SELF-INSTRUCTION FOR YOUNG GARDENERS. 
409 
been the result of indomitable perseverance. 
The life of Mr. Loudon has been one of inces- 
sant labour, performed under every conceivable 
disadvantage. Affliction of body, enough to 
have destroyed the mind of strong men, seems 
to have scarcely checked his onward career. 
Whatever he laid out as his work, was con- 
quered under circumstances that would have 
defeated ninety-nine men of every hundred ; 
and nobody, not even his intimate acquaint- 
ances,- will have formed the most remote idea 
of the trials and sufferings he has undergone, 
until the perusal of the outline or sketch 
which precedes the " Self-Instruction for 
Young Gardeners" shall have made the 
reader familiar with the leading events. Mrs. 
Loudon, who is the biographer on this occa- 
sion, has placed before the world the true 
character of her late husband, who kept a 
journal for thirty years of his life, and left 
ample material from which to gather facts, 
with which she may have been personally 
unacquainted; and, whatever may be the merit 
of the work itself, the example of industry and 
perseverance set by the author is in itself a 
lesson worth all the price of the book. We 
do not, for many reasons, choose to look 
critically at a volume published under present 
circumstances. Those who have not possessed 
the works of Mr. Loudon ought to purchase 
this ; for it is a key to all his other writings, 
and will guide them to those which are best 
adapted for their use. Those who have his 
works have need of this ; for it is important in 
many respects : it is the first which makes us 
acquainted with his real claims on the public, 
who, albeit a most ungrateful recipient of 
benefits, owe him much. It is not expected 
that we should coincide with all Mr. Loudon 
has written : men differ widely in opinion 
upon subjects much less intricate than Horti- 
culture, and it would be strange indeed, if, 
amidst the library of books which Mr. Loudon 
has written upon all sorts of subjects, there 
should not be some to which other writers re- 
fuse their sanction ; but few men deserve better 
of his fellows. If there was a single error 
committed in his whole useful life, it was 
undertaking the editorship of the " Gardener's 
Gazette;" for it detracted from his fame to take 
charge of a newspaper, at the very height of 
popularity, thrown up without notice, and in 
disgust, by the very founder of it, because the 
owners attempted to control his pen. There 
was a moral certainty of its immediate decline ; 
no talent could have saved it ; because, not- 
withstanding all that was said to disparage the 
original editor, many of the readers sympa- 
thized with him, and threw up the paper to 
show their abhorrence of the transaction. It 
was no disparagement to Mr. Loudon that the 
paper rapidly lost its influence, its circulation, 
and its character ; some thousand readers, who 
had taken it because of its uncompromising, 
and by some called personal, tone, were not 
likely to be satisfied with the gentleness of 
Mr. Loudon. This was the only error of his 
literary career. It was placing himself in a 
questionable position, and the world thought 
it was making himself a party to crush the 
independence of a rival ; though those who 
knew Mr. Loudon are quite aware it was a 
pure matter of business, reluctantly engaged 
in, and unfortunate in its result. It is only 
fair to the deceased to say, — for we have it 
from the best authority, — that before he under- 
took the office, he urged, with all his argument, 
the necessity of coming to an arrangement 
with the original editor, in preference to any- 
thing they could do. The following passages 
are from the biographical sketch, and they will 
be read with interest. We pass over much 
that is interesting, for it is all worth tran- 
scribing, though, after what we have said, it 
would be most unfair. 
" Among all the studies which Mr. Loudon 
pursued while in Edinburgh, those he pre- 
ferred were writing and drawing. The first 
he learned from Mr. Paton, afterwards father 
to the celebrated singer of that name ; and 
strange enough, I have found an old letter of 
his to Mr. Loudon, sen., prophesying that his 
son John would be one of the best writers of 
his day — a prophecy that has been abundantly 
realized, though certainly not in the sense its 
author intended it. Drawing was, however, 
his favourite pursuit ; and in this he made 
such proficiency, that, when his father at last 
consented to his being brought up as a land- 
scape-gardener, he was competent to take the 
situation of draughtsman and assistant to Mr. 
John Mawer, at Easter Dairy, near Edin- 
burgh. Mr. Mawer was a nurseryman, as 
well as a planner (as the Scotch call a land- 
scape-gardener); and while with him, Mr. 
Loudon learned a good deal of gardening 
generally, particularly of the management of 
hot-houses." 
***** 
"In 1803 he first arrived in London. The 
following day he called on Mr. Sowerby, 
Mead Place, Lambeth, who was the first gen- 
tleman he visited in England ; and he was 
exceedingly delighted with the models and 
mineralogical specimens, which were so admir- 
ably arranged as to give him the greatest 
satisfaction, from his innate love of order; 
and he afterwards devised a plan for his own 
books and papers, partly founded on that of 
Mr. Sowerby, but much more complete." — 
Pp. x. — xii. 
We have frequently differed from Mr. Lou- 
don in regard to matters of taste, and in 
nothing so much, perhaps, as his partiality for 
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