GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



seventeenth century had seldom a soul above his physic, com- 

 pounded of herbs to be " found under every hedge " and " grown 

 in every garden." The larger aims of forestry concerned him 

 but little ; and it would appear that during the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries popular interest in plants and trees centred 

 in the cultivation of those vegetables and fruits, to which I have 

 made earlier reference. 



Fortunately for posterity, and for botany in its relation to 

 medical science, this indifference was not universal. We have 

 seen Sir William Temple almost as good a horticulturist as he 

 was a statesman regardless of the superior claims of patriotism, 

 devoting his great gifts and his valuable time, in his voluntary 

 retirement from political life, to the culture of oranges and melons ; 

 and John Evelyn, the famous diarist, introducing " trees of curi- 

 osity " to this country and not resting until he had induced the 

 great landowners to plant new oaks and elms in the place of those 

 ruthlessly sacrificed during the civil wars ; and now we shall find 

 that about four years after Evelyn had introduced the cedar to 

 England, was founded the garden that is the subject of this 

 chapter. 



As previously mentioned, the earliest botanic garden in England 

 was that of John Gerarde in Holborn. The catalogue of plants he 

 published in 1596 mentions numerous varieties of the same species, as 

 having been grown there. The next, in point of time, was that of a 

 man equally celebrated, and already referred to more than once 

 John Tradescent, gardener to Charles I. He established at Lambeth 

 a garden for exotic plants, and, as we already know, he was a good 

 botanist and collector, in other branches of natural history. In 

 1749, Mr. Watson, afterwards Sir William Watson, spoken of in 

 the chapters on Fulham Palace, visited the Tradescent garden 

 and found the house empty and ruinous, and the garden totally 

 neglected ; but though a wilderness, " it still showed traces of 

 its founder." 



Both the Gerarde and Tradescent gardens were highly com- 

 mendable private enterprises, but the opportunities of their owners 

 Were necessarily limited. 



A Botanic garden endowed by the Earl of Derby had been 

 founded at Oxford in 1652, but the honour of establishing in Lon- 

 don the first of its kind supported by a public body, belongs to 



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