GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
the King pressed upon Temple the office of Secretary of State ; 
over and over again he refused it! On more than one occasion, 
as Macaulay tells us, when the country was in danger, ‘“‘ the Triple 
Alliance was mentioned with reverence in every debate, and the 
eyes of all men were turned to that quiet orchard, where the 
author of that great league was amusing himself with reading and 
gardening.” He obeyed the royal command, it is true, and left 
his garden and his books as Cincinnatus left his plough ; but, his 
mission accomplished, he returned to them, for his was not the 
sustained patriotism which at all risks must wait to see the vessel 
of the State floating smoothly in placid waters. 
Macaulay charges Temple with shirking responsibility and fear- 
ing to imperil a safe position by grasping at prizes which he might 
not reach, even when the best interests of his country demanded 
the risk. He ‘“‘ dreaded failure more than he desired -success.” 
“Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall,’? would almost seem 
to have been his motto, as it was that which Raleigh had engraved 
upon a window in Queen Elizabeth’s presence. I think it possible 
that finer reasons may have influenced the man whom Dorothy 
Osborne loved during seven faithful years, and in whose career 
she was apparently content to merge her own strong individuality. 
Such a woman as Lady Temple would have been out of place at 
Whitehall, and Temple’s firm rejection of place and power may have 
been partly due to his recognition of this fact, and his high appre- 
ciation of her. She seems to have been his companion in Ireland 
and at The Hague, and she probably shared his passion for flowers. 
Temple was an enthusiastic and very successful experimental 
gardener, and though undoubtedly his chief abilities lay in diplo- 
macy and politics, he loved to slip away from both to his “little 
nest” at Sheen. Among his diplomatic successes may be reckoned 
the part he took in bringing about a marriage between the Prince 
of Orange and the niece of Charles, the Lady Mary—that union 
which, amid other and more important results, had ultimately so 
much to do with spreading the taste, in this country, for Dutch 
gardening and garden-planning. 
In 1699 Temple, who had been in Holland, returned to England 
at an urgent summons from Charles, and found the country 
in a fearful state. Eighteen years of misrule had wrought 
dire consequences. He patiently organized new schemes for 
24 
