171 



Seward wrote some lines on this favoured valley, and these 

 are part of them : 



O ! may no ruder step these bowers profane, 

 No midnight wassailers deface the plain ; 

 And when the tempests of the wintry day 

 Blow golden autumn's varied leaves away, 

 Winds of the north, restrain your icy gales, 

 Nor chill the bosom of these hallow'd vales. 



His attachment to gardens, induced him to honour the 

 memory of Mr. Mason, by lines once intended for his monu- 

 ment ; and he was suggesting improvements at the priory at 

 Derby (and which he had just described the last morning of 



beginning of a good idea." When travelling along our English roads, his 

 mind no doubt frequently reverts to those road-side gardens in the Nether- 

 lands, which he thus happily adverts to in p. 32 of his Encyclopaedia : 

 " The gardens of the cottagers in these countries, are undoubtedly better 

 managed and more productive than those of any other country ; no man 

 who has a cottage is without a garden attached ; often small, but rendered 

 useful to a poor family, by the high degree of culture given to it." Lin- 

 naeus, in his eloquent oration at Upsal, enforces the pleasure of travelling 

 in one's own country, through its fields and roads. Mr. Heath, the zealous 

 and affectionate historian of Monmouth, in his account of that town and 

 its romantic neighbourhood, (published in 1804,) omits no opportunity of 

 noticing the many neat gardens, which add to the other rural charms of its 

 rich scenery, thus mentions another Boniface : " The late Thomas Mox- 

 ley, who kept the public-house at Manson Cross, was a person that took 

 great delight in fruit-trees, and had a large piece of ground let him, for the 

 purpose of planting it with apple-trees ; but his death (which followed soon 

 after) prevented the plan from being carried to the extent he intended, 

 though some of the land bears evidence of his zeal and labour." Mr. 

 Heath cannot even travel on the turnpike road, from Monmouth to Here- 

 ford, without benevolently remarking, that " a number of laborious fami- 

 lies have erected small tenements, with a garden to each, most of which 

 are thickly planted with apple-trees, whose produce considerably adds to 

 the owner's support." 



