaded failure more than he desired success." 

 " Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall," would almost seem 

 to have been his motto, as it was that which Raleigh had engraved 

 upon a window in Queen Elizabeth's presence. I think it possible 

 that finer reasons may have influenced the man whom Dorothy 

 Osborne loved during seven faithful years, and in whose career 

 she was apparently content to merge her own strong individuality. 

 Such a woman as Lady Temple would have been out of place at 

 Whitehall, and Temple's firm rejection of place and power may have 

 been partly due to his recognition of this fact, and his high appre- 

 ciation of her. She seems to have been his companion in Ireland 

 and at The Hague, and she probably shared his passion for flowers. 



Temple was an enthusiastic and very successful experimental 

 gardener, and though undoubtedly his chief abilities lay in diplo- 

 macy and politics, he loved to slip away from both to his " little 

 nest " at Sheen. Among his diplomatic successes may be reckoned 

 the part he took in bringing about a marriage between the Prince 

 of Orange and the niece of Charles, the Lady Mary that union 

 which, amid other and more important results, had ultimately so 

 much to do with spreading the taste, in this country, for Dutch 

 gardening and garden-planning. 



In 1699 Temple, who had been in Holland, returned to England 

 at an urgent summons from Charles, and found the country 

 in a fearful state. Eighteen years of misrule had wrought 

 dire consequences. He patiently organized new schemes for 



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