October ID, 1876. } 



JOURNAL OF HOBTIOULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



349 



if he were the author of it, he certainly possessed no small 

 portion of satirical humour as well as poetical strength ; but 

 the work is so different from the general character of his pro- 

 ductions, that it is hardly to he considered as the offspring of 

 his mind. It is certain that he never acknowledged it. In 

 private life his oharaoter, though with something in his 

 manners beyond the mere dignity of conscious talents and 

 literature, was distinguished by philanthropy and fervid friend- 

 ship. For the latter quality we have only to observe his oon- 

 duot in relation to Gray, whose genius ho estimated with a 

 zeal of enthusiasm, to borrow an expression of old Theobald, 

 " amounting to idolatry." Upon the whole, he is to be viewed 

 as a man who may be ranked with the supporters of British 

 literature and morals. 



Fig. 51.— Rev. William Mason. 



He died April the 5th, 1797. He had survived his wife 

 thirty years, but remained a widower, and always spoke of her 

 with the tenderness expressed in these lines, which he inscribed 

 to her memory at Bristol, where she died of consumption. 



" Whoe'er like mo with trembling anguish brings 

 His heart's best treasure to fair Bristol's springs ; 

 Whoe'er like me, to soothe disease and pain, 

 Shall pour those salutary springs in vain: 

 Condemn'd, like me, to hear the faint reply, 

 To mark the fading cheek, the sinking eye ; 

 From the chill brow to wipe the damps of death, 

 And watch in dumb despair the short'ning breath : 

 If chance directs him to this artless line, 

 Let the sad mourner know hiB pangs were mine. 

 Ordain'd to lose the partner of my breast, 

 Whose virtue warm'd mo, and whose beauty blest ; 

 Fram'd every tie that binds the soul to prove 

 Her duty friendship, and her friendship love. 

 But yet, rememb'ring thus the parting sigh 

 Appoints the just to slumber, not to die ; 

 The starting tear I check'd, I kiss'd the rod, 

 And not to earth resign'd her, but to God." 



He died at Aston, and in the church is a marble tablet with 

 a profile bust, erected to his memory by his successor, the 

 Eev. C. Alderson ; and on the ceiling of a summer-house in 

 the rectory garden is an emboBsed medallion containing the 

 profiles of himself and his friend and brother poet Gray. 



The garden and the ground around it were laid out and con- 

 tinually improved by Mr. Mason. Gardening was the favoured 

 employment of his leisure, and even in his private letters there 

 are almost always references to it. Some are all in verse. The 

 following is a specimen. Writing of the owner of a superior 

 garden he said — 



" Smiling he spake, nor did the Fates withstand; 



In rural arts the peaceful moments flew ; 

 Say, lovely lawn, that felt his forming hand, 



How soon thy surf aco shone with verduro new ; 

 How soon obedient Flora brought her store, 



And o'er thy breast a shower of fragrance flung. 

 Vertumnus came; his earliest blooms he bore, 



And thy rich sides with waving purple hung." 



" The English Garden," the longest of his miscellaneous 



poems, entitles him to a place in these columns. It is practical , 

 though ohiefly directed to aid ornamental gardening. 



" To trace the path, to form the fence, 

 To mark the destin'd limits of the lawn." 



He warns against planting too many Conifers ; rather " select 

 the shrubs patient of the knife," such as the Laurel, &c. 

 Eecommends a well-watered locality ; and that in all plans the 

 aim should be simplicity, and " the curve that Nature loves." 



VIOLETS AND PANSIES. 



I was very muoh pleased with Mr. Beachey's letter on Violet 

 odorata pendula of New York, and oommonly called New York. 

 It is certainly a most valuable variety, and is, without doubt, 

 the best double ever yet Bent out. Mr. Beaohey enumerates 

 many of its good qualities, but it yet possesses another in not 

 being at all subject to the attacks of red spider. It is certainly 

 the hardiest, the freest blooming, and one of the most fragrant 

 of double Violets, and of its beauty there can scarcely be two 

 opinions. 



There are also several other double Violets whioh I think 

 deserve to be better known than they are. One named 

 Blandyana is a very handsome one, its colour being deep 

 purple, distinctly striped with bright rose. It is very fragrant, 

 and a good winter bloomer under glass. Eeine Louise and 

 Marie Louise are both, I think, better whites than The Queen. 

 The foliage of Eeine Louise is much handsomer than is that 

 of The Queen, whilBt Marie Louise generally has beautiful 

 golden variegated foliage in the spring. The other doubles 

 are, I think, pretty well known. 



In singles Victoria Eegina is the largest and finest yet intro- 

 duced, although I think a seedling of my own, Beauty of 

 Louth, is a worthy companion to and very distinct from it. 

 It is a light blue with a white eye, very bright in colour. It 

 otTght, however, to make the best of it, to be grown in a cold 

 frame, as, indeed, all Violets ought, at any rate as far north 

 as this. Another fine single but little known is Wilsoni — I 

 believe an American introduction, very fragrant and very hand- 

 some, but rather delicate for outdoor growth. Its colour is 

 pale blue with white eye, but it is not so good a shaped flower 

 as Beauty of Louth, having more pointed petals. It is a 

 capital winter bloomer in a frame. 



I now mention how surprised I have been never to have seen 

 any mention made of a fanoy Pansy called Gaiety, raised by 

 Messrs. Cocker. It is the most brilliant in colour of any I 

 ever saw, being something like James White, but a great im- 

 provement. Its mixture of brown, crimson purple, chestnut 

 Drown, and yellow is strikingly handsome ; it is also very good 

 in shape, size, and substance, and a very good grower and 

 bloomer. Duchess of Edinburgh (Cocker) is also first-class. 

 — George W. Boothby, Louth. 



A PICTURESQUE GARDEN. 



Susses is a picturesque county, boldly undulated, rich in 

 beautiful scenery, abounding with curiouB nooks and corners, 

 rocky ravines, steep banks clothed with Holly, Fern, and 

 Heather, and many other features — wild, quaint, and un- 

 common — affording such facilities for tho formation of pictur- 

 esque gardens as are very rarely to be met with. The nume- 

 rous new places that are springing up in this county afford 

 ample proof how highly these great natural advantages have 

 at length come to be estimated. It is not, however, to new 

 gardens or the doings therein that I now wish to call atten- 

 tion, but to one that is comparatively old, so old in fact aa to 

 afford most valuable hints to those who in the designs of 

 their new gardens very wisely follow no beaten track, no set 

 form, but rather adapt their plans to local peculiarities of 

 climate and the physical formation of the land. 



A wide dell, its upper end an irregular semicircle, shut in by 

 steep banks, clustering timber trees, and high masses of rock, 

 its lower end opening out upon the grassy undulations of a 

 park and the bright waters of a lake of considerable size. The 

 sides of the dell present no formal lines, but a pleasing irregu- 

 larity of steep declivities and gentle slopes, hid at some parts 

 by dense growths of evergreens and at others perfectly open, 

 with fine old trees of Chestnut and Oak high up on the slopes, 

 forming a sort of enclosing boundary, the huge old pendant 

 branches of some sweeping down to the turf and forming a 

 charming background to the shrubs and plants grouped below 

 them. A narrow bank with a roadway at the top, fringed with 

 a thick margin of St. John's-wort, intersects the dell, dividing 



