1 53 



tude to his Maker, and with benevolence to his fellow crea- 

 tures ? Other fine arts may be perverted to excite irregular 

 and even vicious emotions ; but gardening, which inspires 

 the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot fail to promote 

 every good affection. The gaiety and harmony of mind it 

 produceth, inclineth the spectator to communicate his satis- 

 faction to others, and to make them happy as he is himself, 

 and tends naturally to establish in him a habit of humanity 

 and benevolence." 



JOHN ABERCROMBIE'S manly and expressive countenance is 

 best given in the portrait prefixed to an edition in 2 vols. 

 8vo. published Feb. 1, 1783, by Fielding and Debrett. He 

 is also drawn at full-length at his age of seventy-two, in the 

 sixteenth edition, printed in 1 800, with a pleasing view of a 

 garden in the back-ground, neatly engraved. This honest, 

 unassuming man, persevered "through along life of scarcely 

 interrupted health," in the ardent pursuit of his favourite 

 science. The tenor of his life exemplified how much a gar- 

 den calms the mind, and tranquilly sets at rest its turbulent 

 passions. Mr. Loudon's Encyclop. of Gardening, after giv- 

 ing some interesting points of his history, thus concludes : 

 " In the spring of 1806, being in his eightieth year, he met 

 with a severe fall, by which he broke the upper part of his 

 thigh bone. This accident, which happened to him on the 

 15th of April, terminated in his death. After lying in a 

 very weak exhausted state, without much pain, he expired 

 in the night, between April and May, as St. Paul's church 

 struck twelve. He was lamented by all who knew him, as 

 cheerful, harmless, and upright." One of his biographers 

 thus relates of him : " Abercrombie from a fall down stairs 

 in the dark, died at the age of eighty, and was buried at St. 

 Pancras. He was present at the famous battle of Preston 

 Pans, which was fought close to his father's garden walls. 

 For the last twenty years of his life he lived chiefly on tea, 



