148 



expences brought clamours about, him, that overpowered the 

 lamb's bleat and the linnet's song ; and his groves were 

 haunted by beings very different from fawns and fairies. 

 He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was proba- 

 bly hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its 

 oil in blazing. It is said, that if he had lived a little longer 

 he would have been assisted by a pension : such bounty 

 could not have been ever more properly bestowed ; but that 

 it was ever asked is not certain ; it is too certain that it ne- 

 ver was enjoyed." 



His intimate friend, Robert Dodsley, thus speaks of him : 

 " Tenderness, indeed, in every sense of the word, was his 

 peculiar characteristic ; his friends, his domestics, his poor 

 neighbours, all daily experienced his benevolent turn of 

 mind. He was no economist ; the generosity of his temper 

 prevented him from paying a proper regard to the use of 

 money : he exceeded, therefore, the bounds of his paternal 

 fortune, which before he died was considerably incumbered. 

 But when one recollects the perfect paradise he had raised 

 around him, the hospitality with which he lived, his great 

 indulgence to his servants, his charities to the indigent, and 

 all done with an estate not more than three hundred pounds 

 a year, one should rather be led to wonder that he left any 

 thing behind him, than to blame his want of economy. He 

 left, however, more than sufficient to pay all his debts ; and, 

 by his will, appropriated his whole estate for that purpose." 



His portrait is prefixed to his works, published in 3 vols. 

 8vo. 1764. His second volume contains his " Unconnected 

 Thoughts on Landscape Gardening ;" and the description of 

 the celebrated Leasowes, in that volume, was written by 

 (" the modest, sensible, and humane") Robert Dodsley. 

 His Epistolary Correspondence appeared in 2 vols. 8vo. 

 The title pages of the above first three volumes are attrac- 



